A wild-ass word-nerdy thing about penitentiaries
The Sternal Journal
Tonally All Over the Place since 2018
Hi Sternal Journalists,
There are many wild-ass things about penitentiaries that I read in Angela Davis' book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, all about the idea of abolishing prisons.
If you haven't read up on prison abolition, I know it may sound crazy and/or woowoo and/or utopian. And that's fair. But you know what's not fair? Prisons!
Prisons are unfair for a variety of reasons, but let's start with that word nerdery:
Penitentiaries
are called penitentiaries
because they were initially intended
as a place to be penitent.
!!!???!!!
Literally, the idea of a penitentiary is that you are forced to sit in isolation and reflect on what you've done, thereby growing as a person as you process your regret.
ESQUEECHAMAY?!
That is not what happens in prisons! And this is what it means for prison to be obsolete. Imprisonment at the time was actually a reform movement. Because the only punishments back then? Were physical! Corporal, capital, the Big Cs!
So a person was being held in a room against his will because (a) he had committed a crime or (b) someone claimed he had committed a crime and that person had more status then he did...
While another guy is deciding, "Should we burn his body and then drag it around the square?"
And someone else is like, "Okay, I like that, I love it. But what if we go in a totally different direction. What if we... drag his body around the square first and then we do the burny part?"
So when somebody came along and said, "You know how we're locking them away from society while we have this conversation? They seem pretty bummed about that. What if we just keep them in that physical and mental space?"
And prisons were born! They were a humane(ish) alternative to what was going on as punishment at the time. So are prisons obsolete?
Yeah! They are! Because we've evolved as a civilization and do not/should not require an alternative to drawing and quartering people.
And listen, hearing this idea, you will have one of three reactions:
1. OH YEAH, BURN ALL THE PRISONS
2. Lol, sounds nice, but yeah right
3. I like the sentiment of treating people better, but this idea scares me
And that's because we're all on different paths, we've all been given access to different information.
(STAGE WHISPER: For instance, after the 1994 Crime Bill prohibited Pell Grants for prisoners, higher education programs in prisons were effectively defunded. Therefore, those people who are being asked to better themselves in confinement lost access to information when many of their books were taken away. This is real.)
But nobody thinks all prisons are perfect. NOBODY. Even Joe Arpaio, who is most famous for being a fuckfacepieceashit, probably only thought his prisons were perfect.
So even if you can't yet full-throatedly support abolishing prisons, you already definitely support the things that would replace it, such as:
-accessible physical and mental healthcare for all
-full-time jobs that don't have people living below the poverty line
-schools that don't treat students as criminals
-decriminalization of crimes you've committed (yes, you! If you've gotten away with a crime one can be arrested for, someone has been arrested for it. And you turned out okay without going to jail so they didn't have to go to jail!)
If you like one of those things even a little bit, you are a little bit a prison abolitionist. Congratulations and welcome. Let's talk about it more.
(And even if you can't bring yourself to read the whole book--it's short!--do some lil deep dives of your own about how prisons are racist and sexist, and companies we know and love use them for free or cheap labor. This information is easy to find.)
*TAKES A BOW*
That was my monologue, This Is What You Would Have Heard Me Blurt Out if We Were Able To Be At Bars Right Now And I Had Just Finished My Fourth Beer And You Asked Me How I'm Doing.
What else is going on? I've been playing a lot of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, reading Bleak House, watching DARK, and playing a knockoff of the boardgame Spice Road with friends online. If you want to talk about those or play some knockoff Spice Road, I'm available!
Also, I'm working on a podcast about why I'm not into sports (and why other people are), The Julian Stern Untitled Unsports Podcast. If that piques your interest and you'd like to talk about it, hit me up!
Until then, many loves!
Julian