Jan 12, 2023
An incisive and sympathetic examination of the case for ending the practice of imprisonment
Despite its omnipresence and long history, imprisonment is a deeply troubling practice. In the United States and elsewhere, prison conditions are inhumane, prisoners are treated without dignity, and sentences are extremely harsh. Mass incarceration and its devastating impact on black communities have been widely condemned as neoslavery or “the new Jim Crow.” Can the practice of imprisonment be reformed, or does justice require it to be ended altogether? In The Idea of Prison Abolition, Tommie Shelby examines the abolitionist case against prisons and its formidable challenge to would-be prison reformers.
Philosophers have long theorized punishment and its justifications, but they haven’t paid enough attention to incarceration or its related problems in societies structured by racial and economic injustice. Taking up this urgent topic, Shelby argues that prisons, once reformed and under the right circumstances, can be legitimate and effective tools of crime control. Yet he draws on insights from black radicals and leading prison abolitionists, especially Angela Davis, to argue that we should dramatically decrease imprisonment and think beyond bars when responding to the problem of crime.
While a world without prisons might be utopian, The Idea of Prison Abolition makes the case that we can make meaningful progress toward this ideal by abolishing the structural injustices that too often lead to crime and its harmful consequences.
Review
“In this
sharp and provocative book, Tommie Shelby shines new light on the
misguided logics and harmful practices that structure the entire
criminal legal system in America. He engages the political
philosophy of Angela Davis to advance our understanding of the
legacy of slavery, the impact of racism, the morality of
punishment, the limits of reform, the meaning of justice, and other
important questions that have been central to Davis’s work and the
growing movement to abolish prisons. No matter where you stand on
the issue, The Idea of Prison
Abolition is essential reading that will frame debates
about the purpose and function of incarceration for decades to
come.”―Elizabeth Hinton, author
of From the
War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass
Incarceration in America
“Should our manifestly unjust prison system be abolished or radically reformed? With characteristic philosophical acumen, and by way of a careful, nuanced engagement with Angela Davis’s powerful and influential defense of prison abolition, Tommie Shelby’s answer to this question is an indispensable contribution to ongoing debates about the function of incarceration within a racially stratified capitalist society. The Idea of Prison Abolition is worldly philosophy at its best, a book from which all parties to these debates stand to benefit, whether they agree with Shelby or not.”―Robert Gooding-Williams, author of In the Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America
“With characteristic clarity and analytical precision, Tommie Shelby offers a probing discussion of the idea of prison abolition. Drawing on philosophy, intellectual history, and the social sciences, he zeroes in on the complex moral meaning of violence. Arguing for much more than incremental reform of the prison system, this indispensable book asks whether prisons must be abolished for justice to be served.”―Bruce Western, author of Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison
“Should our manifestly unjust prison system be abolished or radically reformed? With characteristic philosophical acumen, and by way of a careful, nuanced engagement with Angela Davis’s powerful and influential defense of prison abolition, Tommie Shelby’s answer to this question is an indispensable contribution to ongoing debates about the function of incarceration within a racially stratified capitalist society. The Idea of Prison Abolition is worldly philosophy at its best, a book from which all parties to these debates stand to benefit, whether they agree with Shelby or not.”―Robert Gooding-Williams, author of In the Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America
“With characteristic clarity and analytical precision, Tommie Shelby offers a probing discussion of the idea of prison abolition. Drawing on philosophy, intellectual history, and the social sciences, he zeroes in on the complex moral meaning of violence. Arguing for much more than incremental reform of the prison system, this indispensable book asks whether prisons must be abolished for justice to be served.”―Bruce Western, author of Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison
About the Author
Tommie Shelby is the Caldwell Titcomb
Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy
at Harvard University. He is the author of Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and
Reform and We
Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black
Solidarity.
Transcript
This is August Baker. Welcome to Philosophy Podcasts, where we
interview leading philosophers about their recent books. Today I'm
happy to be speaking to Professor Tommie Shelby about his 2022
Princeton University press book, The Idea of Prison Abolition. He
is the Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African-American
Studies and a philosophy at Harvard University. His previous books
include Dark Ghettos, Injustice, Dissent and Reform. And the book,
We Who Are Dark, the Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity.
Welcome, Professor Shelby. Thank you for speaking to me today.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Thanks so much for having me August. I'm looking forward to
our conversation.
August Baker:
Great, thank you. I wanted to start with a quote from
Heidegger 1926, the Logic: The Question of Truth. He says, "To
philosophies means to be entirely and constantly troubled by, and
immediately sensitive to the complete enigma of things that common
sense considers self-evident and unquestionable." It seems to me
that in this book, you are in line with that definition of
philosophy. You're questioning something that common sense seems
self-evident and unquestionable.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Yeah, I think I approach philosophy very much in that spirit.
I think of, at least those of us who see ourselves in the broadly
Socratic tradition of philosophy, see that it's important for us to
be disposed to question the taken for granted, the basic common
sense things, that are long established and revered, to be willing
to turn a critical eye toward it, and think about whether this is
something we should continue, or something that we should endorse,
despite the fact that perhaps even ages have found it fit to hold
onto, or even cherish.
August Baker:
And in this fascinating book, you... I know the answer, but
what is the common sense thing that you're questioning here?
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Well, I think a lot of people regard imprisonment as a
practice that is obviously required, justified, maybe even
something that it would be ludicrous to question. And so, I am
taking up the question of, here motivated by prison abolitionist
thinkers and activists, of whether we should allow ourselves to
just treat the prison as something that has always been with us,
will always be with us, can't be questioned, to really ask a
question about that practice in much the same way the philosophers
have asked similar questions about other practices that are
ostensibly for purposes of law enforcement.
The question of death penalty, say just for example, will be a
similar question, existed for a really long time, much longer than
prison. But yet, philosophers and many others have saw fit to
question that practice as a way of enforcing the law. And I think
here, we find ourselves interesting moment, where a number of
abolitionist have even broken out into the mainstream, to force us
in the broader public sphere to take up the question of whether
this is a practice that's fully justified. And I think philosophers
are well equipped to... Not to settle the matter or anything, but
at least to contribute to thinking through that, I think, critical
question for our time.
August Baker:
Absolutely. And it was, I think, one of the reviewers says
that... It says that... Well, I'll just go ahead and read the
review. This is from Robert Gooding-Williams. This is an
endorsement or review of Professor Shelby's book, The Idea of
Prison Abolition. "Should our manifestly unjust prison system be
abolished or radically reformed, with characteristic philosophical
acumen, and by way of a careful, nuanced engagement with Angela
Davis's powerful and influential defense of prison abolition.
Tommie Shelby's answer to this question is an indispensable
contribution to ongoing debates about the function of incarceration
within a racially stratified capitalist society. The idea of prison
abolition in this book, is worldly philosophy at its best. A book
from which all parties to these debates stand to benefit, whether
they agree with Shelby or not.@ That's Professor Robert
Gooding-Williams.
He raises a number of things I wanted to talk about. One was
that whether one agrees with you or not, it's interesting or
fascinating to go through your reasoning. Two other things are,
well, first of all, the fact that part of what's going on here is
you're engaging with the work of Angela Davis. Could you tell us
about that aspect of the book, what she means, certainly as an
icon, and how you're engaging with her in this book?
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Yes. Angela Davis, so many reasons to focus on Davis's work.
One reason is that she's been reflecting on and engaging in
resistance to the prison system for more than 50 years. In many
ways, she became internationally famous as a political prisoner. At
least that's how she would've thought of herself. And who famously
in part defended herself, against a range of allegations and was
acquitted fully and released. And so, she came on the scene in a
way as a person who was engaged in anti-prison activism, trying to
free political prisoners, was herself political prisoner. And has
been for years working in that space among others. That firsthand
experience within imprisonment, I think lends a certain
credibility, and uses firsthand experience to enliven what could be
some rather abstract and dry theoretical how pros, which probably I
could be accused of largely engaged in. And through her
autobiography, is also very well known autobiography. She kind of
tells that story, and her story in the movement in the late 60s and
early 70s. So, she's critical in that way.
And she's a touchstone in the abolitionist movement. For those
of us who come to the question within the context of the black
radical tradition as I do, she's going to be your first stop if
you're interested in the question of prison. And for many people
made her last stop. And for me in particular, I am a philosopher by
training and by disposition, and she's a fellow philosopher. And
so, she approaches the questions in a ways that are familiar to me.
We often speak the same language around this, which is not always
true with others who write about this topic. So, she's a great
interlocutor for me.
And so, I decided I would structure the book around, and
almost in conversation with her thinking over the years. So, she's
principal interlocutor, if you like. And I hope that people will
find a better productive way to engage the book, particularly those
who have learned about abolition as many people have from reading
her work, particular her Are Prison Obsolete?. But of course she's
written many other things besides that. So, I hope it'll be a way
for people to take the book in the spirit in which I mean it, which
is to be in conversation with people who I think are like-minded
about many things, but want to think through critically the
question about whether the appropriate stance to take here is one
of abolition rather than say a more radical reform position, which
is my preferred stance.
August Baker:
Yes. In my case, it was a way for me to be introduced to
Angela Davis' work. I think you describe it well, a conversation.
And so I, of course, knew the name, but I hadn't never read Angela
Davis. But it was a great way to be introduced to her work, to see
you in conversation with her. And one of the things you said was
that, I'll quote here, "Too often, Davis is treated as a mere
symbol of black radicalism and militancy, like a raised fist or an
Afro, as she herself laments. As one of our most original and
influential philosophers, she deserves the same critical but
respectful engagement that distinguished white or male philosophers
regularly receive." Can you elaborate on that? I just thought that
is what you're doing here, is critically engaging with her. And I
thought it was interesting that it seems to be, this is of course
in the way she wants to be treated, not as a mere symbol.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Yes. That was very important to me. I think for those of us in
the field of philosophy broadly, it's rare to have a person of
African descent taken seriously as a philosophical thinker. Even
when they are taken seriously, they usually are seen as at best, a
popularizer of the thought of some major white male thinker rather
than as someone who has original things to say and to teach us. And
so, it was important to me to engage her in that way of something
I've done in a lot of my work, in engaging other black thinkers,
but I had not engaged a black woman philosopher at length in any of
my writings. And that's a failing on my part. And I thought it was
really important to take a thinker, especially of this stature, and
really grapple with her thinking about something she spent a lot of
time thinking about.
And so, that was important to me. I think a lot of my
colleagues in philosophy would not be so inclined to engage her in
that kind of detail. And I think that's a failing on their part, to
not be willing to do that. So, it seemed to me important to engage
her for both reasons, for the reasons I already gave about just her
importance in the field of prison studies. But also just as a
thinker in her own right, who has written numerous books and
essays, thinking about critical questions of philosophical
interest. And that was important to me, that it'd be her that I
engaged, and not just people who I think are largely building on
the work that she's done, extending work that she's done, that I
think that should be rightly credited to her as the most important
philosophical thinker on this topic.
August Baker:
Right. Yeah, no, that was very evident, and I thought it was a
great way to structure the book. Another thing that comes up in
this endorsement from Professor Gooding-Williams is... And you
addressed this in the book. Maybe you could touch on it for our
listeners. There's one question, which is, if you had an ideal
society, how would you deal with crime? Would you use imprisonment?
And then there's another question about, what if you don't have an
ideal society or a justice society, how does that change the
question? Could you just talk about that? I thought that yeah,
that's right. You can't just sit here and think, well, if we had an
ideal society, what would we do?
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
For me, I thought it was helpful to take up the question
really as two questions, and you've touched on them. So one
question is, can the practice of imprisonment be justified despite
many well-known existing structural injustices? Or should the use
of prisons be discontinued? Should we stop our use of imprisonment
as a practice, wholly or in part, until these injustices have been
rectified in some way? But that's a question about what to do now.
It's a question about our immediate aim. So, here we are faced
[inaudible 00:13:22] society where it's not just that the criminal
justice system has many morally objectionable features, is that the
social structure that it's embedded in has many objectionable
features, and they affect how the prison system, and the [inaudible
00:13:36] system more broadly operates.
And you might think, given the background injustice that we
face in the United States and elsewhere, we really can't justify
the use of imprisonment to control crime against a background or
that. So, that's a position you could take. Or you might think
that, as I do, that we should radically reduce our reliance on
prison in that kind of context, to really only the worst kinds of
wrongs, the kind of wrongs that will be wrong regardless of whether
they were prohibited by law, and the kind of wrongs that even
though oppress can't justify engaging in. So, if we restrict
ourselves to those, that we might think that prison, it could be
used in that case, but it's hard to justify its use in a range of
other cases against a background of somewhat structural injustice.
So, that's a first question.
But as a second question, maybe somewhat more philosophical,
at least more familiarly philosophical, where you're asking a
question about what a fully just society would require. So, there
you're trying to figure out, well, in a fully just society, or
either nearly just society, is imprisonment as a practice
compatible with such a society? Could you have a fully just society
that had this practice of dealing with law-breaking, even of a
serious sort? And so that's a question about... A traditional
question in many ways, from Plato to now, if you think about, well,
how do you think about what justice really requires? And I think
abolitionists are interested in that question too. They're
interested in the question about what to do now, but also, many of
their goals are long term goals and are thinking about what should
we aspire to, what should we be trying to bring about? And there
the question of, is this a legitimate practice? Even in a fully
justice society, I think, is one that philosophers think a pretty
well situated to engage with.
August Baker:
So, the word abolition, we're talking about the idea of prison
abolition, of course, you immediately think or associate to the
abolition of slavery. And one of the things that just looms so
large here is this... And which you deal with and I learned a lot
from, is this idea of whether imprisonment, the incredibly high
rates of imprisonment of young black men and black people,
generally is in a way a continuation of slavery. Can a young black
man who is imprisoned, for example, not associate it, see it as a
continuation of this longstanding oppression?
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Yeah, I think it'd be reasonable for people to focus on the
legacy of slavery when thinking about imprisonment in the United
States in particular, and maybe in the Americas more broadly. Part
of what's going on here, I think, is you have a lot of... Not only
unrectified ongoing injustices, that disproportionately affect
people of African descent. You also have a large portion of the
black population in the United States deeply disadvantaged because
of past right brave injustices against them. So, you have a very
group that's highly disadvantaged across a range of indices, and
that's going to make you very vulnerable to being imprisoned, or
defining yourself confronted by law enforcement agents.
And so, there's an obvious connection with the consequences of
enslavement, and not only enslavement, but the many unjust
practices that came in its way. Jim Crow lasted a hundred years.
You have urban ghettoization, as black people try to leave the
terror of the south, to find opportunity to industrialize north,
and Midwest, and west. They found themselves ghettoized in urban
centers, and treated almost, if not just as badly, as they were in
the south where they were subject to mob violence and lynching. And
so, against the background of that long history, and against the
background of existing in racial inequality, it'll be natural to
see the high rates of imprisonment of black people as more the
same.
August Baker:
Right, yeah. Actually right.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
So, I do see that point of view, and think there's something
to it.
August Baker:
And I think another area I learned a lot about, I vaguely knew
about this. But the way prison writings, you compare prison
writings to slave narratives, which was fascinating. And you don't
say they're the same, you point out really big differences. But I
also hadn't been aware, or only dimly aware of how political black
prison writings were. You're talking about Huey Newton Shakur,
these writings which were in prison, and which were about political
consciousness and activism.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Yeah, I'm very interested in... Maybe one thing to say is, a
lot of the work I do is philosophical engagement with black life
and black letters. A lot of the things I've written of that sort.
Anybody who wants to take that up as part of their vocation, you
can't just solely focus on the philosophical treatise that we're
all familiar with. I love the philosophical treatise, but-
August Baker:
Then write them.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
But if you're interested in black philosophical thought, there
are people who do write such treatises, but many people in the
history of black political thought and black philosophical
thinking, write in other genres. And I don't think that puts them
at odds with the broader philosophical tradition, because many of
the great philosophers also wrote in other forms, in other genres,
including Plato who wrote in dialogues, and the people who wrote
autobiographical writings, Augustine and others who sew, and so
on.
So, these are familiar forms in a lot of ways, but I think in
the professional philosophy now, it's probably not a lot of
attention to these other genres of writing, when people are engaged
in contemporary philosophical writings. Unless you're working on
certain figures, [inaudible 00:20:51]. There are certain figures
where it will make sense to do that, because they just don't write
in a traditional academic philosophical way. So, that's one thing,
and I thought it was important. And so, that's going to be true,
even thinking of relatively contemporary black writing. You might
find it in the form of a memoir, or even a prison memoir, or prison
letters, that might be the form in which the philosophical thinking
takes. So, I thought that was important to do there. Because as you
already pointed out, your abolition brings to mind slavery, your
title, slavery in particular in Americas, it'll be natural to think
about the ant-prison movement, contemporary anti-prison movement as
analogous to the abolitionist movement against slavery. And
abolitionists make that connection themselves.
And so, I thought it would be interesting to think about these
prison writings from interesting and highly influential thinkers,
in a black radical tradition, as a starting point into the question
of anti-prisons theory and practice. And that's the context, the
late sixties, early seventies, where Davis forms her anti-prisons
consciousness, and becomes the figure that she's known for. So, I
wanted to situate her in that context amongst those writings. And
she [inaudible 00:22:13] of course wrote an autobiography where a
big part of it is about her experience in prison, and with law
enforcement generally.
So, I thought that was important to do. There are some
differences between that kind of writing and traditional slave
narratives. How to point out, among probably the most important
one, is that many people who were writing slave narratives engaged
their audience, there would've been powerful sympathetic whites
correct, who they thought might be able to persuade them to help
enslavery.
And so, a lot of people they wrote in that way, they spoke to
white audiences, telling their story. Douglas famously telling
their story, trying to garner that sympathy to try to tap into the
sense of justice of white elites, to help with the movement to
enslavery. Whereas, I take it that many of the abolitionists, the
radical revolutionary abolitionists from the 60s and early 70s, or
later, they would've seen themselves as engaged in a much more
militant project. And they were largely looking at people who were
oppressed, and the downtrodden, the dispossessed, to try to raise
their consciousness and get them to engage in a larger anti-prison
movement, that's aimed not just at changing the prison, but
changing the world. And so, there your audience is different. The
way you might articulate things is going to be different. The
rhetoric that you're going to use, is going to be different. So,
there are differences though. There are some interesting
similarities as well.
August Baker:
I'd like to read, if you'd indulge me. Here's a prison writing
that... Or this is from Martin Luther King Jr, his book, Why We
Can't Wait, 1964. He talks about a young black man, I guess in the
30s, who was being put to death in prison... Or he was in prison.
And his last words, or the mantra that he was saying over and over
was, "Save me Joe Lewis. Save me Joe Lewis. Save me, Joe Lewis."
And King writes, "It's heartbreaking enough to ponder the last
words of any person dying by force. It is even more poignant to
contemplate the words of this boy, because they reveal the
helplessness, the loneliness, and the profound despair of Negroes
in that period. The condemned young negro, groping for someone who
might care for him, and had power enough to rescue him. Found only
the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Joe Lewis would care
because he was a negro. Joe Lewis could do something because he was
a fighter."
King says, "In a few words, the dying man had written a social
commentary. Not God, not government, not charitably minded white
man, but a negro who was the world's most expert fighter. In this
last extremity was the last hope." There you have an example of
powerful prison testimony.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Extraordinary. Totally extraordinary. No, King is of course a
hero. And my colleague and I, Brandon Terry, co-edited a
collection, To Shape a New World, that was just 15 essays on Martin
Luther King's political philosophy. Which also engaged some of
these questions we've been talking about genres of writing, and he
wrote books too. People don't [inaudible 00:26:13] five books, but
people often focus on him as an order, because he was powerful
order, and so many memorable lines constantly quoted. But yeah,
very much influenced by his thinking, and in particular by that
book, Why We Can't Wait, I think it's a great book. People mostly
know it because it includes the Birmingham jail essay, though
there's much more in there as you just found.
August Baker:
I want to turn a little bit now to the more philosophical
side. I'm not trained in philosophy, and I am often curious about
this continental analytic divide. Here's the way you put it, in
your own case. "I favor..." You say pluralism when it comes to
philosophical method. I think different approaches, phenomenology,
critical theory, conceptual analysis, pragmatism, genealogy, which
you do in this book, reflective equilibrium and so on, often yield
complimentary insights. And this book is an attempt at
philosophical engagement across the continental analytic divide.
Afro analytic Marxism, as I call it. As someone who's not a
professional philosopher but is interested in it, could you speak a
bit to that continental analytic divide, and how you were on both
sides of it?
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Sure. Happy to. One thing I might mention, a couple years ago
I was the president of the American Philosophical Association, so
eastern division. And as a part of that, you give a presidential
address. And I gave a presidential address on Afro analytical
Marxism, and the problem of race. That was the title. If you want
the detailed version, if you like-
August Baker:
No, that's good to know.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
... how I think about that, it's there and you can find the
essay version of it on my website. So, I got interested in
philosophy through a course in logic and a course in political
philosophy, as an undergraduate. The course in political philosophy
was my first introduction to the work of Karl Marx. And I was super
interested in his work, and went off to graduate school expecting
to continue working on Marx and Marxism, which I, in a roundabout
way came around to doing, and wrote a dissertation on Marxism and
meta ethics. So, I've been engaged with the continental tradition
since I was an undergraduate. In some ways the divide is not
terribly helpful, philosophically to focus so much on it.
There are some broad generalizations you could make about
different ways of approaching philosophy, say roughly since the
influence of Hegel, where you get some people who, I think, are
broadly aligned with the humanities and history as disciplines,
might be more interested in literature and poetry, oracular forms
of wisdom and the like. And Icano tradition has that tendency.
Analytic philosophers are often drawn to the sciences, and
mathematics, and formal logic, and rely on those in their own work.
Tend to maybe pay more attention to the details of argumentation,
rabbit in big visions of the world, or of human existence, and the
way continental philosophers might be more inclined to. So, there
are some very rough differences, but I think they're just really
broad generalizations because you could come up with counter
examples across both sides of course. So, I see myself as not a
part of that fight, I a way. So, I suspect some people who identify
more strong as continental philosophy, might not love the way I go
at things in my own work, but I try to draw broadly on those.
So, that's another reason for engaging with Davis. Angel
Davis, I think, probably would have to be positioned closer to the
continental tradition than analytic tradition. Her dissertation
advisors, [inaudible 00:30:45], she studied in Germany-
August Baker:
Frankfurt School.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Frankfurt School, person and very influenced by Adorno and
others. And that's her broader orientation is critical theory, as
an approach. Whereas I'm much more influenced by the tendencies,
and an English speaking mainstream philosophy that traces itself
back to people like Birch and Russell and others, who it's a
largely stylistic in a lot of ways. But it also, there's some
substantive dimensions, in the sense that it's... I do in this
book, and maybe it'll put some people off, spend a lot of time
trying to carefully explain the key arguments that abolitionists
make, and pointing out where I think there are limitations to those
arguments, where there might be a bad inference for instance. And
that requires going slowly and carefully through the reasoning.
August Baker:
Absolutely.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
So, that is an approach I take, and it is more characteristic
of analytic philosophers to do that kind of work. But I'm very much
interested in the broader vision. I'm not afraid of providing other
genres. I'm not afraid to take up the literary or the historical. I
think these are important things to do as well.
August Baker:
That's very helpful. That makes a lot of sense to me. I
appreciate that. Let's do a little of [inaudible 00:32:15]. There's
a lot of careful reasoning here, but one of the questions that
comes up is, what is a prison? And that's the question you raise.
I'll just, the things that I saw here were involuntary confinement,
enclosed space, hierarchical daily life, hierarchical institutional
practice, isolated from the general public, and there's a sense of
custody. And so naturally, one wants to think, well, let's think
about what is close to that. And you don't say that that's
everything. You say that here are some of the features.
And of course, I immediately thought of working. Going to
work, and sometimes spending all of my time at this place where
they also have a cafeteria. And all of my best time, certainly the
time where I'm most awakened, you're confined in this place. Is it
involuntary? That would be a difference. I could conceivably quit.
It is an enclosed space. It certainly has a hierarchical
institutional, and you are isolated.
Custody is a little bit different, but then there are some
forms of occupation where, for example, the military. Well, I've
never been in the military, but I imagine it would have even more.
So, I think the other thing, and one of the things you raise, is
the ghetto. How is the ghetto different from a prison? I think what
strikes me that it also is maybe a necessary feature to call
something a prison, is that it has to have some shame or public
stigma attached to it. That's something where we are saying, you
are bad, and you need to be expelled, and you are shunned. You are
an example of someone who is not doing well and I am doing better
than you. And something like that. It is another feature of
that.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Yeah, that's interesting. I did not include the stigmata of
prison, as a part of what's constitutive of a prison though I can
see why one might be inclined toward that view. I'm very much
focused on incarceration, you give it the characteristics of an
incarceration right there, which is a broader phenomenon of
custodial confinement, and it takes various forms. And so, you
mentioned some of the forms it might take or things that are
resemble it, or are close to custodial confinement. But in this
case the custodial confinement is used as a penalty, or common
wrongdoing. That's what makes it a prison, is that it has that
particular purpose, which would distinguish it from what you might
do in the case of involuntary commitment of someone who's seriously
mentally ill, and are dangerous to themselves or others.
August Baker:
That's why-
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
It's still custodial confinement, but it's not a punishment.
It's not a penalty, unless they've broken the law. And that might
be true in other cases too. It might be like if it's a war, and you
capture people, you will also hold them in custodial confinement as
prisoners of war. But again, it's not a punishment. It's a part of
just war practice, to not kill the capture, the people who've
surrendered. But to hold them until the dividing has ceased.
So, the practice is used for many purposes. The cadet is
custodial confinement, to put it generally, or what I'm here just
calling incarceration broadly. And of course, in these various
cases, people might react as they do in the case of what people
used to call the asylum, or a psychological psychiatric hospital.
They might react to the people who spent time in there in a
negative way. They might see them as permanently tainted in a way,
as marked, in a way in which a prisoner who spent time in prison,
even though they're not or may not be mentally ill, as permanently
marked by that experience.
So, I didn't treat her as a constitutive feature, though I
think it is a not uncommon reaction to the fact that people have
been imprisoned, or confined in a psychiatric hospital, that they
are stigmatized in this way. And I think that's something to be
fought against, is to see people as permanent outsiders cause of
that experience. And part of if any justification for the use of
imprisonment would have to include serious efforts to allow those
after they've been released, to rejoin their community with equal
standing. And that's a hard thing to do. It's been hard to do many
places. Some society has been more successful than others, but I
think that's part of what any radical reform movement should be
pushing for, is to try to persuade the public not to treat the
formerly incarcerated as permanent outsiders, and no longer
deserving of equal citizenship.
August Baker:
One of the really fascinating parts of the book is when you
talk about the official functions of prisons, and then the covert
functions of prisons. And also, you talk about the difference
between imprisoning someone as retribution versus... Or one might
say vengeance as opposed to imprisoning someone for deterrence, and
those mixed together because there's the official reasoning and
then there's the covert reasoning.
I take it that when you're talking about a book like yours,
you're talking about having a public discussion. And the covert
reasons are not people are going to... Let's say that a big covert
reason for prisons is Schadenfreude. You might say that people like
to have an identified group that's doing worse than them, and they
feel good. It takes some really, or people just are aggressive and
Freud said wolf, "The man is wolf to man." Say something like that.
But once you get into discussion, those covert... And you're
talking to someone face-to-face, even though they may have them,
those are going to fall away once you get into the actual political
discussion, or the actual discussion about what are we going to
do?
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Well, I wouldn't let them fall away exactly. A couple things.
So, one of the chapters, chapter three, where I talk about just a
broken system to question. And so a lot of abolitionists when
they're talking about prisons, what they will say is in response to
reformers, who think that, yeah, prisoners are unjust as they
exist, but we could make them just. What they'll say, "Well, no,
you can't, because you're assuming that they aren't operating as
they were intended, or they aren't operating as you would expect
them to operate given the kind of thing that they are. So, they
think, look, what's happening here is, there's a covert or latent
function of imprisonment, and it could be many different things.
You mentioned some, but there are others. Maybe it's political
repression, maybe it's racial subordination, maybe it's
exploitation. And it's disguised by the fact that people present
this official function of law enforcement, as a way to prevent or
reduce crime.
That's the thing people offer in defense of it. We could talk
about retribution in a minute if you like. They offered that, but
the reality, so as to abolitionists, is that no, it's real function
if you like, though it's latent, and isn't expressed openly, is
this other thing. And part of what they're trying to do is to
reveal that, reveal that it has that function.
And so, I don't so much dispute that prison sometimes serve
these other covert ins, or that they are used for those purposes,
or that they have those consequences. I agree, they often do. I
take it, the question has to be whether these are inherent,
inerrable, incorrigible features of the practice somehow part of
the logic, the very logic or the practice that it has these
functions. And it's that that I am in disputing, not so much that
it often has those consequences. I think that's indisputable, that
it often does.
But insofar as the debate is between, as I frame it, and I'm
taking this to abolitionist, it's not my framing. That the
abolitionist opposed those who think that it's possible to reform
the prison, so it will be justified. The critical question is,
whether these latent covert functions are features that could be
removed or dispensed with, and that you could bring the practice in
line with its official purpose or function, namely to prevent and
reduce crime. So, I take that that's a critical question, but I
wouldn't want to leave those other things off the table, because
those things are real, and there are things that should give us
pause and should... As I mentioned before, you separate the two
questions.
When you're thinking about the first question, that is, what
do we do now? It is true that prisons operate in ways that
reinforce racial subordination, that exploit the poor, that are
vehicle for the repression of political enemies. That these are
true things, and you can't deny it. I wouldn't, at least. So, I
would want to have that conversation, and that may make a
difference to whether it will be legitimate in any given locale to
use imprisonment or to what extent it will be justifiable to use it
when these are the consequences that you can expect from its
use.
August Baker:
I guess maybe the alternate side, I don't know how to argue
would be to say, I guess it's maybe what do you call the
hermeneutics of suspicion, or the hermeneutics of paranoia, is that
what people say is the function is just a cover story, whether they
know it or not. Difficult to know how to argue with someone, or how
to change someone's opinion, if they have this cover story that,
oh, we're just trying to deter crime here and it's helpful, when
really it's something else that they either don't admit or don't
even know.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Sure. The question is, how do you resolve that? So, that
disagreement. So, in many ways the book is structured, as a debate
amongst progressives, leftists, radicals even. So, people who are
already extremely unhappy with current social arrangements. So,
it's a discussion amongst, that's how I see it anyway.
August Baker:
That's a very good point. That's helpful. Thank you.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
So, you're already taking a skeptical posture toward the
current social arrangements. And part of the question is, what
should be our stance toward this practice? It's one among many.
There are other many other practices within the social structure
that you might have problems with. The educational system,
healthcare system, military, industrial, complex, what have you.
There many other features of it that you might object to.
And there's a question here about, what should your attitude
be towards prisons? Now you could, as I discussed in the first
chapter, think that even if you thought that under some conditions
prisons might be justified, under more just conditions, where there
wasn't so much poverty, there weren't all these ghettos. You might
think in this context, the important thing you could do is do
everything in your power to resist this use of state power, to try
to find ways to disrupt it, to weaken it. Because any attempt to
try to change the society going to be thwarted, or at least
inhibited, by this practice. And so on that point, you could get a
lot of agreement, because here we're talking a lot about political
strategy and tactics, and what's the right way to approach things.
And maybe it's good in that case to de-legitimize the practice, but
try to constantly draw attention to its limits, to free as many as
you can and so on, because you're engaged in an ongoing struggle
against the abuse of state power.
But that's a somewhat different question from the second
question I'm trying to address, which is the practice sort of
inherently and encouragingly unjust, like say slavery is? Or is it
something that you might expect to persist in some form, even on
the more just circumstances? That's a different question.
So, I think that sometimes these questions are run together,
and I think it's important to see that they have different
practical implications depending on how you come down on those
questions. In the case of slavery, we all take it, that it's
inherently unjust. There's no form of slavery that you can justify
to the enslaved.
And so, if you're under unjust conditions, you do everything
you can to free as many as possible. You're trying to end the
practice and everybody who's in currently enslaved, you want to
free them, and you do whatever you can to do that. But you don't
expect that there's some form of slavery that will still persist
under just conditions. So, that's part of the issue here. Is that
the right view to have of imprison and is it like that or is it
rather under more just C circumstances? You could justify it, but
you can't really justify it under these circumstances, in which
case we have to figure out, what's going to be our posture toward
it, where we know many people who are unjustly disadvantaged,
unfairly marginalized, are going to be caught up in it. But we also
think that there are going to be some people who are a serious
danger to others, and who can't justify their wrongful aggression
against others. What do we do in response to that?
August Baker:
Absolutely. That's very helpful. There are just so many
different levels, and you do a really good job of saying, here's
what I'm talking about in this book. Here's what I'm not. And yet,
all of these questions come up to the reader so it's
fascinating.
I would like to talk about retribution, but we're out of time.
I wanted to just have one final thought that just one reader, I can
tell you one reaction. You talk about the case in May, 2017, where
Tennessee Judge, Sam Benningfield, signed a controversial court
order permitting prisoners in the white county jail to receive 30
days off their sentence if they allowed themselves to be
sterilized. And several imprisoned women and men agreed to the
arrangement. The way you wrote about it, I think one, the reader
realizes that really when you are imprisoning someone for a long
time, you are in a way sterilizing them, even though they're not...
When you put a bunch of men, young men in prison for a long time or
for life, you have really engaged in eugenics. You've sterilized
them even though you haven't done it medically. It just came to me
when I was reading that section of your book.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Yeah, that's super interesting. It used to be the case in the
United States, and it is the case in many other places, that
conjugal visits are allowed. That's a practice that was ended, for
good reason. My own view is that incarceration is the penalty, but
people should retain as many of their basic liberties as is
compatible with incarceration. That includes the opportunities to
work and get an education, practice their religion. And I think to
maintain romantic relations with others, so that's possible. There
are some limits to that, I get it. But certainly it used to be the
case. And again, in some societies it is still the case that
conjugal visits are allowed. Now you in the most extreme cases,
might not allow it. There might be a person that's just so
dangerous that you really do have to maintain that isolation from
the general public, but that's not going to be to the vast majority
of prisoners.
August Baker:
And just in closing, I will say to the listeners, also in
addition to all the theory, this is also, I felt inspiring, in
terms of there are things we can do. I think this idea... That I'll
let the listeners read, but this idea of their imprisonment, but it
would be like a last option. And that in a way, you try to use the
minimal harm to get the effect that you want, and then prison as a
last resort. It seemed to me very practical and doable, not this
isn't... There's a lot of philosophy, but it seems very practical
and doable to me.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
I hope the readers will come away with that view. There is a
lot of abstract reasoning, but I try to keep it grounded. And the
laws of the imprison and what prisons are like, or at least could
be like. Or have been in the past, and that it is that way in some
places, and not so much in the United States even now to try to,
because I think you can't really defend the reform position without
trying to think about, well, what could you actually do?
August Baker:
Yes.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
So otherwise, I think the abolitionist is going to have all
over you. If you don't have any proposals about things that you
might actually do, or be able to point to places where, they
actually have been able to do this. We could do it too. Maybe we
can't do it in a society that is so highly unequal, and where
people are so unwilling to invest in public services, as is true in
the United States. Somewhere just, the tax revenue is low compared
to lots of other places. People aren't willing to pay for things.
And that's not just prisons. They're not willing to pay for
education, and healthcare, and roads, and many other things that
are really important. So, in that kind of context, yeah, it's going
to be very difficult to do it, but it's not that it's practically
impossible to do. At least that's what I think currently.
August Baker:
Absolutely. Well, that was a great read, really. And I really
appreciate you talking with me today, professor Tommie Shelby, The
Idea of Prison Abolition. Thank you so much.
Prof. Tommie Shelby:
Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.