Session 10:

Abolish Carceral Theories, Research Methods & Praxis

Saturday 17 April 2021 ~ 9:35 - 10:50am Pacific

Recording available here (76 mins)

The Routledge International Handbook of Penal Abolition: Context, Themes, and Vision

Michael J. Coyle & David Gordon Scott

In this presentation the two editors of the recently published Routledge International Handbook of Penal Abolition - 1st Edition provide an overview of this contribution to the abolitionist literature through a discussion of context, focus, and vision. The presentation will start with a discussion of the context of the Handbook – highlighting the importance of penal abolitionism as a global movement and the need for knowledge, dialogue and debate between abolitionists across the world. It also situates the Handbook in historical context, highlighting the absence of any new ‘abolitionist handbook’ since the USA-focused ‘Instead on Prisons’ in the mid-1970s. The presentation then moves to the focus, themes and content of the Handbook, providing the audience with a clear idea of what it entails: works from abolition organizers around the world, abolitionists in prisons all over the world, and abolitionist scholars from most continents. Finally, the presentation details the abolitionist vision inspiring the Handbook, detailing both the vision behind the collation and editing of the text, but also a vision of how it is hoped that this Handbook and the ideas contained within will be of assistance globally to abolitionist activists and scholars all around the world. The presentation will come to a close with an opportunity for questions to be put to the editors about the Handbook.

Michael J. Coyle, PhD is Professor, Department of Political Science and “Criminal” Justice, California State University, Chico. He is the author of Talking Criminal Justice: Language and the Just Society (Routledge 2013) and the forthcoming Seeing Crime: Penal Abolition as the End of Utopian Criminal Justice (University of California Press 2021).

David Gordon Scott, PhD, works at The Open University, UK and has been engaged in abolitionist struggles for justice for over 25 years. He became a committed penal abolitionist after undertaking extensive ethnographic prison research for his first book, Heavenly Confinement? (1996, L.A.publishing) in six prisons in the North East of England. Since then he has published extensively on prisons and punishment from an abolitionist perspective and some of his most well-known books include Penology (2008, Sage) Why Prison? (2013, Cambridge University Press), Controversial Issues in Prisons (2010, Open University Press), Against Imprisonment (2018, Waterside Press), For Abolition (2020, Waterside Press) and the International Handbook of Penal Abolition (2021, Routledge). As well as leading a number of abolitionist activist campaigns against penal expansion, he has also debated abolitionist ideas widely in the mainstream media, including narrating the 2020 short BBC film Viewpoint: What would a world without prisons be like?

Carving the terrain of freedom: The multidimensionality of youth-focused abolition geography

Kaitlyn J. Selman

Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2020) describes abolition as “a plot against racial capitalism, which is all capitalism, not just some of it.” Inspired by such an articulation, the following draws on the ideas and efforts of six abolitionist-oriented youth justice organizations across the US to begin to “plot” the dimensions, narratives, and geographies of abolitionist work. Here I focus on the horizontality, verticality, and depth of the abolitionist project: abolition is horizontal in that it requires (and facilitates) solidarity across people and communities, vertical in the sense that it incites transformation on multiple levels including the community and institutions, and as it seeks to transcend the temporal limitations of linear progress, it has depth. In exploring these dimensions, I demonstrate how abolition recognizes and embodies the complexity required for the creation of new worlds, those far beyond the cages of the current one.

Dr. Kaitlyn J. Selman is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. Her work lies at the intersection of youth justice, critical carceral studies, and abolitionist organizing. Her most recent publications appear in Contemporary Justice Review; Youth Justice; and Critical Criminology.

Remember Those In Prison: Practical Abolitionist Ministry for Our Time

David Brazil & Sarah Pritchard

Since the uprisings of 2020, discourse around abolition has entered the mainstream – but what does it look like to move beyond reading books and into the practice of abolition? Pastors Sarah Pritchard and David Brazil will speak about the origin, vision, and growth of Abolition Apostles, the national jail and prison ministry they co-founded which serves over 1100 incarcerated people in thirty states with the help of 1400+ volunteers across the country. Through a fivefold platform of solidarity including pen-paling, material support, visitation, advocacy, and re-entry, Abolition Apostles seeks to enact a concrete abolitionist praxis that transforms our relationships with those impacted by mass incarceration as a first step toward a world without prisons. It also seeks to obey the call of Christian scripture in Hebrews 13:3: "Remember those in prison as if you were there with them." David and Sarah will discuss the role of religion in organizing against mass incarceration, and share information about the practical side of organizing a large-scale volunteer program in solidarity with those behind prison walls. Participants will have the opportunity to learn how to support the work of Abolition Apostles through prison pen-paling and other forms of mutual aid.

David Brazil is a pastor, poet, and community organizer. He is the founding co-pastor of Abolition Apostles, a national jail and prison ministry based in New Orleans – the most incarcerated place in the world. With his wife and co-pastor Sarah Pritchard, he leads Apostles Fellowship, a non-denominational Christian church.

Sarah Pritchard is a pastor, dancer, and organizer. She is the founding co-pastor of Abolition Apostles, a national jail and prison ministry based in New Orleans – the most incarcerated place in the world. With her husband and co-pastor David Brazil, she leads Apostles Fellowship, a non-denominational Christian church.