Abolition and the renewal of community: from carceral feminism to collective self-determination

In the 1980s, feminist activism to challenge gender-based violence in the United States took a turn from radical grassroots formations towards institutions increasingly reliant on law enforcement. The embrace of policing as the guarantor of the safety of women and children became not only emblematic of US gender justice but also has been exported globally as a progressive form of anti-violence intervention. Since the turn of the millennium, a counter movement in the United States led primarily by feminists of colour has condemned what is now known as carceral feminism and promoted community-based, non-carceral responses to gender-based violence. Prison abolition as a framework for liberation and transformative justice and as a pathway to community safety, free from the violence of the state, has increasingly occupied the public imagination and emphasized new possibilities for community practice. Through the examination of the tensions within the US feminist anti-violence movement, this conceptual article reflects on the development of the carceral state, the emergence of abolition, and the implications for community organizing and community development.