Critical race theory and prison abolitionism are both academic and activist movements, and both share a critical attitude towards the dominant power relations and social structures that created, and have since legitimized, existing social inequalities in which colonialism and anti-Black racism are foundational. With critical race theory focusing on the relationships between racial power and legal systems, and prison abolitionism focusing on the elimination of the ultimate mechanism of punishment, both aim to achieve social change by dismantling the sophisticated and deeply embedded discourses and practices that justify, support, and re-create these realities. While critical race theory has made various incursions into academia and politics, prison abolitionism has largely remained in a marginal position and has been widely characterized as idealistic, naĂŻve, or too radical to ever achieve its goal.
In this chapter, we describe how the lack of an analysis of grounded systems of oppression within the theoretical framework of prison abolitionism as used in the academic field of criminology at a global level, is a fault that should be addressed in order to advance the deconstruction of the features that define the ubiquity of punishment institutions in different societies. By examining the intersection between critical race theory and prison abolitionism in the United States, we aim to show how prison abolition can expand its discourse beyond traditional audiences and can ask more grounded and critical questions of the current prison system. To do so, abolitionism should be understood from the perspective of specific systems of oppression. We argue that critical perspectives such as critical race theory could provide the contextualized and situated sociohistorical analyses of the carceral power that a solid abolition stance requires to move beyond its marginal position.
Since critical race theory is a U.S.-based theory that has mainly explored the experiences of Black peoples and the literature on U.S. prisons that has followed suit, much of this paper will focus on the Black/white dichotomy in the United States. We acknowledge, nonetheless, that critical race theory has also been adopted by Indigenous scholars, Latinx scholars, and many other minority groups in Canada and the U.S. We further acknowledge that the incarceration rates for minority groups in North America are also disproportionate. Moreover, critical race theory has contributed valuable knowledge about these groups in the prison system (Aylward, 1999; Latty et al., 2016). Nonetheless, while there is an unequivocal relationship between the carceral state, settler colonialism, racism, patriarchy, and white supremacy in the U.S., this chapter focuses mainly on how exposing the pervasiveness of racism has enabled a better understanding of the concrete function of prisons in U.S. society, and has thus provided more solid grounds for the abolitionist cause and brought increased attention to abolitionism in major periodicals, academic conferences and social organizations (Coyle & Schept, 2018, p. 320). Though much remains to be done to advance prison abolitionism in the U.S., the use of critical race theoryâwhich is focused on how law is integral to white supremacyâis required for this movement. Finally, abolitionism is a polysemic term and a heterogeneous movement both in its academic and activist expressions. Multiple ends, discourses, and methods coexist under the abolitionist umbrella. In this chapter we will mainly consider the classical European tradition of prison abolitionism within the academic field of criminology.
Critical race theory
In discussing the current and potential relationship between critical race theory and the prison abolition movement, it is first essential to detail the nature of critical race theory as well as its origins in critical studies and law. We can trace critical race theory to critical legal studies, a critical theory that challenged the objectivity of law and tenets of legal liberalism. Scholars of color were attracted to critical legal studies as it challenged the laws that oppressed persons of color. Racial oppression, however, was not central to critical legal studies work. For example, it was not until the tenth national critical legal studies conference in the 1980s, that a group of scholars of color presented papers on racism and the law. Alienated from existing legal discourse, specifically critical legal studies, these scholars left the conference and went on to conceive critical race theory (Aylward, 1999). As one of the founders of this field, Richard Delgado, stated: âCritical legal studies has not paid much attention to minorities, not placing racial questions on its agenda until this year, ten years after its formation as a legal movementâ (Aylward, 1999, p. 27). Other foundational critical race theory scholars include Derrick Bell, Mari Matsuda, KimberlĂ© Crenshaw, Charles Lawerence, and Patricia Williams. Despite these scholarsâ criticisms of critical legal studies, critical race theory draws on aspects of critical legal studies, including its intense scrutiny of the criminal justice system and hidden relations of power (Giwa et al., 2014).
Critical race theory examines notions of race, law, and power within society (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). It further challenges liberal concepts such as objectivity and neutrality as they further conceal and obscure power relations that oppress people of color. In practice, critical race theory broadly addresses issues of race through a critical lens, posing questions about the persistence of race and racism and about race-based oppression in modern âliberal democraciesâ such as Canada, the United States, and Australia (Williams, 2013; Giwa et al., 2014; James, 1998; Razack, Smith, & Thobani, 2010; Tator & Henry, 2006). Critical race theorists argue that racism is âordinaryâ as it âremains hidden beneath a veneer of normalityâ (Giwa et al., 2014, 278) and that this racism is a daily experience for people of color.
While there are no set core tenets of critical race theory, those most authoritative within the field have identified a similar set of characteristics and components (Bell, 1992; Crenshaw et al., 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 1998, 2001; SolĂłrzano & Yosso, 2002). One key tenet is that âraceâ itself is a social construct created, perpetuated, and enforced by humans based on history, location, and social contexts (Omi & Winant, 2005, 2015; Markus, 2008). How we understand race and racialization is not inevitable but the result of various categorizations that over time have been largely accepted as objective: âracial categories and the meaning of race are given concrete expression by the specific social relations and historical context in which they are embeddedâ (Omi & Winant, 2015, p. 11). Critical race theory takes âWhitenessâ to be a socially constructed identity, often based on skin color, that represents the ânormalâ or âeverydayâ standard (Gillborn, 2015; Saleh-Hanna, 2017). White supremacy is not simply manifest in explicitly tangible or sensational eventsâsuch as the use of racial slurs or race-based physical assaultsâbut entails âthe operation of much more subtle and extensive forces that saturate the everyday mundane actions and policies that shape the world in the interests of White peopleâ (Gillborn, 2015, p. 278). White supremacy operates under the âfaulty and violent premisesâ (Saleh-Hanna, 2017, p. 420) that there are inferior people, that these groups of inferior people can be identified through shared characteristics and histories that are different from and not shared with the âsuperiorâ group, and that these groups or inferior categories of people are a threat to civilization; which we know is characterized by the normalcy of Whiteness. While we can clearly identify white supremacy in the actions of the Ku Klux Klan, critical race theory points to the less obvious, semi-concealed prioritization of the interests of white people, often at the cost of those not in power and people of color. Closely related, critical race theory uses the notion of âinterest convergenceâ (Bell, 1980) to describe the perplexing fact that the advancement of civil rights of Black people and some of the legal reforms aimed at reducing racial inequality were only possible because these reforms actually advance the interests of white elites. This idea was conceptualized by Bell (1980), who argued that it was actually the convergence of Black and white interests that made possible the renowned U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education that ruled racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional in 1954.
White supremacy permeates practices, policies, ideologies, and values not only explicitly but also in a veiled and seemingly non-racialized manner through coded language and terminology (Satzewich & Liodakis, 2013). While it is a social construct, âraceâ has concrete effects on peopleâs lives through racism both in overt and unintended ways. Importantly, âraceâ is habitually used without any critical thought (Omi & Winant, 2005; Hylton, 2012; Williams, Priest, & Anderson, 2016; Markus, 2008), and when uncritically invoked, âraceâ works to âdifferentiate, (dis)advantage, and (dis)empowerâ (Hylton, 2012, p. 36). Race and racism are embedded in all aspects of society. These systems are complex, flexible, subtle, and they manifest differently based on the context. In a society where ârace,â especially âneutralâ norms of Whiteness and the maintenance of white supremacy, shape laws and policies, this in turn influences most aspects of lifeâpositively for some, negatively for othersâincluding employment opportunities, housing, educational access, and involvement with the penal system. Within the discussion around prisons, we can see the manifestation of racism in the mass incarceration of Black persons, Indigenous persons, and other minority groups.
Though race is foundational to critical race theory analysis, there are critical race scholars who also explore how other dimensions and axes of oppression shape racial inequities. The term âintersectionalityâ was first coined by KimberlĂ© Crenshaw (1991), another founder of critical race theory, though the notion itself can be linked to Black feminist politics of the 1960s and 1970s. Nevertheless, this connection is often overlooked (Collins, 2012). Intersectionality analyzes the connections between the shared experiences amongst those marginalized on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, s...
