A world without prisons: Public discussion
Venue: Thistle Hall, 293 Cuba Street
You are warmly invited to join the Wellington Anarchist Black Cross and the Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement for a discussion about abolishing prisons. We invite you to bring along your ideas and experience to share...
We live in one of the most incarcerated countries in the Western world. New Zealand is second behind only the United States in imprisoning its population, and primarily imprisons its indigenous population. Incarceration for Maori men is 6x that for the rest of the population and for Maori women, closer to 8x higher.
The very nature of prisons is being fundamentally changed. Under new 'private' prisons, incarcerated people will be commodities sold to the lowest bidder. Meanwhile, the Department of Corrections estimates that 4 new prisons will need to be built to accommodate all the people who are being turned into prisoners by the extension of draconian laws and sentencing policies.
Prisons exist to punish and control the poor / working class, not to stop crime or rehabilitate people. Resistance to the prison-industrial complex and the achievement of real justice is possible. It will take organisation and the recognition that prison 'reform' is not genuinely possible under capitalism.
For further information, please contact info@awsm.org.nz
Comments
Fatalism
"It will take organisation and the recognition that prison 'reform' is not genuinely possible under capitalism."
Couldn't we say something like 'prison reform will be bitterly resisted by capitalism, and only the experience of struggling for it will show us how much reform is possible without a deeper, long term democratisation of our economy'? Isn't that a bit more encouraging?
This reminds me of the standard disclaimer that used to be at the end of every article in Socialist Worker. It comes across like a piss-weak excuse for why the anticapitalist movement achieves so little despite taking up most of the free time (and in some cases the entire lives) of a bunch of bright, talented and passionate people. Nothing we want to do is genuinely possible under capitalism. That's why the things we do so seldom have lasting impacts. It's not because we choose self-defeating tactics, based on little or no strategy, no, no, it's because nothing is possible under capitalism except more capitalism. It's not that by choosing better tactics or doing more strategic planning we could accomplish more, no, no, our job is to continue doing the same predictable, boring things until capitalism magically disappears one day, and suddenly, all good things become possible. Until we replace this defeatist fairy tale with a story that reinforces rather than vanishes our own power to change the world *here and now*, capitalism is home and hosed.
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It's good to see discussions
It's good to see discussions about prison abolition - however, I hope the meeting is not limited only to the abolition of prisons. You state:
"Prisons exist to punish and control the poor / working class, not to stop crime or rehabilitate people. Resistance to the prison-industrial complex and the achievement of real justice is possible."
I think the statement should say that the 'justice system' exists to punish and control.
The whole system needs to be resisted.
prisons for children in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands it is common practise for the privatised social services to put children out of the home for near or no reason at all and to put them in prisons or labourcamps. These children again are sold to the highest bidder. The working children only receive food if they work hard enough, sometimes 14 hours a day. There are no safety precautions in place.
http://childslaves.blogspot.com
The following is one story about an internationally kidnapped boy called Norwin. He has been locked up in a solitary cell for years. he has never even been convicted of any crime. He never committed one. No one doubts that. He just had to dissapear.
Norwin was below the minimum age for to put a child in jail. But no one cared much about that. He had been kidnapped and brought to the Netherlands. His mother anciously awaits his return. She cries every day. The Dutch company called jeugdzorg got hold of the boy and they refuse to let him go back home. They are paid for every day the boy is in their hands. The international laws state that all kidnapped children should be returned home immediately to their parents. In order to prevent anyone from contacting the boy the company had him locked up in jail. What a lot of harm does this do to a young boy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y2uo_N5JBI
- E-Mail: fem.action (at) yahoo.ie
Website: http://letthechildrengo.blogspot.com
petition opened
http://www.petitiononline.com/Urre/petition-sign.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/Urre/petition-sign.html