Carceral Con

"The criminal justice system isn't in crisis, it is a crisis. Heitzeg and Whitlock show us in detail that reformism fails to resolve this crisis. Why? Because the purpose of most reformism is to stifle protest rather than to unmake conditions that provoke protest against police violence, prison and jail, detention, criminalization, and organized abandonment. Time after time, measures touted by municipal, county, state, and federal lawmakers 'fix' the system by making it bigger and harder. Carceral Con is a must-read for all who want to understand how we got to where we are. The book can help move organizing energy away from cosmetic enhancements and toward structural change."--Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (included in the 2020 National Book Foundation Literature for Justice selected reading list) "This is an important intervention in bringing prison and police abolition together in a way that provides both theoretical underpinnings and practical advice for organizers."--Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing "As bipartisan reform agendas have helped authorize criminalization as a solution to social problems, Carceral Con will surely be a go-to resource. This is an indispensable book for scholars, activists, and the general public."--Jordan T. Camp, author of Incarcerating the Crisis: Freedom Struggles and the Rise of the Neoliberal State "The only thing worse than partisan gridlock is bipartisan support for the wrong thing. Kay Whitlock and Nancy A. Heitzeg pull back the curtain on the many ways foundations, politicians, and private actors have used the mandate of prison reform to extend punitive social control. Carceral Con is the book we have been waiting for: a necessary, sobering must-read for anyone who cares about how carceral power works--and how to end it."--Dan Berger, author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era "Whitlock and Heitzeg brilliantly expose the devastating myths that bolster bipartisan reform. With candor, precision, and clarity, Carceral Con dares to interrupt the dominant narratives that attempt to appease us--and points the way toward a bold, generous, liberatory future. This book not only shows us how structural violence undergirds the criminal legal system; it provides us with an expansive depiction of that violence, which includes environmental racism, merciless individualism, and the organized abandonment of communities of color, among many other harmful forces. Whitlock and Heitzeg build on an indestructible case against the push to 'fine-tune injustice' with reforms that simply perpetuate a death-dealing status quo. Carceral Con is a transformative, timely, and necessary read."--Maya Schenwar, coauthor of Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms "In Carceral Con, Kay Whitlock and Nancy A. Heitzeg expose the misleading, superficial gambit of so-called bipartisan criminal justice reform. Drawing on a range of writers organizations working against the inequities and barbarities of racial capitalism, carceral logic, and militarized policing, they offer us clear thinking and transformative action for change. Carceral Con is a critical resource for all progressives."--Lisa Duggan, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University "Carceral Con is a must-read for activists and scholars alike working to abolish the interlocking systems of punishment, racial capitalism, and structural inequality. In clear, trenchant prose, this book lays out why criminal justice reforms not only fail but often strengthen the very penal institutions they seek to ameliorate. Kay Whitlock and Nancy A. Heitzeg have written a movement book that reflects the wisdom of many years of abolitionist organizing and dares us to think expansively about the true origins of transformational change."--Donna Murch, author of Living for the City: Education, Migration, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California