Today, over seven million people live under the control of U.S. jail, prison, probation, or parole systems—the vast majority of them people of color and young people. Between 2000 and 2007, Congress added 454 new offences to the Federal criminal code. Policing at all levels is increasingly militarized and demands more and more resources.
The crisis shows no signs of slowing. For a decade, Critical Resistance has organized to abolish the reliance on imprisonment, policing, and surveillance, seeing the prison industrial complex not as a broken system to be "fixed," but a well-oiled machine that must be eliminated entirely. Published in honor of Critical Resistance's tenth anniversary, Abolition Now! reflects the themes Dismantle, Change, and Build. It presents bold strategies to create a stronger movement of people committed to PIC abolition and build healthy communities free from surveillance, policing, and imprisonment.
"As new and more virulent articulations of imprisonment, policing, and surveillance have grown over the past decade, one thing remains clear: the prison industrial complex must be abolished. Critical Resistance is a leading voice in the movement for abolition and the pieces in this collection are powerful tools for both long-time activists and those brand new to the movement for abolition now!" —Angela Y. Davis, author of Are Prisons Obsolete?
"Abolition does not just demand that we close prisons; it demands that we open the means by which all people can live lives of security, opportunity, and beauty. A decade has passed since Critical Resistance expanded and redefined anti-prison activism. The new movement has grown, but the prison industrial complex continues to eat us alive. Read this book to find out what is happening, and how to fight on every front against prison as a deadly, catch-all response to social, economic, cultural, and political problems." —Ruthie Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California
"Critical Resistance has formulated an inspiring politics of abolition. Its framework, as these splendid essays testify, demand that our organizing does not install new obstacles while attempting to remove old ones. It insists that we have the strength to dream bigger and fight smarter. This book illuminates our imagination in the struggle for liberation." —Dan Berger, author of Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity
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