Abolition Democracy

Summary, part 3

Thinking About Solutions

What is prison abolition?

So, what is the solution to the prison-industrial complex? Prison abolition and abolition democracy. Prison abolition is not the isolated dismantling of prisons and jails, but rather a “way of talking about the pitfalls of the particular version of democracy represented by US capitalism.”

Davis pulls from the thinking of W. E. B. DuBois, who articulated that prison abolition is not only the negative process of tearing down, but also the process of building up new democratic institutions that take away the need for prisons in the first place. 

Davis sees prison abolition as a project that “involves re-imagining institutions, ideas, and strategies, and creating new institutions, ideas, and strategies that will render prisons obsolete.” She states that “it is up to us to insist on the obsolescence of imprisonment as the dominant mode of punishment, punishment ... by demanding new democratic institutions that take up the issues that can never be addressed by prisons in productive ways.”

What is abolition democracy?

For Davis, true democracy cannot exist without abolition democracy. Again pulling from DuBois, abolition democracy includes three forms of abolition: the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the death penalty, and the abolition of the prison-industrial complex.

Slavery cannot be truly abolished until the people are provided the economic means for their subsistence. By this definition, slavery today is not fully abolished because Black communities are not provided the means for their subsistence because of, among other things, the prison-industrial complex. 

The death penalty, which concealed racism after slavery was made illegal, and the prison-industrial complex perpetuates the idea that death and imprisonment are valid forms of punishment. Davis, however, argues this is not the case. When thinking about abolition in terms of abolition democracy, she proposes creating social institutions that solve the social problems that send people to prison in the first place and "render the prison obsolete."

How to organize.

Throughout the book, Davis provides some advice on how to organize for abolition democracy. Davis does distinguish between organizing and mobilizing. She argues that mobilization (the ability to bring out the masses) has unfortunately taken priority over organization (creating a sustained movement beyond demonstrations). 

Her biggest point is that everyone must experiment–when creating something new, nobody knows what will or will not work or where things will end up going. "I think the best way to figure out what might work is simply to do it," she says, "regardless of the potential mistakes one might make."

Connected struggles.

Davis spends time discussing the Vietnam War, which was in full swing in the lead up to her arrest. During her activism in the 1970s, she and others saw connections between the war against racism at home with the war against fascism abroad. Police, for example, slinked along the ground like soldiers in combat.

The connection between these two struggles begged the question of how one participates in the anti-war movement while opposing the strategy of treating peace as an issue unrelated to racial inequality? Davis emphasizes that any fight for abolition democracy can and should include and learn from related struggles against, for example, fascism.

Visit Radical in Progress’ Connected Movements study guide, which covers Angela Davis’ 2016 book ‘Freedom is a Constant Struggle.