On Abolition

#ImmigrationDetentionSyllabus

Syrian refugee children art show in Long Beach, CA. Photo Credit: Kayra Martinez

The **#ImmigrationDetentionSyllabus** is a sixteen-part series of readings and tools to support education, research, and action to dissect and dismantle the U.S. immigration detention system. The syllabus is organized by theme and curated by historian [Tina Shull](https://medium.com/u/6e34ba3479d9) at [Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC)](http://endisolation.org).

Part Fifteen, “On Abolition,” provides a set of readings and organizational tools to conceptualize and act upon the necessity to build alternatives to detention and abolish the immigration detention system, prisons, and policing.

Readings

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison-abolition-reform-mass-incarceration

Alexander, Michelle, “The Fire This Time,” in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press, 2010.
Bernstein, Nell.****Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison. The New Press, 2016.
CR10 Publications Collective, Abolition Now: Ten Years of Strategy and Struggle Against the Prison Industrial Complex*. *AK Press, 2008.
Davis, Angela, Are Prisons Obsolete?**Seven Stories Press, 2003.
Ending Mass Incarceration: Charting a New Justice Reinvestment, Justice Strategies, 2013.
Harnett, Steven John. Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives. University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Loyd, Jenna M., Matt Mitchelson, and Andrew Burridge, “Borders, Prisons, and Abolitionist Visions,” and “Race, Capitalist Crisis, and Abolitionist Organizing: An Interview with Ruth Wilson Gilmore, February 2010,” in Beyond Walls and Cages: Prisons, Borders, and Global Crisis. University of Georgia Press, 2012.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison-abolition-reform-mass-incarceration

Hernández, Kelly Lytle, “Amnesty or Abolition: Felons, Illegals, and the Case for a New Abolition Movement,”Boom: A Journal of California 1.4 (Winter 2011), 54–68.
Resolution Calling for the Abolition of For-Profit Private Prisons, Presbyterian Church (USA), 2003.
Stanley, Eric, Dean Spade, and Queer (In)Justice, “Queering Prison Abolition, Now?”American Quarterly 64 (2012) 115–27.
Sudbury, Julia, “Reform or Abolition?: Using Popular Mobilizations to Dismantle the Prison-Industrial Complex,” Criminal Justice Matters 77 (2009) 17–19.

By Devyn Springer:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison-abolition-reform-mass-incarceration

Artwork by Mohammad, from immigration detention in Australia. The Refugee Art Project

### Alternatives to Detention

The International Detention Coalition has identified over 250 examples of alternatives to detention from 60 countries:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison-abolition-reform-mass-incarceration

There are Alternatives, Immigration Detention Coalition (2015):

Alternatives to Detention, Detention Watch Network.

ACLU Fact Sheet on Alternatives to Immigration Detention (ATD)

Ending the Use of Detention to Deter Migration, Detention Watch Network, April 2015.

Considering a Private Jail, Prison or Detention Center? A Resource Packet for Community Members and Public Officials Grassroots Leadership, September 2009.

Progress or Profit? Positive Alternatives to Privatization in Shelby County, TN — Proposes a set of solutions that will help the county cut spending and reduce its jail population while continuing to protect public safety. Grassroots Leadership and Coalition Against Private Prisons (CAPP), 2006.