Alternatives to the Carceral State
Published Nov. 2020 by Documenting Criminalization and Confinement, a research initiative of the U-M Carceral State Project
We can't get past the carceral state if we can't see past it--P G Watkins, "Beyond the Carceral State" panel, April 10, 2019
Why Do We Use Police?
Police enforce and uphold the carceral state. As PG Watkins, an organizer with No New Jails Detroit , explains, there is an overreliance on police in the United States. As PG points out, many people call the police for minor issues, such as neighbors being too loud, which leads to escalation of situations better handled by other social agencies or by just reasoning with one other. In most cases, there are alternative routes that can be taken to solve problems, without relying on the criminalization of others and the subsequent punishment and trauma that can follow . "If we can't start thinking that it's possible to create new options," PG concludes, then we will never get past the carceral state.
“But I don’t think we can get past the carceral state if we can’t say in those situations when my neighbors are too loud or in those situations when my car has been broken into and I can’t see who did it or there’s no way of me knowing right now who did it like there is someone else for me to call there are other people I can count on.” - PG Watkins, No New Jails Detroit
In 2016, law enforcement agencies made one arrest every three seconds in the United States. 80 percent of these arrests were for low-level offenses such as nonviolent drug violations, disorderly conduct, and a discretionary category called "all other non-traffic offenses."
Arrests of Black people account for an estimated 28 percent of this total despite African Americans only making up 13 percent of the U.S. population. When it comes to low-level offenses, there are large racial disparities. Black people in the United States are 3 times more likely to be arrested for disorderly conduct than their white counterparts and nearly 2.39 times more likely to be arrested for "drug abuse violations" even though rates of illegal drug use and sales are similar among all racial groups .
The overuse and racial disproportionate of arrests by police are major social problems, and yet this still does not fully illustrate the overuse of police in general that PG Watkins describes.
"Policing in the United States has historically been used by powerful elites as a mechanism of social control over marginalized communities, from its roots in the subjugation of black people from slavery to the Jim Crow era to the Civil Rights movement; to the ethnic violence committed against Mexican-Americans by the Texas Rangers; to the targeting of LGBTQ people at Stonewall; to recent collaborations between some local law enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to apprehend immigrants." - Vera Institute of Justice, Gatekeepers: The Role of Police in Ending Mass Incarceration
Before looking at the statistics and the facts, it is crucial to know the history of policing in the United States. Mark Fancher, attorney for the ACLU of Michigan , discusses how the model of what is now the modern day police department originated in the institution of slavery.
"And so watching these people as they went from place to place summarily punishing them, monitoring their movements is something that set the tone for how people were to be dealt with when they were a population that was suspect a population that had to be watched." - Mark Fancher, ACLU of Michigan
During the slavery era, "slave patrols" made up of white volunteers had the power to surveil enslaved people and consequently punish them for escaping, leading uprisings, and violating plantation rules among many other activities. After the emancipation of enslaved black people, southern states established Black Codes to control and criminalize free black citizens, and states in the North and West adopted their own strategies of racial control as well. Late in the 20th century, after the Jim Crow era formerly ended, more covert racialized policies and laws took root, such as the war on drugs and saturation policing of Black and Brown neighborhoods.
Bryan Stevenson, an attorney and founder of the Equal Justice, writes : "It's not just that this history fostered a view of Black people as presumptively criminal. It also cultivated a tolerance for employing any level of brutality in response."
The origin of law enforcement in the United States is deeply rooted in the criminalization of Black citizens. This notion of inherent criminality puts Black people at an insurmountable risk when it comes to encounters with the police. The very core of policing deems the criminalization, surveillance, and subsequent brutalization of Black Americans as acceptable, and even as a job requirement.
Because the policing system, both historically and today, is rooted in the criminalization and punishment of Black citizens, the overreliance on law enforcement can have dire consequences for this and other marginalized groups in society. In addition to the aforementioned emphasis on selective and disproportionate arrests, especially for low-level offenses, these racial disparities extend into police use of violence as well. Research shows that people of color face a higher likelihood of being killed by law enforcement officers than do white people, and that men of color face a “nontrivial lifetime risk of being killed by police.”
Despite only making up 13 percent of the population, Black citizens account for 31 percent of all people killed by police and 39 percent of people killed by police when posing no alleged threat at all .
The state-sanctioned violence brought upon Black communities by law enforcement requires urgent attention. In 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement was started by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, who murdered Trayvon Martin , an unarmed 17-year-old Black boy. Black Lives Matter, which works to "intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes," has been at the forefront of the protest movement against police brutality and anti-Blackness in the United States.
In the spring and summer off 2020, Black Lives Matter activists and allies rallied in nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd , a Black man who was nicknamed "gentle giant" by his family and friends, by Minneapolis police department officers. An employee at a Minneapolis grocery store called the police on George Floyd, claiming that he was trying to pay with a counterfeit $20 bill. This criminalization of poverty, through the decision to rely on the police in a situation where it was certainly not necessary, ended with the death of a Black man who left behind a six-year-old daughter. It is increasingly clear that police are not carrying out their duty to "serve and protect," especially when it comes to marginalized communities and individuals.
While the police are the front line violence workers of the carceral state, racial criminalization and discrimination also operates at every other stage in the system, from prosecutorial discretion to incarceration in jail and prison populations. The corresponding graph illustrates prison population rates for the state of Michigan , taken from a Vera Institute of Justice website that graphs incarceration trends across the United States. The rate of Black citizens incarcerated in state and federal prisons in Michigan surpasses every other racial and ethnic group by a considerable amount, as does the ratio of Black residents in the jail population .
While many factors contribute to the stark racial disparity in prison and jail populations, the police are a key gateway into the criminal justice system. As the Vera Institute of Justice explains, "police enforcement has become an expressway to jail." Overreliance on police is not a victimless trend. As PG Watkins explained earlier, it is crucial that we look for other outlets, consider the possible consequences, and ask ourselves why we are engaging before contacting the police.
Derrick Jackson, director of community engagement at the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office , explains how police are called into situations that they are not trained for nor equipped to deal with. The go-to action for many people is to call the police for help in cases where law enforcement should not actually be the primary contact. For example, Derrick refers to the tendency of mothers who are worried about their children to call 911 and be referred to the police instead of other options such as mental health services and social workers.
“Why is it that a mom who sees their child going down a certain path and literally is on the phone crying for help is referred to the sheriff’s office? Why do I get that call versus somebody working say at Community Mental Health or something like that?”
Reliance on police can have bleak outcomes for those with mental illnesses. As Derrick Jackson explains, police are often the first responders in situations that they are not trained for, rather than those who are equipped to handle these cases such as therapists or social workers. For people with untreated serious mental illness, the risk of being killed by law enforcement is 16 times higher than the risk for other civilians. Additionally, only 20 percent of the general adult population in the United States has a mental illness, but these numbers climb much higher when analyzing jail and prison populations.
Knowing now that the reliance on police can be harmful for marginalized groups and is ultimately counterproductive, what is the next step? What can you as an individual do in your day-to-day routine? It's simple- do not call the police unless absolutely necessary.
Maria Ibarra-Frayre, organizer for We the People Michigan and the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights (WICIR) , details the responsibility that privileged people, particularly white people, have to not call the police and further criminalize marginalized members of society.
“How do you address the fact that we criminalize the other? I think the onus really is on people who fit into this norm of who’s not the other which is typically, primarily people who are white, people who are men, people who are straight, and the responsibility is not- I don’t want to have that responsibility on the police not to show up- the responsibility is on us not to be calling the police in the first place.”- Maria Ibarra-Frayre, We the People Michigan; Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition
There have been numerous instances reported in the media of white people calling the police on Black people while they are, for instance, napping, trying to go home after work, or barbecuing at a public park -- all of which are neither illegal nor “criminal” activities. As Maria stresses, the responsibility falls on privileged actors in society- especially those who are white- to not criminalize their neighbors and especially not to call the police when it is absolutely not necessary.
The phrase #LivingWhileBlack is a popular search term on social media websites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook that describes the everyday situations in which Black people are criminalized for simply living their lives. The collage on the right depicts a series of real headlines that illustrate some instances in which white people have called the police on Black men, women, and even children.
This overreliance on police leads to the criminalization of Black people in their daily lives and empowers law enforcement agencies that often bring deadly violence into the neighborhoods of people of color. The March 2020 shooting death of Breonna Taylor , a certified emergency medical technician, by Louisville police exemplifies the danger Black people are in whenever police are present. Taylor was shot eight times by police in her apartment in the middle of the night after her boyfriend Kenneth Walker mistook the officers in plainclothes and unmarked vehicles for burglars. While the police were not called by civilians in this particular case, the death of Breonna Taylor is one story among far too many that shows how life threatening interactions with law enforcement can be for Black people.
Surveillance Does Not Equal Safety
Probation and parole are some of the most ubiquitous forms of carceral state surveillance in the country. Together, these forms of so-called diversion - the former as a punitive alternative to incarceration, the latter as a “ release valve ” in response to prison overcrowding - make up the community supervision programs of the criminal justice system.
Community supervision is a mixed bag in terms of the reach of the carceral state. Hardliners argue that probation and parole make communities less safe, while some reformers feel that they are important methods of decarceration . Others, especially radical critics, believe that probation and parole extend arms of state surveillance into marginalized and nonwhite communities .
Arguments about public safety hinge on an understanding of what “public” it is that officials hope to make more safe. There is little evidence that decarceration leads to spikes in crime. Even recent statistics released by the New York Police Department, alleging that ending cash bail for nonviolent misdemeanors led to a crime wave, were since found to be doctored .
In fact, technical non-criminal violations , not “reoffending,” are the main reason people on parole or probation are sent to prison and jail.
However, if we define the “public” as impacted communities, increased surveillance makes these publics more unsafe through mechanisms such as forced curfews and checking the criminal records box on job applications, both of which severely limit the type and scope of work to which people have access.
Decarceration, coupled with more humanist understandings of labor rights and housing rights, makes people more safe. Opening up the formal economy to justice-impacted people and families - including access to public housing, food programs, and Medicare - creates social safety nets that dilute the need to fall back on informal economies and therefore help to reestablish trust between institutions and impacted people.
Through check-ins, regular drug testing, surprise visits, and other mechanisms of control, community supervision extends the arm of surveillance from individuals to the communities in which they live.
According to Human Rights Watch , community supervision, while intended to aid decarceration, can negatively impact communities and people.
"When probation is accompanied by excessive costs and conditions, it can quickly become a destabilizing force, undermining intended objectives" - Human Rights Watch, "Set Up to Fail" (2018)
The Human Rights Watch report emphasizes that fees linked to community supervision can lead to classist discrimination, punishing people for not being able to afford such costs yet also limiting their ability to obtain work. Many people with criminal records struggle to find jobs following release, or during probation or parole, due to the set of surveillance constraints imposed upon them.
Some states will not hire people with convictions for municipal work, while most states allow companies to discriminate on the basis of justice involvement by allowing “the box”: check here if you have been convicted of a crime. The very terms of probation also limit work ability. For example, some stipulations preclude work in environments where alcohol is served, making many restaurants off limits. Yet, when people cannot find work or pay associated fees, they are in technical violation of the terms of parole or probation and can be incarcerated as punishment.
This cycle of limited labor and fees makes it almost impossible to escape carceral surveillance and is a contributor to high recidivism rates - about 50 percent nationally . This is especially compounded by the simple fact that most people on probation earn less than $20,000 a year .
As noted by Heather Martin, director of Youth Arts Alliance , the reality that surveillance does not make impacted people more safe is particularly true for children, especially youth of color.
"Youth who are involved in the drug court process across the country and have had multiple involvements in the juvenile justice system are 85 percent likely to end up either in prison or dead by the age of 25." - Heather Martin, Youth Arts Alliance
Surveillance is a critical arm of the carceral state, encompassing not just people with convictions and other forms of justice involvement, but also their families and the communities in which they live. Alternatives to such surveillance do not necessarily look like community-controlled policing, or modest reforms to policing more generally.
PG Watkins of No New Jails Detroit argues that a way forward is not the state having its eyes on communities, but rather community solidarity:
“It’s us having our eyes on each other and looking out for each other and knowing that if something were to happen we would step up and protect each other.” - PG Watkins, No New Jails Detroit
What does it mean to abolish the police?
The abolitionist organization Critical Resistance defines policing as "a social relationship made up of a set of practices that are empowered by the state to enforce law and social control through the use of force. Reinforcing the oppressive social and economic relationships that have been central to the US throughout its history, the roots of policing in the United States are closely linked the capture of people escaping slavery, and the enforcement of Black Codes."
Based on these historical foundations, Critical Resistance argues that police adjust practices and definitions of the current "most serious societal problem" to continue to target poor people, people of color, immigrants, and other populations that the state defines as "transgressive." Who police target, what they target people for, and when and where they arrest people are political choices shaped by racism and economic discrimination. These choices have real impacts on mental health, physical health, and more directly to who states and the federal government imprison.
What would it mean to defund or abolish the police? Most simply, the movement asks that municipalities cut funding from police and invest in proven solutions that actually make communities safer, including accessible housing, food, and health care. Police abolition is a real possibility. And it's the most effective way to make communities safer. The Carceral State Project joins other racial and social justice organizations in advocating a radical transformation rather of the carceral state , including divestment from policing and prisons and reinvestment in social welfare programs and community services.
In an interview with Critical Resistance , Kamau Walton of Right to the City, an organization working towards more just and democratic land and housing policies, goes a step further in stating that community policing is not a reform that will replace the carceral state. Walton argues that police violence is systemic, and that the function of law enforcement has never been to help make people of color or people identifying as LGBTQ+ safe. The police bring trauma, not safety, to impacted communities, and cannot be reformed through community controls alone. Rather than investing in the police as an institution, and allowing more mechanisms of surveillance into the community,
"We actually know that what communities are calling for, what communities are demanding, and oftentimes what communities are defining as safety is: we want more safe spaces for our young folks to go to. We want more investment in education. We need access to good food. We need more affordable housing." - Kamau Walton, Right to the City, 2020
Joshua Hoe, Michigan-based host of the Decarceration Nation podcast, agrees, declaring that “we need to address the root causes of crime as opposed to the things we kind of make up.” Funding generated from decarceration and ending the surveillance state, he argued, ought to be put towards these very programs in order to “allow people succeed.”
The Carceral State Project released this statement in June of 2020, recognizing that the number police murders of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color is innumerable. Abolitionist organizations do not hope for a future with better police, better prisons, or better oppressive systems. "Instead, we hope to build toward a society without police or prisons, where communities are equipped to provide for their safety and wellbeing."
Narrative Change
Person-First Language
In order to change the narrative around people with criminal records and carceral state involvement, we must also change the language we use to talk about them. In the same way that the medical field has shifted to person-first language (ex. asthmatic → person with asthma), so, too, must the field of criminal justice. Terms such as “felon," “ex-con," or “criminal” are stigmatizing and should not be used to describe people who have come into contact with the criminal justice system. Instead, terms such as “formerly incarcerated person,” “incarcerated person,” or “person with a criminal record” are more appropriate and humanizing. By placing the emphasis on the person, as opposed to the alleged crime, this language releases some stigma previously associated with having a criminal record and makes clear that no one is a "criminal" in their essence. Moving forward, when discussing people involved in the justice system, it is best to use language that considers the whole person, as well as the preference of the impacted community .
At some point during incarceration, it has to be less about who they were and what they did, and more about who they are and what they've become. -Pete Letkemann, Family Advisory Board to MDOC
Here, Pete Letkemann, the father of an incarcerated child, discusses the importance of making a conscious effort to change the language that we use to describe currently or formerly incarcerated people. He says that in order to have an open discussion about incarceration, we as a society need to be able to discuss those who have been incarcerated as people, not to define them by their alleged crimes.
Media Narrative
Similar to language changes, the media also needs to adjust the ways in which they are portraying crime stories. There is an old saying around newsrooms, “If it bleeds, it leads,” meaning crime and violence makes for good headlines. Currently, media heavily covers crime, even though crime rates have been steadily dropping for decades. This creates a culture in which people believe there is more crime, and more violent crime, than there really is. One study found that those who watch the news are 16 times more likely to support harsher punishments. Fueled by capitalism, a 24 hour news cycle, and the need for more “views,” “likes,” or “clicks” on an article, media coverage of crime has grown and created a new reality in which crime seems to lurk around every corner.
Pete Letkemann proposes that instead of consuming this media en masse and without critical thought, we should consider the person and their family behind the headlines. So often, those who have been accused or convicted of crimes are cast out from society, shunned, and harrassed, along with their families.
Put a face to it. Put a human being there instead of somebody you can make a callous comment on and move on. -Pete Letkemann, Family Advisory Board to MDOC
Asia Johnson, bail disruptor for The Bail Project and Detroit Justice Center , observes that every one of us has made bad decisions and mistakes, and that we should consider the humanity of all persons rather than condemning them. This is contrary to how the media typically portrays people who have committed or been charged with criminal offenses. To make a positive shift in the narrative, we must first consider the person as a member of the same society as ourselves, with the same basic human rights.
"When you hear that somebody has done something wrong, I want you just to take a second before you condemn them, before you punish them, before you write them off and throw away the key, just think about that individual and what type of life they led prior to that mistake. Let's all just have an ounce of compassion for each other."
Inner Dialogue Change
In addition to changing the way we view and discuss prisons and those housed in them, we also need to change our internal dialogue around those who are responsible for causing harm. Often, people use terms like “monster” or “evil” when describing someone who has committed an offense. This sort of language mystifies and dehumanizes the person behind the act. It creates an idea of a scary, uncontrollable animal that seeks only to wreak havoc, when that is not at all the case.
Many researchers and scholars believe that much law-breaking arises out of poverty and need. When an individual can’t achieve “success” by legitimate means, they turn to criminal and criminalized activities to reach those same goals. With this theory of crime, people who cause harm, then, are not evil people or monsters, but products of their environments and of the society that we all have created.
Take, for example, the Stanford Prison Experiment. This infamous psychological experiment, which was supposed to last two weeks, was shut down after just six days due to the degradation of the line between reality and play-acting. The experiment consisted of 24 college students who were randomly selected to be a “guard” or a “prisoner.” These students then were placed into a simulated prison in the basement of a Stanford campus building, where they were to live out the experience of being incarcerated or being a correctional officer, in a presumably controlled environment. What resulted was rebellion from the “prisoners” and extreme harassment and abuse from the “guards.” Many of the experimenters and researchers lost touch with reality, believing they were truly in and operating a prison. “Guards” forced physical labor, isolation, and humiliation on the “prisoners” as punishment for non-obedience. Less than two days into the experiment, conditions were so brutal that one student had an “ acute emotional disturbance ” and began to cry hysterically, among other things. The “guards” and researchers were so entangled in the experiment, believing it to be real, that they did not believe the man was truly having an emotional break, and believed him to be “conning” them into letting him out.
The men that went into this experiment were vetted for any psychological disturbances, medical disorders, or drug use . These were relatively normal students who signed up for an experiment to make some money. These were educated individuals running the experiment. Every single one of them got sucked into the role, playing their part as they saw fit. It’s not so difficult to understand, after reading about this experiment, that people are shaped by the situations they are in, not the desire to be evil.
"I realized that they were just people, just normal, friendly people inside, and if this was the worst that society had to offer then society was a lot better than I thought it was." -Kathie Gourlay, Friends of Restorative Justice
We are taught through media and language that those inside prisons are terrible people who have done terrible things. The reality, however, is that those on the inside are not so different from those on the outside. As Kathie Gourlay, member of Friends of Restorative Justice of Washtenaw County , states, if those in prison are the worst society has to offer, then we are better off than we thought.
What is the purpose of prison?
It starts with narrative and attitude change about people in prison, the idea of how long does somebody actually need to serve in prison?- Korbin Felder, American Friends Service Committee
Traditionally, prison has existed to serve four main purposes: retribution (punishment), rehabilitation, deterrence, and safety. As with everything, there are disagreements on which should be the main priority, what it means to be rehabilitated, and who is considered “safe.” There have been many studies to determine whether or not prison is effective in any or all of these measures, and what makes it successful if it is. Prison is a costly venture, so one would hope and assume that it’s effective, right? Not necessarily.
In the United States, reoffending rates remain high for those released from prison, highlighting the ineffectiveness of incarceration. While some might use this as an argument for longer sentences and more punitive policies, studies show that is not the answer. Those who are released do not believe they will be caught (again), and harsher punishments do not deter them from criminal activity . In fact, longer sentences may actually increase the chances of criminal activity after release because an effect known as prisonization , which means that while in prison, people may learn more effective criminal strategies from other incarcerated people.
So, if a long sentence or a harsher punishment don’t work to deter crime or rehabilitate those who have previously offended, what does?
Rehabilitation
Why does the United States turn to the legal system as opposed to other mechanisms of justice that are definitionally better suited to address and solve socioeconomic problems? And why does the U.S. use incarceration as a catch-all solution for everything from municipal violations to drug addiction to homelessness to violence? As Michael Steinberg of the ACLU of Michigan points out, incarceration exacerbates rather than ameliorates all of these social issues and ills.
If we want to truly be safe, we have to rehabilitate these individuals and not lock them up in cages and punish them so that they're worse when they come out and more dangerous. We have to provide them with training so they can get a job when they come out, education, deal with the mental health and the drug problems." - Michael Steinberg, ACLU of Michigan
According to the ACLU , “Over 70 percent of people in jails with a serious mental illness also have a substance use disorder.” Most never receive care or the treatment they need for two reasons. First, prisons and jails lack the funding and capacity for meaningful mental health care. As the ACLU finds , "untrained staff, limited medical care and access to medication, and inappropriate facilities and treatment put mentally ill prisoners in an extremely vulnerable position." Second, the primary purpose of prisons is not rehabilitation but punishment, demonstrated by the use of cages and extreme underfunding of rehabilitative programming.
Rather than maintain strategies that criminalize people without providing meaningful support to strengthen people and communities, health-minded solutions are the gold standard of care, which take in mind individual circumstances without individuating crime - the conversation is about health not criminality. According to the ACLU, “services like drug treatment and affordable housing cost less and can have a better record of success.”
Restorative justice is also a critical pillar of rehabilitative justice. Restorative justice is a holistic community-based approach that seeks to rehabilitate rather than punish, contain, or warehouse. Current pilot programs in cities such as Chicago promise to “reintegrate” people “back into the community by connecting them with services including mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment, education, job training,” and other classes.
It is important that restorative justice not become just another coercive form of punitive control masquerading as rehabilitation. By replacing incarceration with a broad spectrum of services, restorative justice provides people and communities with access to healing apparatuses that strengthen the community as a whole rather than tear community members away through incarceration. Fundamentally, by replacing caging people with creating social safety networks to provide people with food, housing, healthcare, and other critical support, we can create a safer, more democratic society.
International Models
Here, Gift Chowchuvech, therapist at Healing & Wellness Arts , talks about how there are alternatives to the way the prison system operates. Using Scandinavia as an example, she highlights how a political focus on rehabilitation, physical and mental health, and family connections can reshape the carceral state. It is also important to emphasize that Scandinavian countries have generous social welfare systems and much lower rates of economic inequality than the United States, which also reduces the role of their carceral system in their societies.
"It isn't like in T.V. I think it's, in many ways, much sadder because prisons don't have to be like they are in the states. They don't." -Gift Chowchuvech, Healing and Wellness Arts
Finland
Finland is one country the United States should look to when considering prison reform. Finland in the 1950s was similar to the United States today with regards to their high prison population and sentencing laws . Finland, however, has been able to reduce its prison population to meet that of neighboring Scandinavian countries. This is, in part, due to the fact that Finnish policymakers saw the overuse of custodial sentencing as a “ national embarrassment ” and made efforts to remedy the situation. Through strategic legislative reform, Finland was able to reduce its prison population.
One specific legislative reform in Finland redefined theft and used a range of penalties as opposed to the traditional custodial sentencing, reducing the percentage of those who received a carceral sentence for theft from 38% to 11% between 1971 and 1991 . As a result of these non-custodial sentences, Finland’s incarceration rates have declined significantly, accompanied by an ideological shift in ways of thinking around incarceration. The new political ideology these policies brought about, known as “ humane neo-classicism , maintains that public safety is of the utmost importance but also considers the needs of the convicted individual as well.
Norway
Norway has perhaps the most progressive of prison systems , and also one of the lowest incarceration rates of the Scandinavian countries, as well as having one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at just 20%. Norway takes a nearly polar opposite stance on incarceration and punishment than most westernized countries do- they believe that lack of freedom is punishment enough. Norway uses a variation of restorative justice that holds that all parties involved in a crime deserve to be made whole again, and that the victim, offender, and community can all come together to achieve that goal.
Several prisons in Norway maintain as much semblance of a normal life as possible, allowing the convicted individuals to roam freely among themselves in open living spaces. The prisons have “ no bars on the windows, kitchens fully equipped with sharp objects, and friendships between the guards and inmates .” While this approach might seem dangerous to most Americans, a report by the U.S. Department of Justice found the opposite. Treating people as violent criminals and keeping them under strict lock and key increases violence and recidivism . Norway, with its progressive and humane approach, has one of the world’s lowest recidivism rates, while the United States has one of the highest. Looking at these statistics, one has to wonder which country has the right model of justice.
"Because of the ways that they've decriminalized a lot of stuff and because of the ways that they've re-prioritized mental health and health care, they've been able to literally close down like a dozen jails across the country." -PG Watkins, No New Jails Detroit
In this video, PG Watkins talks about the Netherlands as an international alternative to the American carceral state. The Dutch focus on decriminalization, combined with strategies to address the root causes of crime such as health care and mental health services, has shaped the way their justice system operates.
Netherlands
The Netherlands has been so successful in lowering their prison population they have been able to close a large portion of their prisons. To do so, they have taken a few different approaches.
The first, as PG Watkins mentions, is to address the root causes of crime. In an interview for the BBC , Jan Roelof van der Spoel, the deputy governor of a high security Dutch prison, stated that "If somebody has a drug problem we treat their addiction, if they are aggressive we provide anger management, if they have got money problems we give them debt counseling. So we try to remove whatever it was that caused the crime. The inmate himself or herself must be willing to change, but our method has been very effective. Over the last 10 years, our work has improved more and more." This approach focuses on addressing the problem, not punishing the person. For those who are considered “habitual offenders” in the United States, the Netherlands provides individualized treatment and rehabilitation programs. As a result, less than 10% who go through the programs return to prison following their release .
Another reason for the lowering prison rates is the reframing of what prison is for, and how it should be used. Previously, the Netherlands had focused on prosecuting drug offenses, similar to the War on Drugs perpetrated in the United States. In recent years, however, the focus has shifted to combating human trafficking and terrorism , accompanied by the decriminalization of many nonviolent drug offenses. Judges in the Netherlands are also more likely to hand down a financial sanction or community service , not a prison sentence, when compared to the United States. This is in part due to the understanding that prisons are expensive, and not very effective. While the United States focuses on the moral argument for incarceration and punishment, “the Netherlands is more focused on what works.”
For those that are incarcerated, their prison stay looks much different in the Netherlands than it would in the United States. Prison sentences tend to be shorter, and therefore people are more likely to be released in the Netherlands. With this understanding, the Netherlands allows incarcerated people much more freedom than they are afforded in the U.S. Incarcerated people are allowed to walk to certain places unaccompanied, such as the library, clinic, or canteen . This is to retain some sense of normalcy and prepare them for re-entry.
Yet, it's crucial to note that Dutch prisons are disproportionately populated by people of color - largely ethnic minorities, particularly people of Moroccan, Surinamese, and Turkish descent. This points to troubling global patterns with respect to prisons as a mechanism of oppressive racial regimes.
Abolitionism as the Radical Alternative
While prisons in Scandinavia may look nicer, more humane, and simply better, these systems are still part of carceral states that still rely on the fundamental forms of policing and prisons as solutions for social problems. These places still utilize carceral solutions, even if they look friendlier, and more based on rehabilitation than punishment, than those in the United States.
The movement to abolish police, prisons, and other carceral institutions is the genuinely radical alternative. In an interview with KQED , abolitionist scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore describes abolition as, "figuring out how to live in a world in which prison is not necessary." She continues that it's a realistic opportunity to think about what people do ubiquitously throughout the country to respond to harm and "prevent the very circumstances that lead to the possibility of behavior or relationships that seem only to be solvable by putting one or more people into a cage." In other words, abolition asks people to consider how to reduce harm for all people - it asks us to consider why we solve problems by replicating harm. It's not about asking people just to empathize. It's about asking, "why, as individuals, and as a society, do we believe that the way to solve a problem is by 'killing it.'" Punishment does not solve problems. Rather, when states use violence to solve problems, it reaffirms that violence is an acceptable solution to solve everyday issues. Prisons, and the carceral state more broadly, denigrate the preciousness of human life and model that such denigration is acceptable.
"Instead of asking whether anyone should be locked up or go free, why don't we think about why we solve problems by repeating the kind of behavior that brought us the problem in the first place?" - Ruth Wilson Gilmore
A New York Times profile explains that for Ruth Wilson Gilmore, as an abolitionist, "to "never forget" means you don't solve a problem with state violence or with personal violence. Instead, you change the conditions under which violence prevailed." You model that life is precious because, "Where life is precious, life is precious."
For more resources on the abolitionist movement, visit the website of Critical Resistance , a California-based organization that seeks to build an international movement to dismantle the prison-industrial complex.
While many of the necessary reforms in the United States are structural and will require a radically new policy vision, there are a number of ways in which individuals can help "Be the Change" when it comes to the abolition of the carceral state. One easy way to do so is to be compassionate when learning or hearing about situations in which someone has been accused or convicted of a crime, is returning from prison or jail, has had a traumatic or distressing interaction with police, or any other situations in which there is opportunity for misunderstanding and harsh judgement.
Ronald Simpson-Bey, director of outreach and alumni engagement for JustLeadershipUSA , talks about his own experience with choosing compassion. When his son was killed by a fourteen-year-old, Simpson-Bey advocated for the teenager to be treated as a juvenile in the courts instead of as an adult.
“But, being someone that had been in the system and experienced when I had experienced, I did not want to see that child be treated the way I see people treated in prison.” - Ronald Simpson-Bey, JustLeadershipUSA
PG Watkins notes another way that individuals can embody the mantra “Be the Change” by highlighting the role of conversation with friends and family. Educating loved ones and peers on issues of criminalization, mass incarceration, and the carceral state is no small feat. With access to potentially large audiences through social media, anyone can create change by sparking conversation and sharing information.
“I’ve been around the dinner table with my family, immediate and extended, and had these hard conversations. … But if I’m not willing to stick it out with them, if I say they’re not worth it, if I get tired of the conversation and walk away then that’s another fifty years we’re going to have to deal with the same conditions.” - PG Watkins, No New Jails Detroit
Calling out family members and friends can be an emotional experience but it is nonetheless a necessary step to create change. This task falls especially on those who are white. When sitting at the dinner table with other white family members or hanging around with white friends, it is crucial that white people call each other out. The carceral state is a system that is built on racism and classism, among other discriminatory measures, so it is important for white people to challenge any language or ideas that perpetuate the carceral state and all of the disparities and gross injustices within it.
Criminal defense attorney Victoria Burton-Harris stresses that people have to be loud and demanding in order to create change.
“You need to do the work. You don’t need to look at numbers anymore. You need to use your mouth and stand on your feet and be loud. Anytime you find yourself silent, you have become a part of the problem.” - Victoria Burton-Harris
One can be loud and demand change in a impactful way through a number of different outlets. This can include sparking conversation with friends and family as PG Watkins highlighted, or, it can include joining and/or supporting local, and even statewide or national, social movements and advocacy organizations.
There are a plethora of organizations and communities across the country that have taken a stand against police brutality, mass incarceration, and the carceral state more broadly. Washtenaw County, the county which encompasses the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus as well as the city of Ypsilanti, hosts a number of grassroots movements and organizations that work to resist the carceral state.
Two examples of activist groups in Washtenaw County are The May Day Collective and Washtenaw Solidarity & Defense . These organizations worked together to create the zine (on the left) that educates community members on why calling the police is a problem and gives suggestions on how to avoid unnecessary and harmful conflict.
Another powerful organization is the University of Michigan Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) .
(Artwork and Statement by Frank L. Adams).
PCAP facilitates programs that bring "the University of Michigan community and those impacted by the justice system into creative collaboration," hosts exhibitions of artwork by incarcerated artists in the public realm "in order to humanize prisoners, break stereotypes and create dialogue about mass incarceration," and showcases the work of Michigan's incarcerated writers through the Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing .
(Artwork and statement by Willie Eddie Anderson II).
Antonio Espree, a consultant for Reproducing Strategies for Resentencing Juveniles, argues that young people need to mobilize and fight for change.
“If you want to end mass incarceration, you have to stand in the space up in that position of ending it. So, you know, to me that’s the strategy to produce that in the minds of our young people.” - Antonio Espree, Reproducing Strategies for Resentencing Juveniles
There are a number of ways young people can get involved in the fight to end mass incarceration and resist the carceral state, especially by joining one of the growing number of organizations on campus or in the surrounding community.
If you’re over the age of 18, you can find local prisons to volunteer in doing work such as tutoring, mentoring, or just supporting incarcerated people in general. Through the Federal Bureau of Prisons website , you can find volunteer opportunities in your state. Another thing you can do is write to incarcerated people. There are a number of programs including write a prisoner that allow people who are 18 years and older to find incarcerated folks who are looking for pen pals.
Even if you’re not 18 yet, young people can still be involved in the fight against mass incarceration and other aspects of the carceral state such as the movement against police violence and brutality. Some ways young people can get involved is by attending protests that advocate for the cause, calling or emailing their legislators when important legislation is being discussed locally or nationally, and volunteering for local or national political campaigns for candidates who support transformation of the criminal justice system. Another powerful way to "Be the Change" that can be started today is to educate yourself. Read and research about mass incarceration, the prison industrial complex, policing, the history of surveillance, and related topics and then share what you’ve learned with your family, friends, and followers.
As Antonio Espree says, we have to put ourselves in a position to end mass incarceration and work for racial and social justice. This mean we cannot sit idly by and decide that change will come naturally, or that someone else will do the necessary activist work. People of all ages, but especially young people who wish to see a better world in the future, must actively try to dismantle the carceral state.
Monica Lewis-Patrick, co-founder of We the People of Detroit , argues that the current generations are facing the “tyranny of their day” and that we have the tools to come up with real solutions.
"But every generation must face the tyranny of their day and you're facing it. Now the question is, what will you do about it? What will you do about it? Because this moment right here our biggest fears are encroaching up on us and they are inevitable if we do nothing." - Monica Lewis-Patrick, We the People of Detroit
So, what will you do?
Visit this link for the other thematic reports in the " Documenting and Confronting the Carceral State " series, drawn from the Carceral State Project's 2018-2019 symposium.
"Alternatives to the Carceral State" written and compiled by Gabrielle French (M.A. student, School of Social Work), Allie Goodman (Ph.D. student, History Department), and Chloe Carlson (U-M undergraduate student). Additional editing by Matt Lassiter (Department of History).