There is a lot of noise out there about the results of the 2024 national elections. The results have been parsed dozens of ways, multiple communities have been scapegoated as responsible, and we’re faced with a future in which fascist forces were given a mandate to govern.
That’s a lot to take in.
While there will continue to be lessons to learn for many years to come, I’m interested in thinking about how the elections might impact the movement to abolish the prison industrial complex. Here are some lukewarm takes.
We already know a lot.
In the fight we are facing against mounting fascism, prison industrial complex abolitionists are already equipped with experience and knowledge from decades of struggling against the punishment system—the enforcing arm of fascist forces.
Strongman regimes require control. They attempt to achieve that by hijacking our common sense. We’ve seen these attempts through the “culture wars” and media campaigns designed to make us believe white men are being victimized or that immigrants threaten our existence. When these regimes cannot successfully make these lies ubiquitous, they resort to force.
Prison industrial complex abolitionists have experience with both sets of attempts. We know the ways false narratives about “criminals”—and who “belongs” in cages—have permeated societal common sense, and how in turn those ideas have driven policy and practice. We also know what it looks and feels like when the state resorts to physical force. Millions of us have experienced the humiliation of stop-and-search; the blunt force of a nightstick; the sting of tear gas, rubber bullets, and bean bags; or life within a cage.
Prison industrial complex abolitionists reject the metaphoric and literal violence of the punishment system and fight for freedom from it. Our experience in these fights is essential to resisting fascism in government and in everyday life. Prison industrial complex abolitionist organizers have experiences campaigning against swelling prisons, police forces, and “public safety” budgets. We reject criminalizing policies and practices, and establish community bail funds and practice jail solidarity. We also understand the logics of punishment and why they must be resisted. Because surveillance, policing, sentencing, and confinement are essential to achieving fascist goals, prison industrial complex abolitionists are essential to opposing fascism.
The prosecutor vs. the felon is the wrong frame.
This framing was not only insulting, it also overly narrowed the terrain for struggle by reducing a complicated choice to a stark binary playing on tired stereotypes. This framing persists post-election. Liberal pundits continue to characterize Donald Trump’s unsuitability for office as related to his felony charges and convictions. Kamala Harris, by contrast, they attempt to recuperate as a champion for justice, illustrated by her former role as a prosecutor. To continue to villainize people with felony convictions and elevate the people responsible for sending them to jail and prison undermines much of our work to complicate who gets criminalized and why.
Sure, people want Trump to get a taste of the medicine that so many people have suffered who may have caused less harm than he. Why shouldn’t he get punished as others have?
However, to argue this point directly contradicts our attempts to eliminate the punishment system. If we truly seek prison industrial complex abolition, we can’t reserve the punishment system for anyone, including our enemies. Similarly, to act as if prosecutors are somehow the “good guys” in our society suggests that criminalization, conviction, and confinement are legitimate solutions when we know they are not.
When we disrupt the binary of felon and prosecutor, we avoid being distracted by the stereotypes we get fed about people with felony convictions and about the attorneys who argue their guilt, and focus on what we need to know to best inform our fights.
The rule of law is the wrong backstop.
In the same vein, while attempts to invoke the rule of law or to challenge constitutionality may be the tools most readily available to legislators at all scales of government, the rest of us don’t need to reach for them when we know that the laws that govern us are racist, classist, misogynist, and generally used to contain and control rather than protect. If the law as it is structured were beneficial to us, it would not be a target of our efforts to eliminate the prison industrial complex. We know we can’t rely on the system of laws for justice and, as such, we also cannot apply it against our enemies and expect it to work in our favor.
If we believe that the prison industrial complex is an illegitimate system of institutions, policies, and practices, then it cannot be legitimately applied against anyone—friend or foe. Further, we deserve so much more than control through laws. We deserve safety, stability, and well-being. The rule of law can’t provide those.
Our political principles must guide us.
Prison industrial complex abolitionist politics provide guidance for navigating the current and coming conditions. Criminalizing frames and approaches don’t serve us. Thinking collaboratively, fortifying our health and well-being, and rejecting disposability does.
We’re in for a long, difficult fight against formidable opponents. Holding to our political principles will help us avoid being distracted by their stunts, help us prevent infiltration and disruption, and defend ourselves against direct attacks whether they be from the administrative state or vigilante neighbors. We will need to continue to study and hone our capabilities to bring the right skills to the fight, but our politics can provide guide rails and keep us focused on our targets and purpose.
Our politics guide our practice. We plan for a transformed future even as we attempt to address pain points in the here and now. We work collaboratively and never leave behind imprisoned people, people impacted by the violence of policing, and their loved ones. Prison industrial complex abolitionists have practical experience fighting a seemingly unbeatable opponent. We know how to fight for the world we want rather than a version of what we’re told we deserve. We are world-builders. We understand the necessity of carving new paths and making unbelievable ideas real. Prison industrial complex abolitionist organizers imagine beyond repressive horizons and chart a course for liberation. Our principles guide both the goals for our work and the ways we attempt to achieve those goals.
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What do we do now?
I definitely don’t have it all figured out, but here are some simple things we can do today using what we already know.
- Opt in to the resistance. Even if you decided to sit this election out, there is a a role for you to play within our new reality. Prison industrial complex abolitionists should care about the outcomes of all elections, because they deeply influence the conditions in which we all live. And we, in turn, can also influence those conditions through our organizing and activism.
- Pay attention to the moves, not the man. While Trump is the figurehead of the incoming regime, we will do well to be attentive to all the moves that are happening throughout the state and not simply the antics of this reality-TV buffoon. Project 2025 and Project Esther have already been offered as guides for this regime. Project 2025’s recommendations include consolidation of government agencies into a structure resembling a dictatorship and the complete elimination of the Department of Education. Project Esther employs elements of fascist ideology, and labels members of Congress and social justice advocates as anti-semites. The Trump regime has already signaled an intention to launch a massive deportation program, restore and expand the Muslim ban, expand natural resource extraction, and reject climate science. Congressional Republicans have begun attacks on nonprofits via H.R. 9495 and H.R. 6408, both of which threaten the tax status of groups identified as supporting “terrorism.” Beyond the national picture, we also need to remember that what happens at the city, county, and state scales is crucially important (and may offer helpful backstops against federal policy), and is more likely to have immediate impacts on our day-to-day lives.
- No pass for Biden and Harris. While we would be foolish to paint Harris and Trump as the same, Trump’s victory is not an excuse to forget Harris’s mean-spirited terms as San Francisco’s district attorney or California’s attorney general. Nor should we forget Biden’s roles in tying anti-violence to policing via the Violence Against Women Act and the devastating 1994 omnibus crime bill. And we are reminded daily of Harris and Biden’s support for Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine. We can oppose the incoming regime and oppose the current one at the same time. In our disdain for and resistance to governance by the MAGA power bloc, we may be tempted to imagine the current regime as somehow better or more favorable than it has been. But there are no good old days here.
- We know how to beat cops and cages. While we don’t always win, we do win sometimes and we learn valuable lessons from our losses. We can put that knowledge to work against the violence of the prison industrial complex no matter who is in power. The specificities of the conditions differ depending on the agenda of the regime, but what compels our efforts to eliminate the violence of the prison industrial complex persists.
- Don’t give up. Keep dreaming. One of the common criticisms of prison industrial complex abolitionists is that we are dreamers who are out of touch with reality. In truth, our dreaming is essential to our practice. While we need to remain rooted in the reality of our material conditions, our dreams help us imagine what is possible beyond the limits of hegemonic common sense. These dreams encourage us to experiment, to take risks, and to build the world we want and need. I believe in us and I believe that maintaining a hold on our dreams—and trying to make them real—will help us survive the worrisome days ahead.
Image: Kayle Kaupanger/Unsplash
