Category: WK8: Towards an Abolitionist Future

The essays in We Do This We Free Us by Mariame Kaba provide details on the steps society could take to enter an era where communities wouldn’t have to rely on traditional policing. Kaba presents cases that display the unjust treatment of black people by law enforcement showing how police are anti-black. She also critiques the prison system, which fails in its job of containing violence. One of the observations that she mentions that caught my attention is that victims who are framed as criminals are thrown into prison, where the violence cycle continues. Along with that, prisons do not seek the rehabilitation of a criminal but rather focus on an “eye for an eye” system that aims to abuse a prisoner, thus dehumanizing them. 

In the documentary, At the Ready, we see the youth of the community of El Paso exposed to the possibility of becoming a border agent. Through a school program, we see Latino youth seeking to pursue a career in this field. Watching this, I was initially shocked that these students were open to working as border patrols. However, I understood their justification of financial security as a reason for their involvement. Despite being seen as assets for the government and the discrimination they face for being Latino, it’s intriguing that these students continue to pursue a career in this field. 

Both pieces give insight into what it would be like to have members of the community in a policing agency. Kaba makes a good argument on how police are deployed to handle any matter. Having specially trained service members who will respond to conflicts and are proficient in their task, leads to more effective methods of defusing a situation. On the other hand, the documentary shows a different motivation for having community members in a policing force. Latinos in the police force are seen as assets, and we see how programs attract students through financial promises. Students are influenced by the actions of the current police, becoming another rendition of the same police. However, we see instances, especially from Cassy and Cesar, expressing their personal beliefs. I find this difficult to find a stance on. It may seem that they are betraying their people, but then again, the students are simply seeking to improve their situations, and I don’t believe anyone can blame them.

We Do This Till We Free Us by Mariame Kaba introduces the political vision of abolitionism, which focuses on abandoning the current system of oppression, such as police brutality, and reorganizing it into a community-based structure of care and accountability.

One of Kaba’s main arguments lies in the distinction between punishment and accountability. She critiques the use of punishment and urges communities to engage in accountability. Punishment is more closely tied to the legal system, involving jails and prisons where individuals face incarceration and legal consequences, whereas accountability arises from the responsibility of citizens.

While Kaba’s vision and argument are valid, I find them somewhat utopian. The idea of abolishing the legal system entirely and replacing it with community-led accountability groups raises concerns about feasibility and equity. Personally, I find it difficult to imagine a world without a legal system, relying solely on accountability. Her vision seems more plausible in highly educated and affluent communities. In societies with systemic economic disparities, it is difficult to envision a world without theft or conflict, where everyone behaves exactly as others expect.Hence, I do find Kaba’s argument compelling though it is very idealistic in the current society where extreme disparities still perpetuates.

At the Ready is a documentary that follows Latino high schoolers preparing for a career in law enforcement. Mariame Kaba lays the groundwork for questioning whether policing is necessary, a debate that also arises in law enforcement classes. I was particularly intrigued by the classroom discussion on deploying the military to the border. Kassy remarked, “I wasn’t participating in the debate because they weren’t discussing them as people; they were discussing them as pests.” I think her point is valid—such classroom discussions might dehumanize the subjects and frame them as “others,” thereby reducing the empathy students should have for their own communities.

This week’s content asked us to examine the way we understand the role of law enforcement in our communities.  

We Do This Till We Free Us by Mariame Kaba is a sort of introduction to abolition as a political movement. Abolition is not merely prison or police reform. It asks us to imagine a world without police and prisons, a world where we address harm by accountability rather than punishment. Here are some of the themes that really stuck with me: 

1. Kaba devotes many pages to discussing the stories of Black people who were murdered by the police. While she empathizes with the impulse to seek justice through the legal system, Kaba warns that true justice is not possible. The system that killed these people will never deliver true justice, even in the rare case when their killers go to prison. She emphasizes many times that true abolitionists do not celebrate even when people like Larry Nassar or R Kelly go to prison. Vengeance is not justice.  

2. When you hear discussions of harm by law enforcement and police against people of color, you see these tendencies: the perfect victim narrative and the focus on excess. We empathize far more with “perfect victims” who live up to specific standards of morality and value, meaning that anyone who does not satisfy this narrative does not receive the same outcry. We talk about the excessive number of times a person was shot or the excessive time they were put in a choke hold. But of course, even murder by a single bullet is horribly unjust. The focus on the excess of violence means that we disregard violence that doesn’t seem so excessive.  

“At the Ready” takes a more microscopic view of the role of law enforcement within a specific community in El Paso, Texas. The documentary follows lives of Latino high school students who are training to get jobs with border patrol after graduation. Their aspirations are greatly shaped by geography, class, and ethnicity so much so that their world views are being shaped in ways that seem contrary to their best interests.  

These pieces together capture the ways that law enforcement tears communities apart and create a false sense of security. 

In We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba their is a collection of essays, books, and interviews regarding the prison system. Kaba’s main argument is that abolition is not just about fixing prisons and policing but fixing society as well. One thing in particular that is emphasized is collective action and community-based solutions. Instead of the traditional system of punishment and then incarceration, Kaba suggests alternatives such as holding people accountable as a community and other methods. In the documentary At the Ready by Maisie Crow, Hillary Pierce, and Abbie Perrault follows a group of high school students who are in a club that is designed to help them prepare for a career in border security or policing. We get to look inside the personal lives of many of these students as they go through this experience. Both We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba and the documentary At the Ready look at policing, justice, and power but they look at these from different perspectives. Kaba argues that policing and prisons are very oppressive and must be destroyed as they are not able to be reformed. At the ready argues that policing is a very promising career path particularly for LatinX students who are living near borders. Both We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba and the documentary At the Ready made me consider aspects of policing and influence which I hadn’t thought of before. Kaba made me think about how we often ignore how ineffective policing is and how it doesn’t deal with the root cause. At the ready made this very personal by showing students who see a future lifestyle with policing often making more then their parents in year 1-2. It was very interesting to see their reactions and thoughts about situations like the border, immigration, and racial profiling. Particuarly the fact that the majority of the class when talking about the border would have shut it down despite the fact that most of them were latino. This was very surprising as they have often experienced being treated differently and they are still not defending their same race.