The question “but what about rapists?” is a valid question when we’re talking about transformative justice and prison abolition, and every prison abolitionist has written their own answer to that question at some point. (go check out the sources below)
But there is something fucked up about the question
“but what about rapists?”being asked by people who want prisons to continue to exist. And that fucked up thing is the assumption that rapists are not raping people while in prison. Even though prison is full of, ya know, PEOPLE.
Prisons are full of people who happen to have no where to go and who happen to be in an extremely fucked up institution that routinely turns a blind eye to sexual violence. So, ya know, the only way you could think that prisons are currently preventing rape is if you didn’t consider prisoners people.
—
(Also, if you hear the word ‘prisoner’ and your first thought is about rapists and murderers: congratulations! the state propaganda is working) (And no, I don’t think it would be any more helpful to put all
the rapists in one prison to sit around comparing notes. Go read about transformative justice instead.)PRISON ABOLITION RESOURCES:
- “Prisons Will Not Protect You”, an anthology by the radical LGBTQ group “Against Equality" http://www.againstequality.org/stuff/against-equality-prisons-will-not-protect-you/
- “Prison Abolition is Practical” by Nathan Goodman [me] http://c4ss.org/content/20326
- “Resisting Gender Violence Without Cops or Prisons” by Victoria Law http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlozk7G-JYo
- Abolition Now!: Ten Years of Strategy and Struggle Against the Prison Industrial Complex (PDF)
- Transformative Justice 101
- The Justice Trap – Law and the Disempowerment of society https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-justice-trap-law-and-the-disempowerment-of-society
- Are Prisons necessary? https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-are-prisons-necessary
- Dean Spade on “Crime and Punishment” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia5vuHdBtz4
- Ruth Wilson Gilmore “Don’t Reform Prisons, Abolish Them” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akirVY5Mqsg
Also;
1) as a rule rapists don’t go to prison
2) the entire premise of prisons is that you will be raped if they send you there – that’s the deterrent – the state is literally threatening to rape people who don’t conform – how in the fuck is that justice??
3) I don’t have the figures handy (try google) but I’ve read that most prison rapes are actually committed by prison staff (I’ve personally been sexually assaulted by police, they raped my friend and then used that as a threat/intimidation tactic against me – this all over an arbitrary arrest for putting marker pen on an abandoned building btw – completely unlawful, but we were children and they scared a confession out of us – after sexually abusing us, again we were children at the time!!)
So in answer to the “what abut rapists?!” response – we would not give them authority and impunity to do that any more – for start!!
JUP. All true.
QueerAnarchism 