The Movement To Abolish Prisons And The Police
Protesters march by a mural of Frederick Douglas, during a march in memory of Rayshard Brooks and other victims of police violence in Boston, Massachusetts. JOSEPH PREZIOSO/JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Protesters march by a mural of Frederick Douglas, during a march in memory of Rayshard Brooks and other victims of police violence in Boston, Massachusetts.
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty ImagesSince the killing of George Floyd by police officers, more and more of us have been taking a critical look at the criminal justice system.
Polls show that most Americans support some kind of prison reform, but there's a group of people who want to change the system entirely.
Abolitionists advocate for the absence of punitive structures and the development of a society that doesn't use punishment as the primary solution for transgression. It's as much about building systems that support communities as it is about doing away with cages and those that lock them.
But the abolition of prisons and police are difficult for many people to imagine.
We talked about it with James Kilgore, co-director of the First Followers Reentry Program and author of "Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time," Kim Wilson, co-host of the Beyond Prisons podcast and Nicole Lewis, staff writer with The Marshall Project.
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