1 Mass incarceration: How did we get here? How is it serving us? 1 Mass incarceration: How did we get here? How is it serving us?
We begin our study of criminal law by considering conventional theories of punishment. The aim of this week's supplemental discussion is to give you a reality-check--an opportunity to test your sensibilities about how, when and why you might justify punishment by examining the functioning of the U.S. prison system. We suggest that, in reflecting on the various interviews below, you ask yourself the following questions:
1. What is your “favorite” theory of punishment (retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation, etc). Which one do you find most persuasive when thinking about why we punish those who break laws?
2. How, if at all, did the interview(s) you read or listened to challenge that justification for punishment?
3. What did you learn that changed your way of thinking about these issues?
4. If you could ask the interviewee one question, what would it be?
1.1. A Former Prosecutor's Case for Prison Abolition (podcast, 64 minutes)
1.2. What Defunding the Police May Mean (podcast, 46 minutes)
1.3. Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition (podcast, 90 minutes, and transcript)
1.4. People's Budget LA (report)
1.5. Vision for Black Lives Policy Platform
1.6. The Origins of American Policing (podcast, 64 minutes)
1.7. People's Budget LA (2 minute video)
1.8. Freedom to Thrive (Participatory Budgeting)
1.9. Ta-Nehisi Coates on State Non-Violence (podcast, 92 minutes)
1.10. Who’s Left? Prison Abolition. Words by Mariame Kaba, Illustration by Flynn Nicholls (Medium, 12/25/17)
1.11. Decarceration and Crime During COVID-19, ACLU
"Nearly every county jail that we examined reduced their population, if only slightly, between the end of February and the end of April. Over this time period, we found that the reduction in jail population was functionally unrelated to crime trends in the following months. In fact, in nearly every city explored, fewer crimes occurred between March and May in 2020 compared to the same time period in 2019, regardless of the magnitude of the difference in jail population."