CLASSES AT HARVARD
HIST-LIT 90ES
Prison Abolition
Thomas Dichter
Is prison abolition a serious proposal, an aspirational ideal, a trendy slogan, or a blueprint for social transformation? This interdisciplinary and community-engaged course situates the prison abolition movement in deep historical context and explores its current relation to the politics of criminal justice reform. We will study the movement’s connections to slavery abolitionism, anti-lynching activism, Indigenous struggles for sovereignty, and the Black Power movement. We will examine the emergence of the modern prison abolitionist movement in the 1970s, as well as more recent developments concerning immigration detention, Black Lives Matter, and COVID-19. Our readings will include interdisciplinary scholarship on the carceral state in addition to protest writings and activist materials. A major component of the course will be collaborative activities and service with community organizations focused on incarceration and the criminal legal system, through which we will consider what prison abolitionist ideas might look like in action. There will be opportunities for dialogue with scholars and activists as we investigate prison abolition not as a singular policy, but as a rich and challenging set of questions for rethinking matters of violence, inequality, and social change.
EXPOS 20-239
Are Prisons Obsolete?
Hudson Vincent
With 1.8 million Americans currently locked behind bars, the United States imprisons its citizens at a higher rate than any other country in the world. But calls to reimagine our country’s carceral system are on the rise. Black Lives Matter and other movements are asking urgent questions: why are Black Americans imprisoned five times more than white ones? Should there be for-profit prisons? What crimes merit confinement? What is the purpose of prisons? And do we even need them? In this course, we will grapple with these questions by examining a variety of scholarly perspectives on the United States prison system. We will begin by analyzing the arguments for prison abolition versus reform in Angela Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003). To situate ourselves within a broad debate over the history of mass incarceration in the United States, we will then compare recent scholarship on the subject by Michelle Alexander, James Forman Jr., and Elizabeth Hinton. We will also read first-hand accounts of prisons in Reginald Dwayne Betts’s memoir and poetry. Over the course of the semester, we will receive visits from prison abolitionists, civil rights attorneys, and formerly incarcerated people, who will help us understand the movement to end mass incarceration in the United States.
EDU T010I
Education in Carceral Spaces
Kaia Stern
How do we do education in carceral spaces? What is the purpose/power of formal education? Given that human connection is generally contraband in jails and prisons, and education is about connection, what is our praxis? This course will be held in conversation with students and leaders who are currently incarcerated. We will visit local jails and prisons to listen and learn from people who are deeply familiar with cradle-to-cell trauma, systems of racialized punishment, and the possibility of the classroom as a sacred space. Our work will engage a range of disciplines including ethics, transformative pedagogy, neuroscience, and public policy. Some questions for consideration: How do we realize education as the practice of freedom[1] inside policed classrooms? How do we conceptualize abolition? In what ways is language justice both vital and insufficient? Please note that enrollment is limited and by application only.
GOV 94BF
#AbolishPolice: The Politics of Public Safety in the Age of Social Media
Jennifer Halen
Recent examples of police brutality have ignited unforeseen momentum for police and prison abolition. Online activism has helped to fuel this unprecedented moment, sparking heated debates about equitable public safety. We’ll discuss these debates as well as questions like: what would police abolition look like in practice? How does #AbolishPolice relate to parallel/complementary movements like #DefundPolice, #AbolishIce, #BlackLivesMatter, and others? And how do online campaigns affect the speed, intensity, and content of social movements? Topics will also include the intellectual roots and history of the carceral abolition movement, activist tactics and technologies, and institutional design and change.
HLS SEMINAR + CLINIC
Institute to End Mass Incarceration Clinical Seminar
Andrew Crespo & Premal Dharia
The Institute to End Mass Incarceration is a research and advocacy program that works toward the dramatic decarceration of the United States, the eradication of the root causes of mass incarceration, and the promotion of new approaches to dealing with harm and safety in our communities. The Institute’s advocacy work is anchored to its clinical component, which aims to develop, teach, and practice a nontraditional mode of lawyering that helps to build the power of social movements, including by activating public defenders as systemic change agents. Working alongside and in support of community-led movements, the Institute’s advocacy work will help strategize and implement collective-action campaigns that catalyze the power of the very people impacted by the penal system.
HDS 3039
Creating Justice in Real Time: Vision, Strategies, and Campaigns
Cornell Brooks
Amidst the end of the world as we've known it, envisioning the world we want to be.
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Working with the William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice, municipal governments, as well as national/state advocacy organizations, a select cohort of students will work to address current injustices in real time—with a focus on what is demonstrably effective. Students will develop visions, strategies and campaigns as well as legislative, policy, best practice, organizing, communication, and moral framing strategies to address injustices related to policing, voting, the environment, economic development, infrastructure, prison abolition, and reparations. Students will employ advocacy principles such as moral ambition, perfect/imperfect victims, concentric/consecutive coalitions, and scholarship as an organizing tool.
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