Are Prisons Obsolete?

In the first chapter, Davis introduces her book’s major themes and arguments. The first theme, which underlines the book’s purpose, is the need for prison abolition, not just prison reform. Davis explicitly states that her goal is “that this book will encourage readers to question their own assumptions about the prison” (10). She repeats that “on the whole, people take prison for granted” (15), and thus the harmful programs within the system flourish with public approval. In the first few pages, she draws attention to the barriers that abolitionists face even among other activists, as many perceive their goal of entirely eradicating prisons as “at best unrealistic and impracticable, and, at worst, mystifying and foolish” (10). Davis believes that prisons are too thoroughly repressive for reform to have an appreciable effect and that abolition is therefore the only option in a truly democratic society. She outlines the goals of abolitionists—which she details in Chapter 6—as decarceration, restorative justice, and better social welfare.

The second theme she presents is how US prisons perpetuate the legacies of slavery and racism. Davis presents shocking statistics to demonstrate how present the prison system is in Black and minority communities, despite the widespread belief that prison is “disconnected from our own lives” (15). Davis shares a Sentencing Project study from 1990, which saw that “one in four Black men between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine” (19) were in prison, on probation, or on parole—and in 1995 that number rose to one in three Black men, or 32.2%. This criterion also applied to one in 10 Latino men. The study showed that in this same period, Black women’s incarceration rate rose 78%. Throughout the book, Davis emphasizes the disproportionate incarceration rates of Black people, explaining that the numbers are not a coincidence but an intentionally racist aspect of the system meant to control Black populations.

The final theme she introduces in Chapter 1 is the prison’s visibility and invisibility, which Davis calls its “simultaneous presence and absence” (15) in the social landscape. She sees that people are hyper-aware of prisons and think them a necessary part of the justice system, but at the same time “there is reluctance to face the realities hidden within them, a fear of thinking about what happens inside them” (15). Davis shares an anecdote that because most people believe they won’t go to prison—even those who have “already experienced imprisonment” (15)—people perceive prison issues as beyond the concern of the self. Connecting to the theme of racism, Davis argues that government and media rhetoric about evildoers, who “in the collective imagination [are] implicitly fantasized as people of color” (16), perpetuate this mindset. People in the free world therefore consent to the proliferation of prisons because they relieve the public of “undesirables” (16).

Davis uses various persuasive devices to bolster her argument throughout the text and in this chapter. She infuses her academic writing with personal experience to strengthen the veracity of her claims. In describing rapid prison expansion, she uses her own lifetime as a guidepost, explaining that “ten times as many people would be locked away in cages” (11) since the beginning of her activist work in the 1960s. This perspective helps emphasize the rapid influx of prisoners, as Davis and many others bear firsthand witness to the changes. Davis doesn’t only use her opinion to support her argument; she infuses her claims with research from other scholars and professionals. She includes the work of geographer Ruth Gilmore, cultural critic Gina Dent, and sociologist Elliot Currie in this chapter alongside her own analyses. The variety of fields in which these scholars work demonstrates that prison issues affect all aspects of society. Another persuasive device Davis uses repeatedly is rhetorical questions. She asks, “How is it that so many people could end up in prison without major debates regarding the efficacy of incarceration?” (11) and “What, for example, do we miss if we try to think about prison expansion without addressing larger economic development?” (16). These questions prompt consideration of the extent of the issues and hint at a hidden agenda behind the justice system that Davis reveals throughout the text.

The author focuses her examination of prison growth through a study of California’s “prisonization” (14). California built its first prison in 1852, and between this construction and 1952—more than 100 years—only nine others were built. After this initially slow development, Davis points out, prison construction became comparatively explosive in the 1980s and 90s. In the 1980s alone, when “the number of California prisons doubled” (13)—and the state constructed another 12 prisons were in the 1990s. At the time of this book’s publication, California had 33 prisons, 38 detention camps, 16 correctional facilities, 157,979 total prisoners, and more than 20,000 people in immigrant detention (13). In addition, California is home to the world’s two most populous women’s prisons. Davis shares this shocking expansion to show “how easy it was to produce a massive system of incarceration with the implicit consent of the public” (14). By focusing on one of 50 states, Davis at once makes the information more digestible and prompts imagining similar scenarios in the other states.

Davis emphasizes the media’s significant role in the public’s understanding of prison life and prison issues, and she alludes to its role throughout the book. Like other theorists, Davis sees the media as reinforcing “the institution of the prison as a naturalized part of our social landscape” (17). Gina Dent argues that prison images in popular media have existed from the dawn of moving pictures, as Thomas Edison’s first films, like Execution of Czolgosz with Panorama of Auburn Prison, involved tapes of “the darkest recesses of the prison” (18). Hollywood and cable television have developed an entire genre of prison stories to satiate public curiosity about the secretive institutions. Davis and Dent find that these stories often distort the truth through sensationalized narratives and imagery and thus don’t reveal what life is really like behind prison walls. Davis sees movies like Escape from Alcatraz and TV shows like Oz as upholding the prison’s necessity in American culture rather than exposing the pitfalls of the prison system.