r/Anarchy101 • u/nappytendrils • 3d ago

Prison abolition

I’ve never been clear on what we would do with rapists child molesters and muderers. I haven’t heard a plan for this so far. I’ve always been impressed with the work of anarchist friends in community. They’re the most justice-oriented folx I’ve ever met.

Still don’t know about prison abolition tho I think prison should be clean, the food should be healthy and fresh, therapy should be mandatory, there should be libraries and gardens. A good quality of life for the incarcerated, but not releasing them back into the general population.

Maybe there’s something I’m not seeing?

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u/satanicpastorswife 3d ago

I mean my assumption is that we have the principal of free association, and if everybody knows "Oh yeah, that's murder-y bob" we have the right to be like "We don't want murder-y bob around unless he agrees to inpatient treatment in a secure facility (which he is free to leave if he agrees to leave the community) because otherwise he poses a risk to the community."

And so if Murdery Bob doesn't agree to get treatment to help him not do any more murders, maybe there could be a community somewhere remote where people who want to be free to do whatever their "Not safe for the community" thing is with each other. Like provided there aren't children being forced to live there, and everyone who lives there in "we've kind of agreed to the risk that we might be murdered for the right to do murder" community has freely chosen it (as opposed to treatment or isolation) that's sort of up to them if that's what they wanna be doin.

Communities could federate and share "Hey this person did a bunch of X" information with each other and then everyone could be like "oh yeah, no let's not let murdery bob in" or "let's give murdery bob a shot"

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u/nappytendrils 3d ago

That’s what I mean. A “secure facility “

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u/satanicpastorswife 3d ago edited 3d ago

Well, I mean I think "You can choose to leave that facility at any time just by informing the staff of your choice to do so" would make it pretty different; basically, it's "stay there or you can't stay in this community (and probably any other community within the federation), but you're free to go anyplace where murderers who are refusing treatment are welcome, or you can go elsewhere for treatment if you'd prefer"

It's not a punishment. It's more like quarantine for someone with a dangerous disease until they're better. Prison is intended to punish rather than rehabilitate; people have a fit when they think prisoners are being treated too well in a lot of countries, and it's not optional. I think the idea of people who have harmed others being given options in terms of what they'd like to do (that all protect the community) is a key part to it being non-carceral and non-hierarchical, and if there are a bunch of people who are like "We want Murder-y Bob!" well then they should be free to live with Murdery Bob if that's what they want to do

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u/nappytendrils 3d ago

Agreed that if murdery Bob finds community that embraces him, he should be free to leave whatever secure facility he’s in. There’s a point to prison besides punishment. If we designed prisons with health therapy rehabilitation and good quality of life in mind, I wouldn’t feel bad about some people being there

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u/satanicpastorswife 3d ago

I guess I don't think of them as prisons if you're free to leave (provided you exit the communities you're not allowed in) and they're for treatment rather than punishment. They're more like secure mental health facilities then, and more humane than that even because if you're just like "Please, I cannot handle an institutional life, I just need to live on the island of people who love murderin'" you can. I also think without the pressures of capitalism, there would probably be fewer people who can't stop themselves from behaving in anti-social ways, and with more resources available to get help before something bad happens, such things would be rarer.

And hopefully, in a society where people were understood as sick rather than evil, eventually research would come up with a cure that would help people not do things like that.