#abolition now

[merciawintersageposting]

a man was murdered today in Missouri.

systems are what they do. and this one destroys people.

[statementlou]

Liams toxicology report is so sad :( the hotel employee needs to go to jail

I really couldn't disagree more with this actually, I don't support putting people in cages and I certainly don't see how that would help anyone at all. Just as I wished for Liam to have the opportunity to access the grace and care that would have allowed him to get to a place where he wasn't hurting anyone, I wish for that hotel employee to live in an economic system where they don't need to procure drugs for rich people to get by, and I don't think punishing them for what happened will help anyone any more than I think punishing Liam legally would have helped anyone, or that the ways he was punished did help him or anyone else.

[theremina]

An adoption abolitionist’s plea:

Don’t say your for-profit artwork has been “adopted”.

Don’t advertise your portraits with cutesy phrases like “Isn’t Uwu Smolbean Rag Doll Doodlybunz peachy keen? Adopt her today for just $299!”

Don’t call buying an inanimate friggin object “an adoption”.

Doubt I’ll be heard by many. But I’ll keep saying this stuff til kept people who claim progressive and leftist values begin to comprehend that countless millions of actual living, breathing people in this world have been bought and sold as infants or children and it AIN’T FUCKIN CUTE.

[unveilandresist]

so I'm seeing more people talking about defunding and abolishing the police again. it's really important to learn about the nature of policing, its origins and why policing can't be reformed - why we can't use body cameras or better training to fix police brutality.

in light of the conversation being in the public eye again I wanted to share that the great book The End of Policing is free from Verso right now. it's helped me so much with my understanding of policing and police abolition and I hope it helps you too! Please share this post!

[riverthemessiah]

there is no such thing as a good cop. not even your relative/loved one. fuck em all.

Cops are trained to be bad. Anyone who insists on being good is not welcome.

[blackpearlblast]

five days until the state of georgia is scheduled to execute willie pye

[mikasasrippedtoenail]

Calling Lesbians' attraction to vaginas a mere genital "preference" erases the sheer violence behind corrective rape of millions of sapphic women. I do not just "dislike" dick, I am physically incapable of being attracted to it. My allure to the female genitilia is not a choice, it's my biological reality. Dismissal of same-sex attraction as a choice reinforces the homophobic ideology that attractions can be altered and also paves the way for discrimination. One cannot opt out of their sexuality, they are always born with it.

[gothra]

I’ll never forget when I was arguing with a person in favor of total prison abolition and I asked them “what about violent offenders?” And they said “Well, in a world where prisons have been abolished, we’ll have leveled the playing field and everyone will have their basic needs met, and crime won’t be as much of an issue.” And then I was like “okay. But…no. Because rich people also rape and murder, so it isn’t just a poor person thing. So what will we do about that?” And I don’t think they answered me after that. I’m ashamed to say I continued to think that the problem was that I simply didn’t understand prison abolitionists enough and that their point was right in front of me, and it would click once I finally let myself understand it. It took me a long time to realize that if something is going to make sense, it needs to make sense. If you want to turn theory into Praxis (I’m using that word right don’t correct me I’ll vomit) everyone needs to be on board, which mean it all needs to click and it needs to click fast and fucking clear. You need to turn a complex idea into something both digestible and flexible enough to be expanded upon. Every time I ask a prison abolitionist what they actually intend to do about violent crime, I get directed to a summer reading list and a BreadTuber. It’s like a sleight-of-hand trick. Where’s the answer to my question. There it is. No wait, there it is. It’s under this cup. No it isn’t. “There’s theory that can explain this better than I can.” As if most theory isn’t just a collection of essays meant to be absorbed and discussed by academics, not the average skeptic. “Read this book.” And the book won’t even answer the question. The book tells you to go ask someone else. “Oh, watch this so-and-so, she totally explains it better than me.” Why can’t you explain it at all? Why did you even bring it up if you were going to point me to someone else to give me the basics that you should probably already know? Maybe I’m just one of those crazy people who thinks that some people need to be kept away from the public for everyone’s good. Maybe that just makes me insane. Maybe not believing that pervasive systemic misogyny could be solved with a UBI and a prayer circle makes me a bad guy. But it’s not like women’s safety is a priority anyway. It’s not like there is an objective claim to be made that re-releasing violent offenders or simply not locking them up is deadly.

[merciawintersageposting]

hey y’all

Robert Roberson is about to be executed on October 17 in Texas. Yet another innocent person will face the death penalty, despite prejudicial testimony and an unproven theory.

please take the time to call or email using this form from Innocence Project. it takes like 2 minutes.

read more about his case and why the courts in Texas need to change here:

[egberts]

ALSO if prisoners could get educated then prisons could run themselves more reliably and function like communities which is conducive to a growing/healing/learning/absolving mindset

[pillarsalt]

little earwig doodle to celebrate my new drawing tablet 🥳

[trans-axolotl]

Image description: [Black text on lined paper. Text reads: Share your story with the Psych Survivor Archive. Hold the psychiatric system accountable for the violence and coercion we've survived. Make space for our anger. Grieve together. Celebrate our resistance. The Psych Survivor Archive is a forum for psych survivors to share about their experiences and be believed. You can share as much or as little as you want. Your story will be anonymously published on the website with writing from other psych survivors. The archive is open to anyone who identifies as a psych survivor, including people who survived inpatient hospitalization, rehab, troubled teen industry, partial hospitalization, outpatient programs, ABA, and any other form of coercion psych treatment. Check out the prompts, participant rights, and content guidelines. Share your story now: www.psychsurvivorarchive.com/submit-your-story]

Hey everyone. I wanted to share this here as well. The Psych Survivor Archive is looking for anyone who wants to share their story and have it anonymously published on the website, in order to create a collection of our experiences navigating the psych system. Your responses will be anonymous and can be as detailed or vague as you want. On the website, there are prompts, but you can feel free to share in whatever format makes sense to you.

This is a more informal way to participate in the Psych Survivor Archive if you are not interested in creating art for the zine, but still want your story to be heard and validated.

For me, it has felt very cathartic to write out my story, on my terms, in the way that I want to be known. I hope that the archive can offer that space to other psych survivors as well, and I can't wait to keep developing this project and offering even more. In the next couple weeks, submissions will open up for the second edition of the zine, so if you're interested in submitting creative art or writing keep an eye out!

love and solidarity always <3

[sillyguy-supreme]

i think far too many of you do not realize that if the democratic party loses in november it will be because of their failure in campaigning and refusal to listen to their constituents and not because the Tumblr Leftist Furries abstained from voting or voted third party

[bookshelf-in-progress]

It turns out that I never research because it makes me think the details are the point instead of the story.

The story is the point! It doesn't matter if I don't have an entire world with all its history and cultural and political customs realistically fleshed out! Focus on the story and fill in the details later!

[sweetstarcollector]

I was looking up some statistics on juvenile detention centers when I came across this chart from the Department of Justice. It lists crime categories, and among other things, what percentage of those arrested for each crime category were female. It also only lists offenses committed by minors. I scrolled through, and noticed that in every category females accounted for less than 50% of arrests, except for one in which females were a whopping 69% of arrests. Which category, you ask? What was the singular category in which females are overrepresented?

Oh, just FUCKING PROSTITUTION.

I was so confused, at first I thought I made a mistake and was looking at adult arrests. Criminalizing and arresting prostituted people of any age is abhorrent, but I figured surely no one with a brain could justify arresting a child for being abused, right? Right?

Wrong. According to this data, in the US in 2019, nearly 300 minors were arrested for the "crime" of being sexually abused. 14% of those arrested were age 14 or younger. I then did some more research and discovered this information, provided by Shared Hope International:

As of the most recent SHI report, only 10 out of 50 US states have comprehensive safe harbor laws for sexually exploited prostituted minors. 28 out of 50 states have fully or partially comprehensive safe harbor laws. That means in 22 states, minors can still be criminalized for experiencing sexual abuse and trafficking. Not to mention the significant lack of states providing affirmative defense, which would help protect victims who harm or kill their abusers and traffickers. These laws and lack of protections are harmful to all victims of child trafficking, but especially target Black girls, who are incredibly vulnerable to childhood sex trafficking.

This information is honestly some of the most disgusting information I've ever learned. I did some more research into what can be done to help change this, this page from Shared Hope International seems like a good place to start. It helps you contact your governor, state legislators, and federal legislators in support of safe harbor laws, as well as other pieces of legislation meant to protect victims. Please, those of you in the US, take a moment out of your day and contact your representatives. Rights4girls also is doing some incredible work in this area, so check them out and maybe donate if you can. If anyone knows of any other charities that address this, especially ones outside of the US, please share them too. No child should EVER be arrested for being abused.

[nientedal]

"but if we abolish prisons, what will we do with violent criminals? should we not lock them up so they can't hurt more people?"

questions for questions. one: are there are people who, given every support and every attempt to rehabilitate, every mitigation strategy, given resources and therapy and money and time, will still choose violence? i don't know. YOU don't know. but anything is possible, and i will freely admit i don't have the answer to that yet.

but also, two: yeah, what about them? because what i DO know, and what i need you to try to understand, is that prison already does not prevent violence. the threat of it doesn't deter violence to begin with-- look around you-- and it doesn't stop violence after the people deemed "too dangerous" are locked up. they simply commit violence against other prisoners instead.

so, the thing you're concerned about losing? the ability to prevent someone from committing violence? that's already not a thing. it is not happening. the thing you're worried about losing HAS NEVER EXISTED. "but how will we stop violent criminals from hurting people" is the first thing out of anyone's mouth in response to the idea of prison abolition, but we already don't have a solution to that! that is NOT SOLVED! you can't see the violence anymore, but it is still happening! at the hands of the guards, if not these "violent criminals" you're so worried about, so the problem of violence IS NOT SOLVED by locking people up, do you understand? no one is locked up to keep them from hurting people, they are locked up to ensure they can only hurt people whose pain has been deemed acceptable.

instead of saying, "we can't abolish prisons because violent criminals will hurt people," please ask yourself: is the current violence against disenfranchised, systemically vulnerable people so much more acceptable to you than violence against the public that you will advocate against helping people, instead of hurting them?