#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

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

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.

Source: The Ugly Writers

### More Resources

Prison Abolition Syllabus, Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society, 2016

Abolition Toolkit and Transformative Justice Resources by Empty Cages Collective

Creative Interventions Toolkit to stop interpersonal violence

Critical Resistance: An international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex and The Abolitionist Toolkit

Prison Abolition is a Queer issue Zine

Prisons Will Not Protect You, Against Equality

The New Abolitionists: (Neo)slave Narratives And Contemporary Prison Writings

The Queer, feminist & trans politics of prison abolition toolkit

Films