![]() ![]() She argues forthrightly for "decarceration", and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole. ![]() In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. Davis has written, prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable. Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Similarly,the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. To start, Davis argues that racism is real and wrong by examining the history of racism in the United States, and the way in which minority children are raised. ![]() As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. Throughout the book, Davis forms three main assumptions: racism is real and wrong, prisons are racist institutions, and prisons should be considered obsolete. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. ![]()
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