It’s said that processionary caterpillars travel in long, undulating lines, one creature after another. Jean-Henri Fabre, the French naturalist who died in 1915, once led a group of these caterpillars onto the rim of a large flowerpot, so that the lead caterpillar actually touched the last caterpillar in the procession, forming a complete circle. In the center of the flowerpot Fabre placed pine needles, a main source of food for such creatures. With an ample supply of food close at hand and plainly visible, for seven days and nights the caterpillars circled the flowerpot until they died from exhaustion and starvation. Why? Because these mentally programmed creatures refused to veer off the beaten path.

Motivational speaker and author Dennis P. Kimbro used the above scenario to illustrate how we as people often behave in a similar ways. He goes on to write, “[h]abitual patterns and ways of thinking become deeply established, and it seems easier and more comforting to continue these thought patterns than to cope with change, even when change represents freedom and achievement.” When reflecting on this month’s theme (i.e., Prison Reform v. Abolition), very much like those processionary caterpillars, I find people will not veer from the beaten path of reformist attitudes that thrive to uphold the prison industrial complex. They stand firm, even in face of its well-documented harms and failure to provide public safety in our communities. That said, this month we decided to feature in our “Academic Spotlight” segment an important essay I wrote (“The People v. the Prison”) and recently published with Inquest Magazine at Harvard’s Institute to End Mass Incarceration, which details the misgivings and shortcomings of prison reform. Here, it is important that we understand the distinction between strategy in reform opposed to abolition.

In a 2017 interview with Casey Goonan, Critical Resistance co-founder Rachel Herzing provides the following:

“… the distinction between abolitionists and reformers… is that reformers tend to see the system as broken–something that can be fixed with some tweaks or some changes. Whereas abolitionists think that the system works really well. They think that the [prison industrial complex] is completely efficient in controlling, containing, killing, and disappearing the people that it is meant to. Even if it might sweep up additional people in its wake, it is very, very effective at doing the work it’s meant to do. So rather than improving a killing machine, an abolitionist goal would be to try and figure out how to take incremental steps–a screw here, a cog there–and make it so the system cannot continue–so it ceases to exist–rather than improving it’s efficiency. Whereas reformers, with criminal justice reform being their end goal, believe there is something worth improving there….

(Source: Goonan, C. “Black Liberation and the Abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex: Interview with Rachel Herzing.” The Abolitionist, Spring 2017, Issue 27 p. 8-9.)

So what’s worth improving? Transparency! If we can all agree that the harm we witness and experience daily in our communities is rooted in untreated mental health issues, racism, poverty, abuse and neglect, and a lack of support systems and infrastructure, then it only seems logical the response should be an abolitionist response which demands access to resources, not cages! Will you support us as we work to achieve our mission? Volunteer today? Donate!

In Solidarity,

Ivan Kilgore