Session 1: Intro to Abolition

Core Readings (v. 2026):

Audio versions available on Soundcloud

Critical Resistance (no date) What is the Prison Industrial Complex? What is Abolition?  [1 page]

Hajera Begum (2020) Rethinking Our Justice System: Abolition in the UK. Amaliah.com [5 pages]

Picture of the cover of Abolition Revolution

Aviah Sarah Day & Shanice Octavia McBean (2022). Thesis 1. A national abolitionist movement has erupted in Britain. Abolition is a tool to re-imagine revolutionary politics. Abolition Revolution. Pluto Press, pp. 3-17

Angela Davis. (2003) ‘Introduction: Prison Reform or Prison Abolition?; Are Prisons Obsolete?  New York: Seven Stories Press, P. 9-21. Available from:  [12 pages]

Further readings:

Want to read more? Check out this additional readings…

Radical Alternatives to Prison (RAP) (1979) Editorial from the first issue of The Abolitionist (1 page)

Prison Research Education Action Project (1976)

Diminishing / Dismantling the Prison System,’ from Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists.  [4 pages]

Prison Research Education Action Project (1976) ‘Nine Perspectives for Prison Abolitionists’ from Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists. [2 pages]

Mick Ryan and Joe Sim (2007) Campaigning for and campaigning against prisons: excavating and reaffirming the case for prison abolition. In: Jewkes, Y. (ed.) Handbook on Prisons. Cullompton, Devon: Willan Publishing, pp.696-718. [23 pages]

Oonagh Ryder (2018) What does Justice Look like Without Prisons? Novaramedia.com [7 pages]

David Scott / Open University / BBC Ideas (2020) What would a world without prisons look like?  [Video - 5min]

Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition. The Intercept Podcast. (Part 1: 54 min, Part 2: 31 min.) Transcript also available from link.

Julia Sudbury (now Julia Chinyere Opara) (2000) Transatlantic Visions: Resisting the Globalization of Mass Incarceration. Social Justice 27 (3), pp.133-149. [17 pages]