“Prison Abolition Without the Ethic”

The title of this post is the title of this new article available via SSRN authored by Jacob Gordon. Here is its abstract:

Prison abolitionists stand for an “ethic.”   The ethic rejects punishment of all kinds, as well as capitalism broadly understood.  By focusing on their ethic, abolitionists mask strong arguments for prison abolition — or at least something like it — from within more common commitments.  The ethic therefore undermines actual abolition in the name of a distinct and contestable set of theories.