Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation

Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation is a collection of interviews, essays, and collaborative writings by eminent scholar and organizer Ruth Wilson Gilmore. The writings that span more than thirty years focus on the interplay of racial capitalism, U.S. nationalism, and privatization in growing the prison industrial complex. Gilmore illustrates the geopolitical and socioeconomic dynamics involved in dehumanizing people in a capitalistic, profit-driven system. Focusing on the geographies of power and difference, Gilmore explores the complex interplay of globalization and the U.S. criminal justice institution that systematically and disproportionately jails and imprisons Black, Indigenous, Brown, and other people of color.

Gilmore’s work is enlightening and informative, a must-read for scholars and activists seeking a complex and interdisciplinary deep dive to effectively drive systemic change. It’s helpful to understand the racist trajectory of carceral policy in unearthing the root causes of mass incarceration. Policing, courts, and prisons all have a role to play in sustaining an unjust system that profits from the imprisonment of those whom Gilmore characterizes as “modestly educated people in the prime of their lives.” Anyone committed to prison reform and social justice has much to learn from Gilmore’s insights about the cognitive work and tactical organizing required to imagine and build an abolitionist future.