We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2021

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Themes

Accountability Over Punishment

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses structural racism and racist violence, including police shootings, as well as sexual violence.

At the heart of Kaba’s argument is the idea that those who have done wrong need to face accountability, reckoning with the harm they have caused, rather than be subject to punishment. Kaba describes how critics of prison abolitionism frequently argue that whatever their flaws, prisons are necessary for protecting society against violent criminals, asking gotcha questions such as “what about the rapists?” (134). Absent an equally clear alternative, it may seem as though the only alternatives are “prison or nothing” (137), rendering prison the obviously preferable alternative.

In the text, Kaba turns this argument on its head, showing that precisely because prison is the prevailing model, there is an abundance of evidence proving its ineffectiveness at deterring crime or encouraging offenders to accept genuine responsibility for their actions. By punishing them, prisons are simply “inflicting cruelty and suffering on people” (146), depriving them of their humanity and with it the moral faculties needed for genuine accountability. Inflicting such cruelty is part of the common human desire to inflict hurt in response to hurt, but this simply perpetuates a cycle that is likely to lead the offender to inflict further hurt in response to what they have suffered. None of the supposed goals of punishment work, except perhaps in some cases soothing hurt feelings.

According to Kaba, accountability is not a “one-size-fits-all model” (167), another important way in which it contrasts with the penal system. It must be based on both the circumstances of the instance, and the broader social context in which it occurs. However, Kaba establishes some general parameters, many of which involve depriving the offender of power to reoffend, whether a celebrity who used their social position to exploit people sexually or a police officer that guns down a Black youth in cold blood. Another principle is non-reliance on the state in any way possible, instead empowering the community to take charge, focusing on the healing of the victim (a nonfactor at best in criminal proceedings) and helping the offender recognize the harm they have done, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that “we respond to violence and harm in a way that doesn’t cause more violence and harm” (149).

The lack of particulars is all the more reason to create spaces where alternative visions can thrive, because it is beyond dispute that the current system is failing. The same communities who have been traditionally marginalized or brutalized by the state have been at the forefront of developing such alternatives.

The Value and Limits of Reform

Kaba is an abolitionist, meaning that her ultimate goal is the eradication of prisons, policing, and the entire system of “premature death and organized and organized abandonment” that inflicts so much cruelty and suffering on communities across the United States (134). She is steadfastly opposed to reforms that are limited to removing “bad apples” or that presume that the institutions in question can reform themselves (55), such as through a technological advancement or more training. According to Kaba, the police is intentionally designed to isolate, torture and kill Black people, and so any reform would leave that essential function intact, and perhaps even make them more efficient.

Furthermore, the goal of abolition cannot be compromised, because to do so would entail complicity with a violent, oppressive system. Kaba’s goals are actually more expansive than abolishing the police and prisons. In the text, she often states that these institutions are just the most powerful manifestations of a broader social structure using a vast array of tools including capitalism, permanent warfare, and even schools to enforce a hierarchy of race, gender, class, and sexuality. The abolition of the punishment system is one major step forward in the effort toward “the founding of a new society” (24).

Paradoxically, this comprehensive vision can only move forward. As Kaba states, “there will never be a day when the skies open up and the angels sing, ‘Abolition!’” (137). While adamantly opposed to reformism, which invariably serves as a defense of the status quo, Kaba proposes a host of reforms that she believes can help make meaningful progress toward abolition. Her own Project NIA focuses on ending juvenile incarceration, and she notes that specific communities can make a meaningful difference by removing the police from schools, ending cash bail, decriminalizing certain drugs, and easing the process of release from prison.

A major avenue of reform is introducing the idea of “reparations” for victims of police violence (66), as opposed to the prosecution of the offenders. She describes a major victory where the city of Chicago authorized payments and gave a formal apology to victims of a police captain who tortured countless Black people in his custody over many years. None of these reforms by themselves will upend the punishment system, Kaba believes, but just as prison itself is a relatively recent phenomenon that made itself seem indispensable mostly by being familiar, abolition is an impossible idea until people try it.

Activism and Community Organizing

As an activist and organizer, Kaba’s goal in writing the book is to explain the cause of prison abolition to a wider audience as well as reflect on the lessons she has learned from decades’ worth of experience. One of the most evident lessons is the need to sustain hope while very rarely feeling a sense of accomplishment. She states bluntly that “organizing is mostly about defeats” (127). Kaba herself has wondered, “[C]an this be possible? Can the community have power over the institution of policing?” with a sense of profound doubt regarding the answer (98). She speaks extensively about the incredible toll that her work has exerted on her life, from anxious hours or even days awaiting updates on someone who has been arrested or shot, having practically no time for self-care, to bitter disputes within groups about tactics and purpose.

As a person, it can be extremely difficult to resist the tug of discouragement, possibly even despair, but Kaba’s writing nevertheless returns again and again to the topics of hope and possibility. When speaking of herself, Kaba tends to be gloomier, but her hopefulness is evident in discussions of others, including the individuals she has worked to rescue from the clutches of the carceral state and the communities that have come together to both demand and practice justice. In the book, Kaba often speaks directly to these people, in one place telling them that, even amidst failures and defeats, “you showed that abolition as a project is about building a vision of a different world: one where everyone has their needs met and where #BlackLivesMatter” (128).

Organizing is ultimately about challenging social structures, but Kaba maintains this is not an issue of tearing down the status quo and replacing it with an alternative. It is meaningful when activists wring a concession from a city government, or free an unjustly imprisoned person, but there is a meaningful difference between activism and organization. While both are important, Kaba regards activism as “folks who are taking action on particular issues that really move them in some specific way […] signing petitions, being on aboard of a particular organization that’s doing good in the world” (180). It can be an individual activity that one pursues as much or as little as they want. Organizers, on the other hand, “can’t exist solo” as they are charged with building a movement and charting its course (180), taking on existing power structures. While it takes an infinite variety of forms, organization is a means of creating an alternative form of social organization, outside the power of the state, capable of articulating and then modeling behaviors that can then work their way into mainstream practice.