A review by laurenleigh
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

informative sad fast-paced

4.5

This was a very quick and important read. While I felt already pro prison abolition, this helped me explain why. Similar to defund police movements, there is so much pain, suffering, and violence that could be avoided if we funded things like welfare, education, and healthcare. Pouring money into police and prison systems is the wrong end of the equation, and we should be focusing our efforts and our dollars on preventing crimes in the first place. If people had decent housing, stable jobs, food to eat, reliable healthcare, and educational opportunities, think about how much better, safer, and happier our country would be. Also, decriminalize weed and psychedelics while we’re at it. I know to some, imagining the US without prisons seems impossible. But just a few hundred years ago, most Americans couldn’t imagine their world without slavery. It’s absolutely possible if we shifted our spending and our focus. Davis briefly touches on some history of our prison industrial complex, which was pretty fascinating, and I want to read more about that.
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