I'm a prison abolitionist because I don't believe prison reduces harm, protects victims, rehabilitates offenders, or makes the society safer.

In fact, it often does the opposite: it increases harm, puts victims in harm's way and creates new victims, hardens offenders (ensuring recidivism), and makes society an even more dangerous place. And all of the research done around the prison industrial complex confirms this.

But I don't believe this nation will ever get rid of prison because while I actually doesn't make us safer, it does an amazing public relations/marketing job of making us *feel* like it does.

And it also appeals to and satiates our sense of "justice" (by which, in this country, we mean vengeance). Restorative justice simply doesn't appeal to our collective "lizard brain" the way wanting those who harm us to suffer endlessly does.

This is, after all, a Christian nation infatuated with the concept of Hell, which is the holy version of endless suffering for those we hate.

I've been thinking about for a while, and I'm think about it now after reading this story about Rashod Stanley, who was punished in prison with 30 days of solitary confinement for being a fashion genius.

I can already hear the crowd in the Roman Coliseum:

"But he's there to do hard slave labor and be unhappy and suffer endlessly and feel perpetual pain and be deprived of every humanity--NOT to make dope clothes and hone his talents!" https://cassiuslife.com/363327/rashod-stanley-fashion-designer-trenches/

I'm not a prison abolitionist expert, but follow @prisonculture and her work for a deeper dive and answers to common questions like "What's the alternative?"

http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/