Abolition is a Disability Justice Issue, a digital zine

A Digital zine by Linnea Pejcha and Rachel Wang pictured (left to right, top to bottom): Mia Mingus, Patty Berne, Mariame Kaba, Leah Lakshmi PiepznaSamarasinha, Imani Barbarin, Ruth Wilson Gilmore

of conte e n bl t s a t

author bios & mission statement

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definitions

4

drawing connections

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what do disability justice and abolition have to do with each other? what does disability justice and abolition look like in our school systems?

identifying strategies

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community not institutions abolish the cop in your head the problem, a poem by Linnea

grounding in local context

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locating the fight for abolition within higher education & brandeis university

sources

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author bios

& locating our positionalities

Linnea (She/Her) is a junior at Brandeis University who is studying the intersection of creativity, the arts, and social transformation. She is continuously seeking to uncover and learn about the damage being inflicted by carceral and ableist structures, as well as her own place within these structures. She is committed to the journey of unlearning and dismantling the discriminatory processes, structures, and perspectives that this zine addresses.

Rachel (she/her) is a senior at Brandeis University who is interested in studying race, settler colonialism, and gender & sexuality. She also identifies as a student of abolition who is learning how to apply abolitionist thinking in her personal life and her critique of the institutions she is a part of. She approaches the writing of this zine with cognizance of the many ways in which she benefits from ableism and is invested in more deeply engaging disability justice in her politics. mission statement

While this zine is being submitted as a final project for the Disability Cultures course that we're taking, our hope is to also share this work with our peers, friends, and other networks in an effort to make clear the necessity for all people to critically engage with and adopt a politics that centers disability justice and abolition. The title of this zine sums up the political vision of our writing: Abolition is a disability justice issue. Our goal is to make evident the connections between abolition and disability justice, and also identify strategies that come from these movements, so that readers will understand and get involved in the linked struggle to end policing and prisons and liberate all bodies.

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definitions

The Carceral State:

:

The carceral state encompases the formal structures of the criminal justice system such as the police and prisons, but also manifests in many areas of life through a culture of criminalization and control, funded and maintained by the government, that disproportionately impacts marginalized populations such as those with disabilities and the BIPOC community. It can manifest in psych wards, hospitals, nursing homes, schools, or any institution that seeks to control, criminalize, or surveil individuals.

Criminalization: The treatment of individuals or groups of people as criminals, regardless of illegal behavior.

Criminalization is closely linked to the carceral state, as it is a process perpetrated by laws and police that often leads to incarceration, stigma, and mistreatment of individuals and groups of people. When we situate “criminalization” in the context of U.S. history, specifically the legislative rhetoric of “tough on crime” campaigns that many politicians have utilized, we can understand criminalization as an evolution of slavery and a political tactic used to continue controlling and imprisoning Black folks.

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Abolition:

Drawing from the work of Critical Resistance and abolitionists like Mariame Kaba, we define abolition as a political vision and practice that seeks to eradicate prisons, police, and other carceral structures in society.

Abolition also seeks to replace carcerality and punishment with other ways of responding to violence and harm that actually keep people safe and affirm the sacredness of life.

As Critical Resistance puts it, “Abolition isn’t just about getting rid of buildings full of cages.” It’s also about eliminating all the conditions (be they structural, interpersonal, personal etc.) that make those cages possible to begin with, which necessitates a radical re-imagination of our world as we know it.

Disability Justice: Drawing from the work of Sins Invalid and disability justice leaders like Patty Berne and Mia Mingus, we define disability justice as a movement that shifts away from the Disability Rights Movement, which has historically worked from a single-oppression framework that fails to address disability in conversation with race, class, gender, sexuality and more. Instead of simply striving for legal rights or inclusion, disability justice is invested in a collective liberation from all systems, such as white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and capitalism, that intersect with ableism.

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drawing connections

:

What Do Disability Justice and Abolition Have to do with each other?

1.

The carceral state isn't just police and prisons--it includes psychiatric facilities, hospitals, the social work system, and other institutions that surveil, confine and strip agency from disabled people.

The institutions and systems in place that disabled people must navigate on a regular basis to access the care or support they need more often than not cause them harm, isolate them from community, and treat their bodies like things that must be corrected or controlled. The violence of the medical industrial complex often overlaps with the violence of the prison industrial complex. Thus, abolition must include the elimination of these institutions that do violence against disabled people.

2.

Disabled people, especially disabled people of color and other marginalized identities, are disproportionately policed and imprisoned.

A special report published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that in 2011-12, "prisoners were nearly 3 times more likely and jail inmates were more than 4 times more likely than the general population to report having at least one disability."

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This report also found that about 2 in 10 prisoners and 3 in 10 jail inmates reported having a cognitive disability, examples of which include Down Syndrome, autism, ADD, intellectual disabilities etc.

Even with the rise of deinstitutionalization (the closure of state mental hospitals and other mental institutions), people with disabilities existing in an ableist society are still coded as undesirable and criminalized subjects, leading to their eventual incarceration in actual prisons rather than mental hospitals. Disabled people are also more likely to be victims of fatal police violence. A report by the Ruderman Family Foundation found that around 1/3 to 1/2 of people killed by the police are disabled. Abolishing police and prisons is necessary for the safety of disabled people.

3.

Abolition and Disability Justice share many founding principles and goals for liberation.

Intersectionality

people hold a locus of identities and marginalizations that cannot be separated but must be understood as interlocking

Anti-Capitalism

both abolition and disability justice believe in people over profit and reject the way that capitalism treats human life as disposable

Interdependence

the abolitionist mantra "we keep each other safe" is rooted in a disability justice framework that says we rely on each other, not the state, to access real care and safety

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What Does Disability Justice and Abolition Look like in our School Systems?

Dismantling the school to prison pipeline!

"Students with disabilities comprise less than 12% of high school students nationwide, but represent 75% of students restrained, 58% of students who are secluded, more than 13% of students subject to out-of-school suspension, and 25% of students arrested."

- Darla Stuart and Erica Dennison

"Studies show that up to 85 percent of youth in juvenile detention facilities have disabilities that make them eligible for special education services, yet only 37 percent receive these services while in school" (NCD).

A dominant manifestation of the carceral state is the "school to prison pipeline," which refers to discriminatory disciplinary actions in schools that result in students being pushed into the criminal justice system. The effects of these disciplinary practices are much more severe for students of color and disabled students.

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Law enforcement in schools is a massive contributor to student carcerality through targeting students of color and students with disabilities and turning minor infractions into crimes. The policing of students is directly linked to lack of resources in schools, as it's when there's no support staff to help or address an issue so teachers resort to calling in law enforcement, particularly if they already have a presence in the school.

Police presence in schools further escalates racism and ableism already present in the school system. The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights collected data that demonstrates that "black students with disabilities are almost four times as likely to have multiple suspensions, and almost twice as likely to be expelled, as white students with disabilities." They found similar statistics with Native American students, who were "disproportionately suspended and expelled, at 3.5 times and 3 times, respectively, the rate of white students with disabilities." All of these circumstances were ones in which the punitive action was at the discretion of teachers or other staff, demonstrating the ability for a teacher's internalized racism and ableism to highly impact their decision to punish the student. When police are present in schools, disciplinary actions like suspensions and expulsions that would normally result in a trip to the principles office can instead result in a trip to a juvenile detention center.

The decision for schools to consistently invest in policing over expanding mental health and counseling resources is contributing to the overrepresentation of BIPOC and disabled youth in juvenile and adult prisons across the country. The harm that police presence in schools can cause is inconceivable on multiple levels. Not only is there the reality of students ending up in detention centers and jails, but even for those who don't, it creates a culture of fear and trauma that can drastically impede learning.

Once again, community is the answer. If these same resources used to police students were used to increase mental health and counseling resources, overall harm could be reduced and it would give students a chance to actually do the thing that they’re in school to do: learn.

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:

identifying strategies

Community not institutions “When working towards abolition we should focus less on accessing institutions and structures that already exist, and more on freeing disabled people who are already entangled in these structures.” - Katie Tastrom, Disability Justice Committee Co-Chair The shift from the institutions of the police and the prison system to one of community accountability and transformative justice has been advocated for and expressed by abolitionists for decades.

Similarly, the right for community-based treatment and support has been advocated for by disabled communities.

In her article for The National Lawyers Guild on Disability Justice and Abolition, Katie Tastrom makes the fantastic argument that we should be approaching disability justice and abolition from the perspective of “Olmstead not ADA.” She’s referring here to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a law that requires that disabled people have equal access to resources such as public buildings and jobs. It’s an incredible law that has implemented a lot of change.

Tastrom compares this law to Olmstead, a Supreme Court decision from 1999 brought about by Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, two women living with mental health disabilities who had been in treatment in the psych ward of a hospital. They felt that they were in a stable place and wanted to leave the psych ward and move to a more community centered facility of care. The hospital did not let them leave and they were subsequently stuck there for years. They then sued under the ADA and won.

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Under Olmstead, The Supreme Court held that people with disabilities have a qualified right to receive state funded supports and services in the community rather than institutions when the following three part test is met: 1. The person's treatment professionals determine that community supports are appropriate; 2. The person does not object to living in the community; and 3. The provision of services in the community would be a reasonable accommodation when balanced with other similarly situated individuals with disabilities.

To seek support from ones' community should be considered a basic human right, as it's often those in ones' community who know best how to help, prevent, and heal violence or abuse. Olmstead demonstrates that the right to receive aid from the community and not institutions is one that is attainable, and that the frameworks of disability justice provides useful tools to achieve it.

If carceral systems like the police and prisons were to be replaced with community care, we could shift the paradigm of addressing harm from one of punishment to communal healing and mutual accountability That ensures the safety and well-being of our neighbors.

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Abolish the Cop In Your Head

Queer and trans activist Tourmaline's tweet shows us that abolition isn't just a structural goal that involves the literal elimination of police & prisons--it also has to do with unlearning the carceral attitudes and mindsets we have personally internalized while living in a world where punishment and anti-Black violence are normalized.

This means that abolition starts with us and our own personal circles. It looks like challenging the biases and preconceived notions we may have about certain groups of people marginalized by race, ability, sexuality etc.

It looks like learning how to resolve conflicts and respond to any incidents of harm that show up in our relationships with family, friends, and others.

We must question the language we use in our everyday life: do the words we say or the ways we measure success validate models of violence or disposability? We must question the treatment we consciously or subconsciously believe certain people deserve or that we're willing to passively allow to happen to them: would we intervene if we saw that person being harassed on the street? Those of us who are non-Black must ask ourselves how anti-Blackness is ingrained into our everyday life: how are we complicit in systems of white supremacy and ableism and how can we actively divest from them on a personal level?

Abolition Starts with Us. It Means we Don't Act like Cops to each Other!

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The Problem “What do you call the police for?”

-PG Watkins, No New Jails Detroit What do you call the police for?

Who? Why? When?

Is it state of distress under duress last-ditch booty call because there’s nobody else?

What are our walls made of?

Infractions reactions not given the chance to take a breath step back hands up.

Distinctions can become death if we’re not careful about it.

We have been trained to create lines of fire, but we can put them out.

There are other options: space, warmth passages and underground tunnels through which to walk.

If learned, it can be unlearned taken in spit out made new.

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Grounding in Local Context

Locating the fight for abolition within Higher Education & Brandeis University College students all across Turtle Island (socalled North America) have long been in struggle against the carcerality of the university. Most recently in the summer of 2020, a collective of students and workers at colleges and universities all over the nation formed the Cops Off Campus Coalition. This coalition has been creating a movement of local student-led campaigns that call for the end of campus police. pictured are banners from the Ford Hall 2015 protest that read, "Tell the Truth ‫אֶ מֶ ת‬ Brandeis" and "The Concerned Students Are Still Concerned #BlackLikeWe

NeverLeft"

Brandeis University has a significant history of Black student protest. The student demands made in the sit-in's of Ford Hall 1969 and Ford Hall 2015 have led to some serious changes to the university, such as the establishment of the entire African & Afro-American Studies department following Ford Hall 1969.

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In 2019, the graduating class of remaining students of color who organized Ford Hall 2015 led a campus protest under the hashtag #StillConcerned2019 to re-state their concern for the safety of Black, Brown, queer, trans and undocumented students who are subject to racialized policing and surveillance by The Department of Public Safety and The Department of Community Living (DCL).

Most of their demands, such as a call for transparency and direct action on how the Department of Community Living disproportionately punishes Black, Brown and immigrant students for misconduct and makes invasive, non-consensual room inspections, still remain largely unmet. There have been too many stories of Black students being stopped by Brandeis police while simply walking on campus, being misidentified as suspects, and otherwise being harassed or made to feel unsafe.

Likewise, a long-term student demand made both in #FordHall2015 and re-stated in the #StillConcerned2019 protest was to create better representation and access to mental health care for students of color.

Many students of color and disabled students still do not have the resources or access they need to mental health care, oftentimes leading to police intervention and punishment of student mental health crises.

Over the summer of 2020, a collective of Black and Brown femme students created a group called the Black Action Plan to collect student of color demands for change and present them to the university. Since then, they have been working with the university to reimagine public safety, community living, and the Brandeis Counseling Center.

We will continue Dreaming and Fighting for a Brandeis Campus Free of Police!

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“

Abolitionists

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heart

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harm

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abolitionist Gilmore

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Wilson abolition

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people

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that

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thrive

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prevent

communities

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be

harm equip

address

.”

harm when it occurs

-Reina Sultan and Micah Herskind

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sources Reina Sultan and Micah Herskind, "What is Abolition, and Why Do We Need it?" https://transformharm.org/what-is-abolition-and-whydo-we-need-it/ INCITE! "How do we address violence within our communities?" https://incite-national.org/community-accountability/ Darla Stuart and Erica Dennison, "Behavioral Challenges Can Push Youth With Disabilities Into School-to-Prison Pipeline" https://jjie.org/2021/01/25/behavioral-challenges-can-push-youthwith-disabilities-into-school-to-prison-pipeline/ Lorelei Laird, "Students of color with disabilities are being pushed into the school-to-prison pipeline" https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/report-finds-morediscipline-are-at-the-intersection-of-race-and-disability National Council on Disability, "Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Students with Disabilities" https://www.ncd.gov/publications/2015/06182015 Maura McInerney, "The School-to-Prison-to-School Pipeline for Children with Disabilities" https://www.elc-pa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/School-toPrison-Pipeline-for-Children-with-Disabilities.pdf OlmsteadRights, "The Olmstead Supreme Court Decision in a Nutshell." https://www.olmsteadrights.org/about-olmstead/

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West Resendes, ACLU, "Police in Schools Continue to Target Black, Brown, and Indigenous Students with Disabilities. The Trump Administration Has Data That’s Likely to Prove It." https://www.aclu.org/news/by/west-resendes/ Chloe Carlson, "What Is the Carceral State?" Gabrielle French, Allie Goodman, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7ab5f5c3fbca46c38f0b2496bc aa5ab0 Katie Tastrom, "Disability Justice and Abolition," https://www.nlg.org/disability-justice-and-abolition/ Critical Resistance , "What is the Pic? What is Abolition?" http://criticalresistance.org/about/not-so-common-language/ Sins Invalid, "What is Disability Justice?" https://www.sinsinvalid.org/news-1/2020/6/16/what-is-disabilityjustice Jennifer Bronson, Laura M. Maruschak, and Marcus Berzofsky.

"Disabilities Among Prison and Jail Inmates, 2011-2012." https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dpji1112.pdf Rebecca Vallas. "Disabled Behind Bars: The Mass Incarceration of People with Disabilities in America's Jails and Prisons." https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminaljustice/reports/2016/07/18/141447/disabled-behind-bars/

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