I think sometimes when people say “abolitionists offer no alternative to prison” what they mean, and maybe don’t realize, is that they want an alternative that feels as vindictive as prison.

so we say “make sure that cop never works as a cop again, can’t own guns, takes responsibility for his actions and the department he works for should be defunded,” it feels like not enough because it doesn’t line up with the only groove of justice we have ever practiced.

non-carceral solutions will not satiate carceral impulses. I’m an abolitionist because I hate the carceral thinking that I carry and I never want the state to be a mechanism to fulfill it.

I keep typing this out for people asking questions, so I am just going to add it to the thread: I cannot offer a blanket answer to the question "what about rapists and murderers" because I don't want to punish categorically in that way.

but some of the most staunch abolitionists I know are survivors of the violent crimes because they have seen how little the system we have values victims and how much violence it creates and perpetuates.

if you want categorical punishment, that's a carceral impulse. and that's understandable have because we have a system where that's the only option. my journey to abolition started because I saw that impulse to punish in my classmates in law school who wanted to be prosecutors.

and I also had it myself and I didn't like it. I also saw how punishment does not actually reduce violence. How prison is neither a specific nor a general deterrent. How it only works for retribution and I see retribution as a perpetuation of harm, not an answer to it.

things instrumental in my reframing: 1. reading Angela Y. Davis, Angela J. Davis and Mariame Kaba 2. writings by sex workers, esp. Revolting Prostitutes and Playing the Whore 3. refusing to define anyone solely by the worst thing they have ever done (s/o @Gideons_Promise)