During the 2020 uprisings, the movement to build a world without police and prisons burst into mainstream discourse, inspiring new people to get involved and raising questions for those who had never heard of abolition. This introductory workshop will explore some of the following questions: what is the prison industrial complex (PIC)? What are the goals, strategies, and vision of the PIC abolition movement? Is abolition realistic? What work do we need to do to build toward an abolitionist world? Why should those who care about ending systemic racism and mass incarceration embrace abolition?
Micah Herskind is an Atlanta-based organizer and abolitionist, a policy associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights, and a member of the Georgia Freedom Letters core organizing team. He is a co-creator of the #8ToAbolition political education project, and co-facilitates a slack group chat for Christian abolitionists. Micah writes, tweets, and sometimes speaks about prison abolition and the harm of mainstream criminal justice reforms, and keeps an updated resource guide on prison and police abolition.
This event was recorded on November 1, 2021.