Reddit reviews Are Prisons Obsolete?

No I don't, bootlicker. And I'll tell you why

The prison industrial complex has been the topic of music for decades. It's been in documentaries, and television and books and more books and scandals and more scandals and if you think all this shouting is new then know we're translating it back into jukebox and old lady's language, because at the end of the day we all know. We bullshit or we ignore it or we bullshit again as we hang on to our "I voted" stickers and tell us that if we all just stay calm and debate it out then next year it'll be different, year after year, literal decade after decade.

But one day the ghetto next door will run out of little black boys. You'll watch as a neighbor gets snatched, as well meaning college kids get beat by those protecting "law and order," and maybe someone you know gets hashtagged, and finally you understand that it's "civility" itself thats the problem. And when you're there we'll be there with you, at your side, making sure the bootlickers who stood by and let the happen don't get to plug their ears on us.

I am a rising 3L. It would have been helpful if you gave a bit more information about why in the world you're considering becoming a lawyer. Since you didn't, I'm just going to give you a huge list of links to materials which have informed my general philosophical understanding of law, justice, and the legal profession and hope you find some of it interesting.

Music:

Dead Prez - Fuck the Law

Crass - Bloody Revolution

GG Allin - Fuck Authority

Wesley Willis - It’s Against the Law

Wilco - Against the Law

Golf Wang - Earl

MellowHype - Fuck the Police

KottonMouth Kings and ICP - Fuck the Police

RATM - Fuck the Police

Dead Kennedys - Police Truck

Choking Victim - Money

Anti-Flag - No Borders, No Nations

Utah Phillips - I Will Not Obey

Woody Guthrie - Jesus Christ

Todos Tus Muertos - Gente Que No

David Wrench - A Radical Song

Books:

Michel Foucault - Discipline and Punish(PDF Link)

[Thomas Geoghegan - The Law in Shambles](http://www.amazon.com/Law-Shambles-Thomas-
Geoghegan/dp/097281969X)

Rawn James Jr. - Root and Branch

Deborah Rhode - In the Interests of Justice: Reforming the Legal Profession

Alan Dershowitz - Letters to a Young Lawyer

Richard Posner - Overcoming Law (specifically read "The Material Basis of Jurisprudence")

Susan Eaton - The Children in Room E4

Sunny Schwartz - Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption, and One Woman's Fight to Restore Justice to All

Angela Davis - Are Prisons Obsolete?

Alan Dershowitz - The Best Defense

John Rawls - A Theory of Justice

Robert Nozick - Anarchy, State and Utopia

Ward Churchill - Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Anglo-American Laws

J. Shoshanna Ehrlich - Who Decides? The Abortion Rights of Teens

Film:

Judgment at Nuremberg

A Civil Action

To Kill a Mockingbird

The idea of people losing privileges, being removed from the world permanently, etc. is a relatively recent idea. We should meet it with skepticism. I'm certainly not the first to propose this, and prison-default thinking is outdated.

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis. Good place to get a start and to get a great source.

Can't go wrong with Foucoult either.

Prison "reform" is an oxymoron. This article doesn't describe ANY of the measures Webb will supposedly introduce. The point is that modern prisons have served an important purpose since the 1960s --- when economic crises and lobbying forced the government to drastically reduce/abandon corporate taxation, there was no longer a tax base for Great Society and New Deal programs used to support/co-opt marginalized impoverished groups like minority single mothers. Historically, however, these groups are prone to cause problems and revolt, and this also became an issue in the 1960s (the Watts riots were the first BLACK-instigated race riot). So what does the United States do with its surplus humans? This increasingly becomes a problem as globalization forces jobs oversees and creates more people with no place in US society? Solution: Lock em up --- you can even boost local economies with prison-building contracts and by hiring guards and other contractors. Two birds with one stone! The US will never seriously tackle the prison issue. I believe in prison abolitionism --- incarceration has NOT always been the way society has dealt with marginalized groups and 'criminals'... Prison abolitionism is about finding alternatives (better education, [mental] healthcare, decriminalization of drugs) to vastly reduce the number of incarcerated and actually challenge the government and corporate interests that make up what many call the contemporary 'prison industrial complex.'

For a great summary of the critique of the contemporary US prison system and an outline of prison abolitionism, check out Angela Davis' 100-page "Are Prisons Obsolete?"
http://www.amazon.com/Are-Prisons-Obsolete-Angela-Davis/dp/1583225811/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230610533&sr=8-1

One theory is that we should get rid of prisons altogether.

http://www.amazon.com/Are-Prisons-Obsolete-Angela-Davis/dp/1583225811

My opinion is that improvements to the prison system will come from improvements to our legal system. End the drug war and reduce sentencing for non-violent, non-fraudulent offenses. When there are fewer prisoners, our penitentiaries will be better off.

Also, in terms of policy, disenfranchising those who serve time only ensures that the people who experience prison will not be able to give feedback on it. Everyone deserves the right to vote, no matter what they've done.

Secondly, prisons should not be run by private companies. Imprisoning people should not be profitable. If the state wants to enact policies that require the imprisonment of its citizens, then it should be prepared to handle the cost of doling out that punishment. Then maybe laws would more accurately reflect the reasonableness of sentences to their crimes.

Angela Davis wrote a really interesting book on this Are Prisons Obsolete. Lots of discussion punishment vs. rehab and how the current system came about essentially to continue to oppress people and ignore the social systems that cause crime.

Her autobiography on how she was on the run from the FBI for her connection to the killing of a judge and her prison experience is also a really good read.

The War On Drugs: The Prison Industrial Complex - a documentary about the many ways people profit off of the U.S. prison system

"Are Prisons Obsolete?" by Angela Davis

• a book which poses very interesting ideas about abolishing the prison system completely

I do agree with you, but there is another reasoning for punishment that is widely held by many people, and that is the concept of vengence/retribution/revenge. Eye for an eye, even though I do not, a lot of people do believe in this. We need to figure out a justice system that compassionately and constructively rehabilitates, AND satisfies society's need for retribution.

There is actually a movement to abolish prisons entirely.

This is a really good introductory read to the topic, Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis. It is only like 130pgs or so, and it reads fast.