Sequencing is key – without pre-existing alternatives, other forms of oppression will fill in

(Liat, “The Tension between Abolition and Reform,” The End of Prisons. Reflections from the Decarceration Movement, 2013)

When a system is abolished there is a danger that other systems with the same goals would arise to fill the void left by the abolished system. Famed sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, in his book Black Reconstruction (1999 [1935]), discusses abolition not as a mere negative process, one of tearing down. It isultimately about creating new institutions. Du Bois was very insistent that in order to abolish slavery in modern times, new democratic institutions have to be established and maintained. Because that did not occur, slavery found a new home in Jim Crow, convict lease systems, second class education and mass incarceration. Thus, the abolition of slavery was only successful on the negative aspect, but no new institutions were created to successfully incorpo-rate black people into the existing social order. Prisons today have thrived precisely because of the lack of such resources that Du Bois was arguing for. Prisons today can’t be abolished until such equality-ensuring mechanisms are in place (Davis, 2005). Being free of chains is only the beginning.