WORLD WORLDWIDE AUSTRALIA - (en) Australia, AnComFed: Picket Line - Capitalism needs prisonsbut we don't (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 You might hear 'prison abolition' and think of a great big wrecking ball, smashing up the walls of a cellblock and freeing the people inside. Today, the idea sounds completely nuts to most people.

What? Let all of the prisoners go? The rapists? The killers? Just let them loose on the streets?
The truth is, as naïve as some activists might be about the subject, prison abolition is possible. But it won't be a one-and-done event.
Instead, think of prison abolition as a process. It starts with understanding the roots of what we call 'crime', and supporting fellow workers in need. But the process can't be ended under capitalism.

The state needs prisons to hold capitalism together. So, to abolish prisons, we have to abolish capitalism.

'Crime' and punishment under capital
So what about all those killers and rapists?

The way the news media tells it, those are the only people locked up. Governments sell us an image of prisons as being crammed with the lowliest and most violent scum on earth. These people are nothing like youthey were practically destined for jail.

But violent criminals make up a small section of inmates.

People rarely enter the prison system because of a single dramatic act. Most contact with police begins with instability. Miss a fine because you can't afford it. Breach bail because you have no stable address. Sleep in a park. Drive without registration. Shoplift. Get charged with public drunkenness because you have nowhere else to drink. Or, hey, maybe you and your friends just smoked a joint.

Court dates are missed. Warrants are issued. Bail conditions tighten. More court. More fines. And it's a cycle that doesn't fall evenly. Incarceration follows the lines laid down by colonisation. First Nations people make up less than five percent of Australia's population, yet nearly forty percent of its prison population. This isn't because of any reality where Indigenous people are somehow more likely to commit crime simply by virtue of identity.

Rather than give poor workers resources, the system arrests them for stealing. Rather than humanely treat those with substance addictions, the system arrests them for using. And rather than address the epidemic of mental illness in this country, the system allows police to brutalise the sick, and courts to throw them in cages.

Meanwhile, who gets to enjoy their freedom? The war-mongerers and accomplices to the genocide of Palestinians. The financial criminals. The creeps in the Epstein files. Under capitalism, the ruling class decides what counts as 'legal' and 'illegal'. And when they break their own laws, they get away with it.

The fantasy of liberal abolitionism
Some visions of prison abolition are well-intentioned, but completely unrealistic.

A lot of what gets called 'crime' isn't actually harmful. Some of it is harmful, but should be responded to with care, solidarity, or medical care. But the idea that we can totally eliminate prisons by just creating 'alternatives' is wrong.

Capitalism needs prisons because the system doesn't function unless the state has the power to make and enforce laws. Corporations need to make sure we don't get anything for free. Landlords need to extract rent and evict tenants. And bosses need to prevent us from using our greatest weapon: going on strike.

So, prison abolition has to be revolutionary. And as revolutionaries, we also can't act as if there will never be a need to temporarily confine an actively dangerous individual (what else would we do with fascists trying to crush a revolution?).

Prison abolition doesn't mean we ignore the fact that people do harm. It rejects the idea that a system built upon slavery, racism, and the exploitation of a cheap source of labour, could ever serve true justice. Particularly when enthroned on mountains of cold cases, and enforced by incompetent abusers.

Instead, prison abolition must be part of a long-term revolutionary process.

The path to freedom
When the state sends people to jail, it isn't to keep everyone else safe. It's to protect capitalist interests, foster division, and turn a profit. Rather than protecting society, it traps people in cycles of violence, with little evidence of rehabilitation.

Prison isolates people from communities, stokes identity-based mistrust, and encourages profiling. It maintains the root causes of anti-social crime and stops the working class from uniting to demand better.

In the short term, it's essential to combat racist policing, the criminalisation of poverty, and anti-strike laws which deprive us of power. But if our goal is a world which doesn't force hundreds of thousands of poor, desperate, and sick people into cages, we need a workers' revolution. Only then can we put an end to the capitalist system, and the violence it generates.

https://ancomfed.org/2026/04/capitalism-needs-prisons-but-we-dont/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca