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Maybe it’s just me but I couldn’t find an actual argument. Unless it’s that the murderer’s life is just as valuable so it’s bad to steal part of it from him by

Maybe it’s just me but I couldn’t find an actual argument. Unless it’s that the murderer’s life is just as valuable so it’s bad to steal part of it from him by putting him in prison. I don’t think anyone outside academia values the lives of murderers very much, is there another argument in there somewhere?

zichy 7y ago
>I don’t think anyone outside academia values the lives of murderers very much What.
- Grustaf 7y ago
  I should have said left-wing academia I guess but it’s sort of tautological.
wahern 7y ago
Because Gilmore isn't trying to make an argument about specific approaches. She's trying to change the narrative--the way to reduce violence in society is to address the root causes of violence, not react to it after the fact as if both violence and violent people are inevitable. Does she actually believe that prison would never be necessary for anyone if we could enact the ideal set of societal changes? It's not clear to me that she actually believes that.[1] I'm particularly doubtful that she thinks we can just turn loose existing violent offenders. If you read between the lines what she seems to believe is that the abolition movement as she understands it is more a process than a goal, and it's largely prospective. Note that she's quite critical of the motives of other reformists. [1] In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she thought both the question and the answer irrelevant. We see an elephant in the room and she's saying, "there is no elephant". That is, if you presuppose an elephant you're going to end up creating one.
- charlescearl 7y ago
  That was the sense I was getting. I’ve been grappling with the implications. The whole concept of prison and policing in the US — I’ve just experienced as state sponsored violence against the communities that I’ve lived in. Releasing a violent predator just seems wrong, but US isn’t even trying to rehabilitate, there has to be an alternative.
  - Grustaf 7y ago
    Yes imprisonment is a form of violence, but it’s a form of violence that is almost universally recognized as just, when exercised against duly convicted criminals.
- roca 7y ago
  > It's not clear to me that she actually believes that. It's unfortunate that a long, in-depth, sympathetic article titled "Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind" didn't make it clear to you whether Ruth Wilson Gilmore believes prison is necessary. Personally I have taken prison abolitionists at their word, that they actually do want to abolish prisons. I have long been genuinely curious how they would handle serious crime in the complete absence of prisons. I expect this is the first thing most people would want to know about their program. It's surprising and disappointing that the article (and other articles I've read on this subject) fails to answer that question.
  - wahern 7y ago
    Does anybody believe that perfect equality (of wealth, of opportunity, of w'ever) is possible? Does that mean we as a society shouldn't bother establishing equality as goal? In a large election a single vote doesn't matter. And yet if we permitted that fact to dissuade us from voting nobody would vote and democracy as we practice it would be impossible. I haven't read Gilmore's writings, and I'm basing my interpretations off the article author's gloss--their selected quotations and elaborations--but applying the rule of lenity and in light of some of her very cogent points (that private prisons aren't a big problem, that the vast majority of prisoners are in fact violent offenders) it would seem that she's applying the same principles as Plato and MLK. Specifically, that society can only achieve and will only reap that which it orders itself around. Whether irrepressibly violent people will always exist is beside the point. If we build a system directed toward the management of such people, then those are the people we're going to get, above and beyond whatever genetically predetermined base rate we might otherwise find in the population. How does Gilmore translate her abolitionist position into specific policy prescriptions? I don't know. Maybe they're contentious; maybe I'd disagree with them altogether. But at least superficially I don't see abolitionism particularly inconsistent. I doubt you feel compelled to demand that a Get Out the Vote volunteer explain to you why voting matters, or demand that a "Why Voting Matters" article provide a concrete proof for why it matters. It's more intuitive that voting could only matter in so far as enough people have internalized the notion that it matters and act accordingly. Americans, I think, lack that intuition and suspension of disbelief when it comes to violence and crime. Some things are self-fulfilling prophecies--if we believe or don't believe, that's what we'll get. How societies manage to shift from one set of expectations to the polar opposite... that's still something of a mystery, but surely it involves being open to advocates like Gilmore.
- Grustaf 7y ago
  One good way to “change the narrative” is to come up with arguments. I agree it would be nice to stop criminals from committing crimes in the first place, but until we achieve that we need prisons. And once we achieve it prisons are a moot point. So it seems she should just focus on making criminals stop committing crimes, if she thinks that is possible. I don’t think she does believe that though, she’s probably not a complete fool
  - wahern 7y ago
    Re-read the paragraphs about Spain and the middle-schoolers. It wasn't easy for me to immediately grasp the argument, but I think it boils down to that the way to reduce violence is for society to model a less violent path. Specifically those few paragraphs seem to be saying, 1) Spain has light sentences for murder. 2) Spain has a low murder rate. 3) Leniency in criminal justice begets less violence. 4) Imagine the most lenient system possible--no incarceration whatsoever. That may result in the least amount of violent crime.[1] Step #3 is I think the most contentious. Is leniency a cause or effect? In reality it's probably both. And I presume that Gilmore could provide much more sophisticated arguments that don't rely on there being a simple, unidirectional causal relationship. But my impression from the article is that the overarching emphasis is that there is some causal relationship and that by refusing to accept that it exists we perpetuate an inflated rate of violence. We can't productively get into the weeds of concrete prescriptions without first establishing the nature of the causal relationship. [1] Nowhere does the article imply the claim that all violent crime could be prevented. At least conceptually, it may be better to have a few Ted Bundys roaming freely than to construct a criminal justice system that molds many more people into gladiators. In any event, this would be a quantitive question and not something that is categorically foreclosed. Establishing that Ted Bundys exist and would kill doesn't resolve anything, so why require Gilmore to answer how she would prevent Ted Bundys from killing?
    - Grustaf 7y ago
      The Vatican also has a low murder rate, and probably no prisons at all. If she can’t prove 3 then she has no argument at all, 3 is where the argument would be. Of course she needs to provision for violent criminals. They are one of the main reasons we need prisons, so if she wants to get rid of prisons she needs to have an alternative plan. She can’t just wave her hand and say they will magically disappear. Only very gullible people seduced by ideology would fall for that. If she can’t present an alternative, why would anyone care what she says?

zichy 7y ago

>I don’t think anyone outside academia values the lives of murderers very much What.

Grustaf 7y ago
I should have said left-wing academia I guess but it’s sort of tautological.

wahern 7y ago

Because Gilmore isn't trying to make an argument about specific approaches. She's trying to change the narrative--the way to reduce violence in society is to address the root causes of violence, not react to it after the fact as if both violence and violent people are inevitable. Does she actually believe that prison would never be necessary for anyone if we could enact the ideal set of societal changes? It's not clear to me that she actually believes that.[1] I'm particularly doubtful that she thinks we can just turn loose existing violent offenders. If you read between the lines what she seems to believe is that the abolition movement as she understands it is more a process than a goal, and it's largely prospective. Note that she's quite critical of the motives of other reformists. [1] In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she thought both the question and the answer irrelevant. We see an elephant in the room and she's saying, "there is no elephant". That is, if you presuppose an elephant you're going to end up creating one.

charlescearl 7y ago
That was the sense I was getting. I’ve been grappling with the implications. The whole concept of prison and policing in the US — I’ve just experienced as state sponsored violence against the communities that I’ve lived in. Releasing a violent predator just seems wrong, but US isn’t even trying to rehabilitate, there has to be an alternative.
- Grustaf 7y ago
  Yes imprisonment is a form of violence, but it’s a form of violence that is almost universally recognized as just, when exercised against duly convicted criminals.
roca 7y ago
> It's not clear to me that she actually believes that. It's unfortunate that a long, in-depth, sympathetic article titled "Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind" didn't make it clear to you whether Ruth Wilson Gilmore believes prison is necessary. Personally I have taken prison abolitionists at their word, that they actually do want to abolish prisons. I have long been genuinely curious how they would handle serious crime in the complete absence of prisons. I expect this is the first thing most people would want to know about their program. It's surprising and disappointing that the article (and other articles I've read on this subject) fails to answer that question.
- wahern 7y ago
  Does anybody believe that perfect equality (of wealth, of opportunity, of w'ever) is possible? Does that mean we as a society shouldn't bother establishing equality as goal? In a large election a single vote doesn't matter. And yet if we permitted that fact to dissuade us from voting nobody would vote and democracy as we practice it would be impossible. I haven't read Gilmore's writings, and I'm basing my interpretations off the article author's gloss--their selected quotations and elaborations--but applying the rule of lenity and in light of some of her very cogent points (that private prisons aren't a big problem, that the vast majority of prisoners are in fact violent offenders) it would seem that she's applying the same principles as Plato and MLK. Specifically, that society can only achieve and will only reap that which it orders itself around. Whether irrepressibly violent people will always exist is beside the point. If we build a system directed toward the management of such people, then those are the people we're going to get, above and beyond whatever genetically predetermined base rate we might otherwise find in the population. How does Gilmore translate her abolitionist position into specific policy prescriptions? I don't know. Maybe they're contentious; maybe I'd disagree with them altogether. But at least superficially I don't see abolitionism particularly inconsistent. I doubt you feel compelled to demand that a Get Out the Vote volunteer explain to you why voting matters, or demand that a "Why Voting Matters" article provide a concrete proof for why it matters. It's more intuitive that voting could only matter in so far as enough people have internalized the notion that it matters and act accordingly. Americans, I think, lack that intuition and suspension of disbelief when it comes to violence and crime. Some things are self-fulfilling prophecies--if we believe or don't believe, that's what we'll get. How societies manage to shift from one set of expectations to the polar opposite... that's still something of a mystery, but surely it involves being open to advocates like Gilmore.
Grustaf 7y ago
One good way to “change the narrative” is to come up with arguments. I agree it would be nice to stop criminals from committing crimes in the first place, but until we achieve that we need prisons. And once we achieve it prisons are a moot point. So it seems she should just focus on making criminals stop committing crimes, if she thinks that is possible. I don’t think she does believe that though, she’s probably not a complete fool
- wahern 7y ago
  Re-read the paragraphs about Spain and the middle-schoolers. It wasn't easy for me to immediately grasp the argument, but I think it boils down to that the way to reduce violence is for society to model a less violent path. Specifically those few paragraphs seem to be saying, 1) Spain has light sentences for murder. 2) Spain has a low murder rate. 3) Leniency in criminal justice begets less violence. 4) Imagine the most lenient system possible--no incarceration whatsoever. That may result in the least amount of violent crime.[1] Step #3 is I think the most contentious. Is leniency a cause or effect? In reality it's probably both. And I presume that Gilmore could provide much more sophisticated arguments that don't rely on there being a simple, unidirectional causal relationship. But my impression from the article is that the overarching emphasis is that there is some causal relationship and that by refusing to accept that it exists we perpetuate an inflated rate of violence. We can't productively get into the weeds of concrete prescriptions without first establishing the nature of the causal relationship. [1] Nowhere does the article imply the claim that all violent crime could be prevented. At least conceptually, it may be better to have a few Ted Bundys roaming freely than to construct a criminal justice system that molds many more people into gladiators. In any event, this would be a quantitive question and not something that is categorically foreclosed. Establishing that Ted Bundys exist and would kill doesn't resolve anything, so why require Gilmore to answer how she would prevent Ted Bundys from killing?
  - Grustaf 7y ago
    The Vatican also has a low murder rate, and probably no prisons at all. If she can’t prove 3 then she has no argument at all, 3 is where the argument would be. Of course she needs to provision for violent criminals. They are one of the main reasons we need prisons, so if she wants to get rid of prisons she needs to have an alternative plan. She can’t just wave her hand and say they will magically disappear. Only very gullible people seduced by ideology would fall for that. If she can’t present an alternative, why would anyone care what she says?