A-Infos (en) Australia, AnComFed: Picket Line - Capitalism needs prisonsbut we don't (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

You might hear 'prison abolition' and think of a great big wrecking 
ball, smashing up the walls of a cellblock and freeing the people 
inside. Today, the idea sounds completely nuts to most people.
What? Let all of the prisoners go? The rapists? The killers? Just let 
them loose on the streets?
The truth is, as naïve as some activists might be about the subject, 
prison abolition is possible. But it won't be a one-and-done event.
Instead, think of prison abolition as a process. It starts with 
understanding the roots of what we call 'crime', and supporting fellow 
workers in need. But the process can't be ended under capitalism.

The state needs prisons to hold capitalism together. So, to abolish 
prisons, we have to abolish capitalism.

'Crime' and punishment under capital
So what about all those killers and rapists?

The way the news media tells it, those are the only people locked up. 
Governments sell us an image of prisons as being crammed with the 
lowliest and most violent scum on earth. These people are nothing like 
youthey were practically destined for jail.

But violent criminals make up a small section of inmates.

People rarely enter the prison system because of a single dramatic act. 
Most contact with police begins with instability. Miss a fine because 
you can't afford it. Breach bail because you have no stable address. 
Sleep in a park. Drive without registration. Shoplift. Get charged with 
public drunkenness because you have nowhere else to drink. Or, hey, 
maybe you and your friends just smoked a joint.

Court dates are missed. Warrants are issued. Bail conditions tighten. 
More court. More fines. And it's a cycle that doesn't fall evenly. 
Incarceration follows the lines laid down by colonisation. First Nations 
people make up less than five percent of Australia's population, yet 
nearly forty percent of its prison population. This isn't because of any 
reality where Indigenous people are somehow more likely to commit crime 
simply by virtue of identity.

Rather than give poor workers resources, the system arrests them for 
stealing. Rather than humanely treat those with substance addictions, 
the system arrests them for using. And rather than address the epidemic 
of mental illness in this country, the system allows police to brutalise 
the sick, and courts to throw them in cages.

Meanwhile, who gets to enjoy their freedom? The war-mongerers and 
accomplices to the genocide of Palestinians. The financial criminals. 
The creeps in the Epstein files. Under capitalism, the ruling class 
decides what counts as 'legal' and 'illegal'. And when they break their 
own laws, they get away with it.

The fantasy of liberal abolitionism
Some visions of prison abolition are well-intentioned, but completely 
unrealistic.

A lot of what gets called 'crime' isn't actually harmful. Some of it is 
harmful, but should be responded to with care, solidarity, or medical 
care. But the idea that we can totally eliminate prisons by just 
creating 'alternatives' is wrong.

Capitalism needs prisons because the system doesn't function unless the 
state has the power to make and enforce laws. Corporations need to make 
sure we don't get anything for free. Landlords need to extract rent and 
evict tenants. And bosses need to prevent us from using our greatest 
weapon: going on strike.

So, prison abolition has to be revolutionary. And as revolutionaries, we 
also can't act as if there will never be a need to temporarily confine 
an actively dangerous individual (what else would we do with fascists 
trying to crush a revolution?).

Prison abolition doesn't mean we ignore the fact that people do harm. It 
rejects the idea that a system built upon slavery, racism, and the 
exploitation of a cheap source of labour, could ever serve true justice. 
Particularly when enthroned on mountains of cold cases, and enforced by 
incompetent abusers.

Instead, prison abolition must be part of a long-term revolutionary process.

The path to freedom
When the state sends people to jail, it isn't to keep everyone else 
safe. It's to protect capitalist interests, foster division, and turn a 
profit. Rather than protecting society, it traps people in cycles of 
violence, with little evidence of rehabilitation.

Prison isolates people from communities, stokes identity-based mistrust, 
and encourages profiling. It maintains the root causes of anti-social 
crime and stops the working class from uniting to demand better.

In the short term, it's essential to combat racist policing, the 
criminalisation of poverty, and anti-strike laws which deprive us of 
power. But if our goal is a world which doesn't force hundreds of 
thousands of poor, desperate, and sick people into cages, we need a 
workers' revolution. Only then can we put an end to the capitalist 
system, and the violence it generates.

https://ancomfed.org/2026/04/capitalism-needs-prisons-but-we-dont/
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