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A review by flamingtashhh
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
I mean, it’s a classic for a reason. Often cited and never replicated, Davis’ work just had me unraveling question after question. I feel like a lot of the material that she covered is material I’m familiar with at this point, but because her work has been cited so often.
Some things I’d like to explore more following this book:
1. The colonization of the land by prisons. What effect on the environment and our connection to it does the logic and PHYSICAL fact of prisons have?
2. Racial capitalism and borders. How does the global migration of labor impact prisons? What similarities does this share with the Atlantic Slave Trade?
3. Gender-making and prisons. What does the logic of prison reform do to our notions of gender? How is this related to colonial notions of gender and citizenship?
4. Punishment and violence, specifically an expansion of the idea that domestic and sexual violence is the basis of punishment in women’s prisons.
There’s more.
Some things I’d like to explore more following this book:
1. The colonization of the land by prisons. What effect on the environment and our connection to it does the logic and PHYSICAL fact of prisons have?
2. Racial capitalism and borders. How does the global migration of labor impact prisons? What similarities does this share with the Atlantic Slave Trade?
3. Gender-making and prisons. What does the logic of prison reform do to our notions of gender? How is this related to colonial notions of gender and citizenship?
4. Punishment and violence, specifically an expansion of the idea that domestic and sexual violence is the basis of punishment in women’s prisons.
There’s more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism