HELP US END MASS INCARCERATION The Prison Policy Initiative uses research, advocacy, and organizing to dismantle mass incarceration. We’ve been in this movement for 23 years, thanks to individual donors like you.

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Peter Wagner, Executive Director Donate

Instead of Prisons available online

The 1976 handbook to prison abolition has been digitized.

by Peter Wagner, May 22, 2003

Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Prison Abolitionists is now available on this website. This book summarizes the research on prisons as of the 1976 writing and discusses the strategy of abolition. For example, how do we pick reforms to fight for now that make our long term goal of abolition easier to obtain?

Thanks to everyone who helped with the digitization process!

Related briefings:

  1. Limits to Pain available online +
  2. New Book: Gates of Injustice +
  3. First Real Cost of Prisons comic book: Prison Town: Paying the Price +

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