*This reading list was created by and is managed by Know Your IX, a survivor-and youth-led campaign committed to ending gender violence in school. If you have additional readings or resources you think should be added to this list, please email us at info@knowyourix.org. This list is made up of resources and readings we, as survivors, have found helpful when envisioning and working towards a world without the prison industrial complex.*
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Letter to the Anti Rape Movement
Zine by Mariame Kaba and Hope Dector
“The reality is that most victims of sexual assault do not turn to the criminal legal system in the first place and most rapists will not go to prison. [...] If the goal is to end rape through a criminal legal process then I would say that based on the numbers, the strategy has already failed.”
Aching for Abolition As a survivor of sexual violence, I know prison isn’t the answer.
Article by Camonghne Felix
“No one really asks a survivor what she wants. When a woman is raped, it becomes an assault on the state, not the person. She could decide that she would rather not pursue charges and the state can decide to move forward anyway, without her consent. I am a survivor, and have been for most of my life. I am also a prison abolitionist, and have been for most of my life, years before I had the words to describe my intuition.”
Article by Victoria Law
“[C]arceral feminism describes an approach that sees increased policing, prosecution, and imprisonment as the primary solution to violence against women. This stance does not acknowledge that police are often purveyors of violence and that prisons are always sites of violence. Carceral feminism ignores the ways in which race, class, gender identity, and immigration status leave certain women more vulnerable to violence and that greater criminalization often places these same women at risk of state violence.”
How Can We Reconcile Prison Abolition with #MeToo?
Article by Victoria Law
“Counseling for the person who caused harm, removal from leadership positions, admission of guilt, public and/or private apologies, workshops and trainings, and specific behavioral changes are just some of the demands that communities can make. Regardless of what forms they take, continuing to explore alternatives to state violence in response to gender-based violence is an essential piece of the movements to end both.”
I Was Sexually Assaulted. And I Believe Incarcerating Rapists Doesn’t Help Victims Like Me
Article by Stefanie Mundhenk
“Not only does incarceration as a response to rape fail to heal victims, it also makes communities less safe. Prisons are ‘criminogenic’—meaning that instead of rehabilitating individuals, prisons make them more likely to commit crimes in the future.”
Article by Dan Berger, Mariame Kaba, David Stein
“Prison abolitionists aren't naive dreamers. They're organizing for concrete reforms, animated by a radical critique of state violence.”
Survived and Punished: Survivor Defense as Abolitionist Praxis
Toolkit by Love and Protect & Survived and Punished
“[Survivor defense committees] connect people in a heartfelt, direct way that teaches specific lessons about the brutality of prisons and their role in reinforcing gender violence.”
How Anti-Violence Activism Taught Me to Become a Prison Abolitionist
Article by Beth E. Richie
“We are learning collectively that the way out is not to simply keep pushing back against each of those policies, strategies, and movement organizations that have disappointed us, but rather to adopt a feminist political strategy that embraces the possibility of Prison Abolition. This is where we would bring together attention to state violence as an essential aspect of ending violence against women of color and non-gender conforming communities. All people would be safer. It means investing in a new kind of community, especially within communities of color, where those who are most disadvantaged are in leadership of sustained, base-building activities for justice. Concerns about gender justice and sexuality liberation would necessarily be included. Strategies to address the harm caused by violence would be grounded in these stronger, more equitable communities. Safety would come from communities, and, therefore, prisons could eventually become obsolete.”
The Case for Prison Abolition: Ruth Wilson Gilmore on COVID-19, Racial Capitalism & Decarceration
Article by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
“Abolition seeks to undo the way of thinking and doing things that sees prison and punishment as solutions for all kinds of social, economic, political, behavioral and interpersonal problems. Abolition, though, is not simply decarceration, put everybody out on the street. It is reorganizing how we live our lives together in the world. And this is something that people are doing in a variety of ways throughout the United States and around the planet already. It is not a pie-in-the-sky dream. It is actually something that is practical and achievable in the city of New York, in Texas, in South Africa, around the world.”
We Have Already Stopped Calling The Cops
Article by Aviva Stahl
“We are embedded in each other’s lives in a way the police will never be. What would it mean to see these existing connections as the strongest possible protection against present or future violence?”
If We Abolish Police, What Happens to Rapists?
Article by Cassandra Mensah
“I am a Black attorney who represents survivors of domestic violence in New York courts. I am a survivor of sexual violence. I cannot and will not speak for all survivors. This is my response to the ‘but what about the rapists?’ question. It’s a starting point, and hopefully, a humble reminder that while some may be grappling with abolition for the first time, the aim to keep each other safe without the police and prisons is one that communities of color and Indigenous communists have been working toward for centuries.”
Transformative Justice: A Brief Description
Overview by Mia Mingus
“This was written for a transformative justice (TJ) intervention I led and I’m sharing it here for others to use in their work. It was meant to be a brief description for those who are not as familiar with the framework and orientation of TJ and do not have the time or capacity to read a large, long document. It is not a history of TJ, nor a complete naming of every part of TJ, or even a thorough fleshing out of all that is named here. It is an introductory description of work that can be hard to describe. It is meant to be a starting point, not an end-point. I hope it may be useful for some of you.”
Book by Angela Davis
"In this brilliant, thoroughly researched book, Angela Davis swings a wrecking ball into the racist and sexist underpinnings of the American prison system. [She levels] an unflinching critique of how and why more than 2 million Americans are presently behind bars, and the corporations who profit from their suffering. Davis explores the biases that criminalize communities of color, politically disenfranchising huge chunks of minority voters in the process."--Cynthia McKinney
All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence
Book by Emily Thuma
"With deep compassion, Thuma offers one of the most compelling historical analyses of how feminist activism of Black, queer, and criminalized women has worked to resist the long and dangerous reach of the carceral state. All Our Trials is an important text in the growing fields of critical prison studies and anti-carceral feminism and a critical addition to activist reading lists."--Beth E. Richie
Beyond Survival: Strategies for Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement
Edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
“In this collection, a diverse group of authors focuses on concrete and practical forms of redress and accountability, assessing existing practices and marking paths forward. They use a variety of forms—from toolkits to personal essays—to delve deeply into the “how to” of transformative justice, providing alternatives to calling the police, ways to support people having mental health crises, stories of community-based murder investigations, and much more. At the same time, they document the history of this radical movement, creating space for long-time organizers to reflect on victories, struggles, mistakes, and transformations.”
Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism
Anthology edited by Daisy Hernandez & Bushra Rehman
“In Colonize This!, Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman have collected a diverse, lively group of emerging writers who speak to the strength of community and the influence of color, to borders and divisions, and to the critical issues that need to be addressed to finally reach an era of racial freedom.”
Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology
Anthology edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
“Color of Violence radically repositions the anti-violence movement by putting women of color at its center. The contributors shift the focus from domestic violence and sexual assault and map innovative strategies of movement building and resistance used by women of color around the world. The volume's thirty pieces—which include poems, short essays, position papers, letters, and personal reflections—cover violence against women of color in its myriad forms, manifestations, and settings, while identifying the links between gender, militarism, reproductive and economic violence, prisons and policing, colonialism, and war. At a time of heightened state surveillance and repression of people of color, Color of Violence is an essential intervention.”
Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition
Book by Liat Ben-Mosh
“Liat Ben-Moshe provides case studies that show how prison abolition is not an unattainable goal but rather a reality, and how it plays out in different arenas of incarceration—antipsychiatry, the field of intellectual disabilities, and the fight against the prison-industrial complex. Her analysis of lived experience, history, and culture charts a way out of a failing system of incarceration.”
Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color
Book by Andrea J. Ritchie
“Invisible No More is a timely examination of how Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement. Placing stories of individual women—such as Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Dajerria Becton, Monica Jones, and Mya Hall—in the broader context of the twin epidemics of police violence and mass incarceration, it documents the evolution of movements centering women’s experiences of policing and demands a radical rethinking of our visions of safety—and the means we devote to achieving it.”
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms
Book by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law
“Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But in a searing, "cogent critique" (Library Journal), Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law reveal that many of these so-called reforms actually weave in new strands of punishment and control, bringing new populations who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment under physical control by the state.”
The Revolution Starts at Home CW: Graphic descriptions of violence
Confronting Partner Abuse in Activist Communities
“Take these tools into your own lives and see where they fit. Make and share your own. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for, and out of our own genius knowledge we will figure out how to make a revolution that leaves out none of us.”–Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice
Book by Mariame Kaba
*Donate here to help Haymarket Books send copies of the book to incarcerated people*
“A reflection on prison industrial complex abolition and a vision for collective liberation.”
Justice in America: Mariame Kaba and Prison Abolition
“[Prison industrial complex abolition] is a systemic and structural view of how the world operates. It tells a story of how we came to be and what we actually need to do in order to shift those conditions.”
The Intercept: Mariame Kaba Offers a People’s History of Prisons in the U.S.
Episode description: When Trump and his administration talk about crime and imprisonment in the black community, they do it with no historical context. They feed a racist narrative in addressing some of these staggering statistics. More than 60 percent of people in prison today are people of color. Black men are nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men, and Hispanic men are more than twice as likely. For black men in their 30s, one in every ten is in prison or jail on any given day. The rate of imprisonment for African American women is more than twice that of white women. Right now, the United States has more than two million people in prison. That’s a 500 percent increase over the past 40 years. That’s the highest rate of incarceration in the world.
Thinking Gender 2020 - Mariame Kaba, "Ending Violence Without Violence"
In this keynote speech, Mariame Kaba talks about the history of the creation of the state funded anti-rape and anti-domestic violence work.
No One is Disposable: Everyday Practices of Prison Abolition
“In a series of four short online videos produced by Barnard Center for Research on Women, activists Tourmaline and Dean Spade discuss prison abolition as a political framework, exploring why this is a top issue for those committed to supporting trans and gender-nonconforming people. These videos look at how to build societies where the process of creating justice is as important as the end—communities where no one is exiled.”
Prison Abolitionist Mariame Kaba on Cyntoia Brown, the First Step Act and NYC Building 4 New Jails
“In a web exclusive conversation, we speak with prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba about Cyntoia Brown being granted full clemency by Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam after serving 15 years in prison, the failures of the criminal justice reform bill known as the First Step Act, and the fight against NYC jail expansion as Mayor Bill de Blasio proposes building four new jails. Kaba is an organizer and educator who has worked on anti-domestic violence programs, anti-incarceration and racial justice programs since the late 1980s. Kaba is the co-founder of Survived and Punished, an organization that supports survivors of violence who have been criminalized for defending themselves. She’s also a board member of Critical Resistance.”
Abolish Policing, Not Just the Police
“As we stand on the precipice of so much potential change, there’s an understandable impulse to reach for “replacements” -- institutions to fill in for police and prisons. Yet we can’t simply call for social workers to replace police…
A just society will not be achieved until we stop looking for ways to make policing and prisons more humane and focus on building the society we actually want to live in.
Abolitionist organizer Mariame Kaba talks with journalists Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, authors of the forthcoming book Prison By Any Other Name for a discussion of the urgent need to use this moment for transformative change.”
Leila Raven pushed for accountability and justice outside of the carceral state when she was assaulted and abused by a former Commune Magazine editor. She says, “Removing one rapist from a community is the easy work; interrogating the ways that the community has promoted and enabled rape culture is the hard part.” Read her open letter to the magazine and explore more resources on abolition here.
Prison abolition FAQ by K Agbebiyi (@sheabutterfemme)
This FAQ is assembled and answered by K Agbebiyi. They co-tweet and organize Survived and Punished NYC and Free Them All for Public Health. They are a young Black abolitionist and self-identified dyke. We have learned so much from K’s work and would enthusiastically encourage everyone to follow them on twitter to learn more about their work!