Asylum and migration policies are becoming more and more openly racist and fascist. The criminalisation of migration and political protest is being used to expand police authority and undermine fundamental rights. While social security is being dismantled, funding for the police and militarisation appears unlimited This “organised abandonment” (Ruth Wilson Gilmore) is accompanied by the strengthening of repressive institutions and an authoritarian state. Antiracist, antifascist, feminist, and queer movements oppose these developments – particularly groups organising against police violence, prisons and criminalisation. In these struggles against state-sanctioned violence and for better living conditions, the spectrum of demands ranges from reform to abolition of the criticised institutions.

Reformist positions call, for example, for better prison conditions, fairer criminal law and an end to police violence. However, they do not advocate the complete abolition of prisons, police and borders, arguing that these institutions fulfil necessary societal functions. More radical positions, on the other hand, call for their abolition. Drawing on traditions of abolitionism, they see prisons, police and borders as central mechanisms of oppression and exploitation in capitalist societies and therefore consider reforms to be futile. Abolition is not understood as merely doing away with, but rather as a process of transformation that aims to make repressive institutions superfluous by changing social, political and economic conditions.

Reformist and abolitionist positions differ both in political demands and strategies and in social-theoretical assumptions about the historical and functional roles of carceral institutions. In this Barrikadengespräch, we will approach these assumptions, understandings and strategies together with Simin Jawabreh, Tommie Shelby and Vanessa Thompson. Based on the philosophical and political-practical perspectives of the speakers, we will discuss: What exactly is the problem with prisons, police and borders? Do they need to be abolished or reformed – and why? Could prisons and policing be radically reformed under capitalism? What exactly do reformers and abolitionists mean by their respective demands – and what ideas of social transformation lie beneath them?