Status Updates From Are Prisons Obsolete? (Open...

Similarities between prison and slavery system: daily routine organized by materials. dependent on others for basic needs (food, materials). Subjected to the will of others. Isolated from the general population. Confined to a fixed habitat. Coerced to work.

(Continued) At the time, people would be opposed to the treatment of people under the system, yet not be able to imaging how society would function without them. Looking back, it is obvious that those systems could be abolished. Will we have this same hindsight perspective on prisons once they are abolished?

Davis points out that many people lack the belief that prisons could be abolished because they can’t imagine a system without them. She asserts that many people felt this way about slavery and segregation as well.

prison is a social experiment to see how our politicians choose to ignore the reality of their power