#prison abolition for all

[itsbansheebitch]

How are there not riots in the streets?

Looking back on 2023:

We know our education system is bunk and that NASA was started with help from a literal 1940s Nazi. We know this country was built on genocide, bigotry, and the backs of immigrants & slaves.

We know we're colonizers, we know our first President's teeth were made of a combination of his slaves' teeth and wood. We know the last President ran his campaign off sexual assault jokes.

We know the first time the Confederate flag was ever in the US Capital was on January 6th, 2021. We know approximately 50% of white medical trainees think black people have higher pain tolerance (especially black women).

We know black people are more likely to get bitten by police dogs and are more likely to get death sentences instead of life in prison like their white counterparts committing the same crime. We know you can predict if you'll be a victims of police brutality based on where past lynchings have happened & the amount of money a you make in a year.

We know that America helped cover up Unit 731 and gave the "scientists" immunity. We know that America has been at war for more time than not and we know school shootings are so "old news" that the news doesn't even cover most of them anymore.

We know the United States has an unusually high homeless population and that 40% to 60% of homeless people in the United States have jobs. We know the United States isn't opposed to human experimentation and we know that slavery is illegal unless you're in prison.

We know prisoners are used to fight fires for free, we know some prisons have cotton farms for the prisoners to work on for free. We know 1 in 5 people on death row are innocent and that police are known to fake/plant evidence and to assault witnesses & suspects that don't give them what they want to hear.

We know judges are more likely to give death sentences than life in prison when they're hangry (I'm NOT joking) and police were originally militias paid for by rich people to get their runaway slaves black. We know we are one of the most, if not the most, dangerous "developed" countries in the world.

Why do we perform non consensual surgeries on (intersex) babies right out of the womb without the parents' permission, but we make consensual surgeries (gender affirming care) illegal? Why is gender affirming care (plastic surgery, masculine voice classes) only legal and normal for cis people?

Why do we let people who are one foot in the grave sign our death certificates? Why do we let people who clearly have dementia run one of the globe's superpowers? Why are we letting the oldest bigots in the country decide our future?

So why are there not riots in the streets? When did we become so complacent to our own demise? Why do we deny the ship is sinking when we are up to our knees in water? What is wrong with us? Are we pathetic or broken or wrong in a way that is incomprehensible to us? Why are we pretending everything is normal?

Why are there not riots in the streets?

[sayruq]

[padawan-historian]

“Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. It represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent people”. – Ida B. Wells, “Lynch Law in America” speech, Chicago (1900)

[trans-axolotl]

content note: this post talks about eugenics, incarceration and institutionalization, and violent ableism

tangent from that post because i didn't want to start writing an essay on someone else's post and this is about a conversation i had irl this month, not intended as a reply to that post. but i actually feel very complicated about the idea of whether or not we should be pushing for more "accessibility" in jails and prisons and psych wards and institutions. i put that word in quotes because i don't think there is ever a way that being incarcerated is actually accessible to our bodies and minds; it is a disabling experience on so many levels. i'm not going to list out all the reasons why on this post; i've made so many posts talking explicitly about the harms of institutionalization before and i don't want to do that again right now. Talila Lewis has given several interviews about ableism, incarceration, and disability that are really worth reading and go more in depth into what that violence looks like. Liat Ben Moshe has also given another interview about disability and incarceration that goes over many of the same topics. given that these places are intense sites of violence towards disabled people, it feels difficult for me to claim that they could ever truly be accessible in any meaningful sense of the word.

what's also true right now is that institutions and prisons are incredibly inaccessible for physically disabled people in particular. i've been arrested with a wheelchair, i've been institutionalized with a feeding tube on top of that as well, i've been held on medical floors for psych treatment before, and i know very well exactly how bad it is. i've watched myself and so many other physically disabled people almost die in these places because of sheer neglect. i have physically disabled neighbors who were killed in these places. it is so dangerous for physically disabled people who are locked up in these places, yet at the same time, often psych wards are so inaccessible that physically disabled people just can't even be admitted because wards refuse to take people with mobility aids, medical devices, specific types of medication or care needs, if you have some kinds of terminal illness, and on and on and on.

what's also true is that when these places are so inaccessible that many physically disabled people are excluded and unable to even access them in the first place, it doesn't mean that we then somehow access other types of care instead. it just means that we're also discarded and left to die. this also is a really similar dynamic for a ton of other marginalized groups that get excluded from psych care--many of my comrades who are people of color have also experienced this same type of denial of care. initially i think that can seem like a confusing contradiction--how is it that psych wards are locking up some people up against their will but refusing to take in other people? but when you start thinking about the underlying logic at the core of these systems, it makes sense.

psych wards operate under this idea that madness must be cured by any means possible, up to and including eradication. institutions are a way of disappearing madness from the world--hiding us away so that we don't disturb a sane society, and not letting us free again until we either die in there or are able to appear like we've sufficiently eradicated madness from our mind. preventing physically disabled people from accessing inpatient treatment is operating under the same assumptions--except that this particularly violent convergence of ableism is happy to just let us die, both because it eradicates madness from the world and because they view our lives as unworthy of living in the first place. eugenics is still alive and well in the united states and it's still fucking killing us; both inside institutions and outside of them.

i would never tell someone that they're privileged for getting institutionalized--i think that would be a cruel thing to say to someone who has just survived a lot of violent ableism. and at the same time, our current systems of mental health care are set up in a way where not being able to access inpatient care can be a deadly logistical nightmare. there are some partial hospitalization programs that have such a long waiting list that you can only really get in if you just got an urgent referral because you're getting discharged from inpatient care--how the fuck are physically disabled people supposed to access those programs? if you need meal support for your eating disorder 6 times a day and the only places that offer that are residential treatment in a house with stairs, what the fuck are you supposed to do? if noncarceral outpatient forms of treatment like therapy, support groups, PHP programs, peer support funding, etc etc etc are often prioritizing people who have recently been discharged from inpatient care, how are you supposed to access any type of mental health care at all? (to be clear i know that not all forms of outpatient care operate in this way, but a lot of state run/low cost programs that accept Medicaid/Medicare operate in that way, and i've seen it cause enough barriers that i know this is a very real problem.)

so when i think about what it would take to actually ensure that physically disabled people can access mental healthcare, there's a lot that comes up for me. on one hand, so much of my work is about tearing down institutions and ensuring that no one is forced into these places to face that type of violence. on the other hand, so many physically disabled people need care right now, and we have to figure out some way of making that happen given the current systems we have in place. i will never be okay with just discarding physically disabled people as collateral damage, and any world that we're building needs to be one that embraces disability from the beginning.

i keep thinking about the concept of non-reformist reforms that gets talked about a lot in the prison abolition movement. the idea behind non-reformist reforms is that usually, reforms work to reinforce the status quo. they're usually talked about in liberal language of "improvement" and "human rights", but when it comes down to it, they're still giving more power to harmful institutions and reinforcing state power. an example of a reformist reform is building a new jail that is bigger and has "nicer" services. or when the cops in my city tried to get funding for more wheelchair accessible cop vans. these are reformist reforms because when it comes down to it, it's still giving more money and legitimacy to the prison system and increasing the capacity to keep people locked up--even when people talk about it using language about welfare for prisoners, that's not actually what's happening. having more wheelchair accessible cop vans would be dangerous for the disabled people in my city--it's helped us out a LOT that it's so difficult for the cops to arrest multiple wheelchair users at once.

non-reformist reforms are the opposite of that--they're reforms that work to dismantle systems, redistribute power, and set the stage for more even more dramatic transformations. They're sort of an answer to the question of "what do we do right now if we can't go out and burn down all the prisons overnight?" Examples of a nonreformist reform are defunding prisons, getting rid of paid administrative leave for cops, shutting down old prisons and not building new ones, etc. they're steps we can take right now that don't fully abolish prisons, but still work to dismantle them, rather than making it easier for the system to keep going.

so, when we apply this to the psych system, what are some nonreformist reforms that could help make sure that all disabled people are having their needs met right now? Some ideas I'm having include fixing the problem of PHP/outpatient care requiring referrals from inpatient, increasing the amount of Medicaid/Medicare funding for outpatient mental health care, building physically accessible peer respites that allow caregivers to stay with you if needed, increasing SSI/SSDI to an actually liveable rate, creating more disability specific mental health resources, support groups, care webs, and a million other things we'd probably need to actually get our needs met. non-reformist reforms for people in psych wards right now might look like ensuring everyone has 24/7 access to phones and internet, ensuring that disabled people have access to mobility aids in these spaces, making sure that there's accessible nutrition for people with dietary restrictions and/or feeding tubes, and more.

when i see people saying that we need to ensure that psych wards or prisons are made accessible it makes me feel nervous. i worry that the changes required to do that wouldn't actually provide care to disabled people, i worry it would just make it easier for increasing numbers of disabled people to get locked up and harmed all while people claimed it was a success story of "inclusion." i worry that it would just continue to cement carceral treatment as the only option for existing as a disabled person, and that it would make it harder for us to live in our communities, with the services and adaptations we need. when i think about abolition, i'm always thinking about what can we do right now, what do disabled people who are incarcerated and institutionalized need right now, what can we do right now to ensure that everyone is surviving and getting their needs met. i'm not willing to ignore or discard my incarcerated disabled comrades in the moment because of my dreams for an abolitionist future, i'm always going to support our organizing in these places as we try to survive them.

overall i guess what i'm saying is that i think making inpatient psych care accessible would require dismantling and fundamentally destroying the whole system. I can't imagine a way of doing that within the current system that wouldn't just continue to harm disabled people. and that as a psych abolitionist i think that means we have a responsibility to each other right now to fight for that, to understand that physically disabled people not being able to access mental health care is an incredibly urgent need. I refuse to treat my MadDisabled comrades as disposable: our lives are valuable and worth fighting for.

i'm also going to link to the HEARD organization on this post. They're one of the few abolitionist organizations that does direct advocacy and support for deaf and disabled people in prisons. if you or one of your disabled community members ever gets incarcerated in jail/prison, they have a lot of resources. donate to support their work if you can.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

From @theinnocenceproject:

This is it. We only have 48 HOURS to stop Missouri from executing #MarcellusWilliams, an innocent man.⁠

⁠

Every hour, every minute, every second is critical right now. And even though @GovParsonMO's office is closed today, we can’t let a single moment go by where we’re not urging him to take action. So today, we’re asking you to SHARE Marcellus’ story far and wide by creating your own post about him using the social media toolkit at the link in our bio, and include a call to action to sign our petition and call @GovParsonMO at 417-373-3400. ⁠

⁠

It is not too late for Gov. Parson to ensure that Missouri does not take an innocent man’s life.⁠

⁠

[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

[blackpearlblast]

(U.S.) two people are being put to death this month

thomas creech in idaho and ivan cantu in taxes are both scheduled to be executed by the state on february 28, 2024. if you are so inclined, please sign these petitions asking for clemency for them.

[victusinveritas]

[fenrichaita]

the mental health industry is an auxiliary of the police state. It is not a tool of healing in the same way that a prison is not a place of rehabilitation. In both cases, you are more profitable while demoralized, detained, and stripped of your rights, than autonomous and empowered.

[sayruq]

[liberaljane]

🖤 Our current drug laws are unjust and nonsensical – and disproportionately harm Black and brown communities. 🕷️🕸️🖤

Digital illustration of a young witch with brown skin and pink hair wearing a green cape and hat. Next to her is an owl sitting on a book along with an open spell book. There is a variety of objects scattered on the table in front of her including a cauldron, a bag of soil and candles. Text reads, ‘to be blunt, drug criminalization is racist.’

[robinlovexo]

yoooo new dress goes harddd

[trans-axolotl]

reading writing from other people who have also survived solitary confinement (in so many different places, prisons + institutions + more) and sometimes the grief overwhelms me. i feel such a strong connection through the page--they put words to this swirling mess of emotions that lies under my skin when i think back to those weeks. they've found a way to talk about what it does to you and what you become and what it's like to try to come back to the world afterwards. i still can't speak about most of it. some days i wake up panicking because my door is shut; I'm glad my walls are thin and my roommate plays music slightly too loudly at night--it's easier to fall asleep when i know she's there.

this quote: "I am filled with the sensation of drowning each and every day."

and this one: "When he walked out of the SHU, he saw his first tree in 12 years."

and this one: "Solitary confinement is a living death. Death because it is the removal of nearly everything that characterizes humanness, living because within it you are still you. The lights don’t turn out as in real death. Time isn’t erased as in sleep…"

(from shane bauer reporting on solitary confinement in California: x)

i don't have words for the kind of rage i feel when i think about all the people being tortured in solitary right now and every single fucking day; loved ones + activist acquaintances + people i have never met. i want to start breaking things. i want to tear it all down. some days i feel so incredibly guilty that i saw the leaves fall outside today--how is it that i get that and she's still in there. there are no words.

[jonasgoonface]

June 11 is coming! go write a letter! Fuck prisons fuck the laws that put us in them and fuck the cops that uphold those laws. Hella dm me if ur looking for some folks to support. Or you can check out mongoose distro, abcportland, thefinalstrawradio they're always doing a good job of looking out for the locked up homies. Also a.b.o.comix is really cool! They get comics from queer prisoners and sellem for commissary bucks. And lgbtbookstoprisoners is cool! I sent them a buncha Godshaper comics! You should give them books too!

[nando161mando]

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Prison labor as a legal excuse for slavery is abhorrent, but if you think abolishing chattel slavery was a waste of time or “nothing good happened” because prison labor exists you are SEVERELY underestimating just how evil chattel slavery was.