For abolition : essays on prisons and socialist ethics / David Scott.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scott, David Gordon, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Criminal justice, Administration of.

Imprisonment.

Prisons.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (268 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Hampshire, England : Waterside Press, [2020]

Summary:

According to Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) 'Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.' Connecting the politics of abolition to wider emancipatory struggles for liberation and social justice, this book argues that penal abolitionism should be understood as an important public critical pedagogy and philosophy of hope that can help to reinvigorate democracy and set society on a pathway towards living in a world without prisons. For Abolition draws upon the socialist ethics of dignity, empathy, freedom and paradigm of life to systematically critique imprisonment as a state institution characterised by 'social death'. 'A thoroughly engaging and passionate challenge to dominant understandings of crime and punishment ... Prisons are revealed as sites of mental and physical brutality, utterly incapable of providing constructive transformative regimes'-- Professor Emma Bell, University of Savoie. 'A timely and urgent reminder of the need for Abolition ... excellently exposes prisons as institutions of domination, repression and power ... A must read for all concerned with the state of prisons'-- Dr Kathryn Chadwick, Manchester Metropolitan University. 'A book that should be cherished by scholars, students, practitioners and activists alike ... it is rare to find a text so sensitively and empathically composed'-- Dr Alana Barton, Edge Hill University.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781909976849

1909976849

9781909976832

1909976830