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    Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis Summary

    Are Prisons Obsolete?
    Angela Y. Davis
    Politics
    Social Science
    Society
    Overview
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    Overview of Are Prisons Obsolete?

    Angela Davis's radical manifesto challenges our core assumptions about justice. With translations in four languages and a 4.52 Goodreads rating, this foundational text sparked the modern prison abolition movement and inspired the prestigious Angela Y. Davis Prize. Can society exist without prisons? Davis dares us to imagine it.

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    Imagine a world where prisons don't exist. This thought experiment feels almost impossible for most of us - prisons seem as inevitable as hospitals or schools. Yet Angela Davis's "Are Prisons Obsolete?" challenges this very assumption. Since its 2003 publication, this slim but powerful volume has become foundational to the prison abolition movement, influencing generations of activists and scholars. Davis, who spent 16 months as a political prisoner before being acquitted of all charges in 1972, brings both personal experience and scholarly rigor to her analysis. What makes this work so compelling is how it forces us to question something we've been conditioned to accept as natural and necessary: the prison itself.

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