Since the George Floyd protests I’ve learned a lot about the arguments of prison abolition, and found them quite persuasive. I have a couple questions though that I was hoping I could find answers to here, as they relate to dialectical materialism which doesn’t seem to come up that much when looking into abolition online.
I’ve been reading through elementary principles of philosophy, and while doing so I had the realization materialism applied to one of the common prison abolitionist arguments: that the idea that some people are “naturally” bad (thus un-rehabilitatible and must be removed from society), is untrue and has been used historically to dehumanize people in the past, often those with disabilities. My current understanding of materialism would follow that the material conditions surrounding someone significantly impacts their ideas and, therefore, behaviors. So a materialist and abolitionist would find common ground saying that if everyone’s basic needs were met (and if the proletariat owned the means of production, for the materialist), then anti-social behaviors would essentially go away. Is this a correct interpretation? And if so, does that mean a marxist-leninist would be in favor of prison abolition (in a society with no imperialist threat and after sufficient time to ensure everyone was in fact having their needs met)?
I’m a half-measures sort of prison abolitionist so this is going to be the bias in my reply upfront, so make of that what you will.
Some materialists will absolutely see the eradication of the causes of material deprivation and the establishment of a genuinely rehabilitative and restorative justice system, not to be conflated with the current carceral system, will lead to the eradication of crime.
Some take a long view, withering-away-of-the-
statecriminogenic conditions perspective, believing that we need a transitional phase to eradicate the current material conditions that drive criminality and that there’s probably going to be a lag-time between addressing those material conditions and people’s behaviour to adjust and for culture to change. Likely that the old guard who were raised under criminogenic conditions will need to die off first (old habits die hard) and potentially even longer than that. This position often leads to people aiming for full abolition but while maintaining a provisional rehabilitation system until such a time that these criminogenic conditions are eradicated.Others believe that the carceral system is either completely broken or it’s working exactly as its designed to work however they would posit that a materialist analysis includes the fact that humans have a predisposition towards committing so-called crimes of “passion”, crimes of opportunity, and crimes of exploitation, and that this has existed long before they was even a concept of crime and that they will continue to exist for as long as humanity does, regardless of the advances that a post-revolution society makes; road rage will still exist as will child abuse and people acting violently in the heat of the moment or stealing/destroying things because the opportunity presented itself. The people who believe this would tend to advocate for true rehabilitation but they are the ones who see a role for rehabilitative institutions in society existing essentially forever, albeit in ways that are radically different to the ones we see today (which are better understood as factories of recidivism rather than as rehabilitation facilities).
For me, I want to see rehabilitation facilities. I believe that some people have abnormalities in their brain that cause them to either be unable to or unwilling to prevent themselves from acting criminally. I’m talking like brain injuries and people who have narcissistic personality disorder coupled with a proven tendency to be violent and so on. (Caveat here to say that most people who have a brain injury or narcissistic personality disorder are not prone to violence, so I’m not arguing for rounding them all up or anything like that.)
I believe this number to be very low, but I believe it exists and will continue to. I don’t believe in punishing these people for a retributive sense of “justice”. But I believe that we need to mitigate the risks to the community and we need to provide supports to the people who fit this category. In my mind, a model that is more akin to a group home or low security prison is the right answer here, with some Scandinavian approaches to be ideal. For things like day release in the community for people who are violent and unable/unwilling to moderate these urges, I think it’s still possible to participate in the community in a limited and especially a supervised way.
If that means assigning one or more rehab workers to the individual when they are on day release for employment or engaging with the community and using an ankle bracelet and setting a strict curfew and monitoring their access to the internet etc. then so be it.
The counterargument here might be that a gilded cage is a prison made to look pretty. That’s not untrue. But I still think we need to balance the safety of the community against the rights of people who commit crimes and that erring too far on the rights of people who commit crimes can, in some circumstances, risk causing serious harm to the community. From my perspective, ultimately part of the picture of criminogenesis is that sometimes those who commit crimes are ones who have been pushed to do so by being victims of crime.
I’m not saying that every victim of crime or every abuse victim will then go on to become a criminal or an abuser but there is a link and while I recognise that there are structural factors at play which account for the majority of crime we see today, there are other factors like biological, psychological, and cultural ones that we can’t necessarily fix even with the material conditions being addressed and this needs to be considered as part of a broad materialist analysis of crime and how we should go about addressing it.
Thanks, this was a really thorough response! I really appreciate it. That all makes a lot of sense to me. I think I’m personally on board with rehabilitation facilities operating as you described, but definitely only in cases of repeated offenders of pretty heinous crimes. For the vast majority of crimes, it seems fine to just focus on making the victim whole again and, if applicable, solving whatever conditions led to the crime happening in the first place (e.g. fixing the problem of drunk driving by ensuring there’s convenient and safe transportation available). Definitely agree with the abolitionist idea that punishments for the sake of retribution or deterrence is ineffective and unjust.
I guess, to a certain degree, discussion of how much crime will actually go away in a society all needs are met in is still all theoretical. It’s hard to say just how big of a population there is that would still be “unable or unwilling to prevent themselves from acting criminally”. There’s part of me that still wants to insist that population literally wouldn’t exist, mostly rooted in general skepticism around psychiatry’s current understanding of nuero-atypical people (given its very poor historical track record), but I ultimately don’t know. You adding “or unwilling” makes me significantly more comfortable agreeing it’ll likely always be a non-zero population being discussed here, though.
It’s interesting that you brought up cultural factors as one not being fixed by addressing material conditions and mode of economy. I think that might be more relevant in terms of what must be done immediately to make the current incarceral system more humane, true prison abolition is such a long-term project that I think cultural shifts can be considered part of it. Like, I suspect crimes that occur following someone discovering they’ve been cheated on will likely go away over time, as I feel like constructs like sex, gender, and monogamy will wither away. Once again this is all theoretical, but I wonder if large cultural shifts like that, if they do happen, could make some of the crimes you mentioned as likely to stick around “as long as humanity does” fade away as well.
Once again, thanks for the response. I appreciate your perspective and I believe it’s improved my understanding of prison abolitionism.
Glad it was useful!
There’s part of me that still wants to insist that population literally wouldn’t exist, mostly rooted in general skepticism around psychiatry’s current understanding of nuero-atypical people (given its very poor historical track record), but I ultimately don’t know. You adding “or unwilling” makes me significantly more comfortable agreeing it’ll likely always be a non-zero population being discussed here, though.
Yeah it’s a big discussion to be had about this. I guess I have the advantage of having some personal insight as my dad had zero empathy. That’s not hyperbole in any way. It took a very long time for me to realise that human relationships were all instrumentalised to him and that all I represented to him was yet-another instrument. For him, his conditions as a child were very much ones that created this as a response in him or which did not allow for him to develop a sense of empathy and a way of relating to others beyond a very undeveloped “What can I get out of them or how can I use them to advance my own agenda?” paradigm. I’m not 100% certain that he has zero capacity or willingness to be able to change this but I know for all of his life, up until the point I went no-contact at least, there was no observable progress on this and he was extremely harmful to the people around him. So idk if you could call him a product of a developmental sort of criminogenic conditions or whether it was a mix of nature and nurture there but tbh it’s really not something that I want to speculate on because it’s difficult to talk about my experience of who he was/potentially still is.
At the end of the day, I was subject to very similar conditions as his, ones that could be understood as criminogenic, due to me being on the receiving end of an intergenerational cycle of violence and abuse so I react very strongly against the abdication of personal responsibility inherent to the notion that your prior conditions are the only factor responsible for criminal behaviour because then that means my primary perpetrator of childhood abuse is given a free pass since he is not recognised as an agent in this but merely as a vessel for the abuse in his own upbringing which he had no choice but to transmit onto me and others in my family.
On the other hand, clearly this is a personal issue so maybe I’m overly invested in it.
Like, I suspect crimes that occur following someone discovering they’ve been cheated on will likely go away over time, as I feel like constructs like sex, gender, and monogamy will wither away.
English is shit x2
Crimes of “passion” is a cursed term but it’s the prevailing one so I’m using what’s at hand. Crimes of “passion” refers to things that are done in the heat of the moment, such as road rage. While crimes relating to intimate partners is very often related to crimes of passion, it can also just be when someone acts in an “irrational” way in the moment without any romance being in the equation. It’s the opposite of a premeditated crime and it’s different to a crime of opportunity, like stealing some cash that has been left sitting on a restaurant table.
incarceral system
English is shit x2, part two
*Carceral system
It’s one of those flammable/inflammable or disposed/indisposed situations. Carceral means relating to imprisonment. Naturally, if you’re imprisoned then you should be “carcerated”, but no you’re “incarcerated” instead. What a sorry excuse for a language.
