In the United Kingdom, noted policy leaders such as Pat Carlen and the Howard League are amongst those calling for decarceration and social (re)investment. I commend Angela Davis’ new book entitled, Are Prisons Obsolete? Indeed, many others besides Angela have also characterized the push to criminalize the most dispossessed as the present manifestation of race, ability, class and gender bias, and argue that this demands we examine our fundamental beliefs and notions of whose interests and biases are privileged.

It seems quite ludicrous that we continue to pretend that telling women and girls not to take drugs to dull the pain of abuse, hunger or other devastation, or tell them that they must stop the behaviour that allowed them to survive the multi-generational impacts of colonization, poverty, abuse, disabilities, et cetera, in the face of no current or prospect of any income, housing, medical, educational or other supports. We must absolutely resist and reject the continued trend to jail women because of what they “need” and then release them to the street with little more than psycho-social, cognitive skills or drug abstinence programming, along with the implicit judgment that they are in control of and therefore responsible for their situations, including their own criminalization.

Furthermore, when we see this is not working, instead of accepting band-aid attempts to patch up our increasingly net-less social safety net with pointless national or provincial initiatives like ‘crime prevention’ and ‘homelessness’, we must demand fundamentally different constructive approaches that do not presume the most dispossessed people are all potential criminals or that homelessness is a “choice” selected from a broad menu of options and opportunities. What on earth do I mean by that? Well, consider for a moment feeding children breakfast or lunch or helping supplement a pregnant woman’s diet, or providing shelters for those escaping violence, the street, et cetera … Am I suggesting stopping this concrete support? No, I am not suggesting we cease our desire to ensure all people are adequately housed, clothed, fed and provided with opportunities to be part of , by contributing to and benefiting from, communities of support, but I am saying we need to be clear that by and large, this is not what we are doing currently.

Imagine the results if we instead insisted that every person was entitled to adequate income, shelter and supports to reach their highest human potential for contributing to the community – impossible, unheard of, what’s she on? You say – no you’re too polite, you think… it is not impossible and it has been done, but it does require that we rethink what we are doing. You cannot be anti-poverty and also pro-capitalist – it’s like saying you are anti-death penalty but not against the executioner…

Imagine for a moment how different life would be and what our if chose to focus our energies on sharing resources, authority and power and instead, condemned the abuse of power and force by police and prison personnel, the neglect of institutionalized persons, the allowance of certain people to hoard essential goods, make excess profits, irresponsibly and negligently handle toxic cargo, crimes against social harmony, economic and/or even governmental order. What would the system look like if we prosecuted and sentenced people for lying while running for office, wrongful use or access to government power and public resources? You get the picture…it is no accident who is criminalized.