Are Prisons Obsolete?

200 years after the invention of the penitentiary - the question of prison abolition has acquired an unprecedented urgency. Amid rising public concern about the proliferation of prisons, and their promise of enormous profits. Angela Davis argues for the abolition of the prison system as the dominant way of responding to social ills.
Since the 1980s prison construction and incarceration rates in the U.S. have been rising exponentially, evoking huge public concern about their proliferation, their recent privatisation and their promise of enormous profits. But these prisons house hugely disproportionate numbers of people of colour, betraying the racism embedded in the system, while studies show that increasing prison sentences has had no effect on crime. Here, esteemed civil rights activist Angela Davis lays bare the situation and argues for a radical rethinking of our rehabilitation programmes.