Our Mission Statement

 

Prison Abolition seeks to create critical dialogue about the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) and prison abolition in order to deconstruct the conventional idea that imprisonment is the solution to social problems. We aim to generate a movement on the Claremont Colleges and beyond to directly engage with communities affected by the PIC and to work toward building proactive solutions alternative to imprisonment. There are 3 main components of our organization: education, activism, and community engagement. We believe that we should invest in communities through education, rehabilitation, employment, healing, and housing. Supporting the prison system means directly and indirectly harming communities through control and punishment, especially people of color and trans people. People of color and trans people are directly targeted and most harmed by this system. 

 

Rather than taking a reformist approach, we call for abolition because most reforms do not aim to radically transform this system and instead perpetuate it. However, we acknowledge that abolitionists may still pursue reforms with the larger goal of abolition in mind, but the way in which we do so must seek to ultimately dismantle the system. We see the PIC as fundamentally unjust and unsustainable, and want to reimagine how social problems can be addressed differently. Our movement comes from a place of revolutionary love. We want to dismantle the idea that certain kinds of people are disposable. The communities that are disproportionately policed and imprisoned are not disposable; they matter. It is not sustainable to throw people away; it is not sustainable to not deal with the root causes of our social and economic problems. In seeking to heal conflict within our communities, we can also heal our relationship to the Earth.

​

Stay up to date on our organization by liking our facebook page, following us on instagram, and subscribing to our email list!