Organizations working towards prison abolition
a growing list of organizations directly and/or tangentially working towards prison abolition. this page is updated occasionally so please send a message if you know of an organization you want us to add.
more in the prison abolition study guide:
The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee
The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), are a prisoner-led section of the Industrial Workers of the World. They struggle to end prison slavery along with allies and supporters on the outside. On September 9, 2016 we were part of a coalition of inside and outside groups that launched the largest prison strike in US history.
Jailhouse Lawyers Speak
Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS) is a national collective of imprisoned persons fighting for human rights by providing other prisoners with access to legal education, resources, and assistance. JLS organizes with organizers across the country inside and outside the prisons.
Critical Resistance
Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. They believe that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure. As such, our work is part of global struggles against inequality and powerlessness. The success of the movement requires that it reflect communities most affected by the PIC. Because they seek to abolish the PIC, they cannot support any work that extends its life or scope.
IDOC Watch
IDOC Watch Solidarity with prisoners, mass struggle against the Prison-Industrial Complex. “How can prisoners learn together and work toward abolition if they don’t have proper medical care or nutrition, if they are constantly shaken down and brutalized by C.O.s, or if they are censored and cut off from people and materials on the outside? Reform and policy changes can help create the conditions for revolutionary, abolitionist action, but we are under no illusion that the work ends there.”
Project Nia
Project Nia—“nia” meaning “with purpose” in Swahili—is a grassroots organization that works to end the arrest, detention, and incarceration of children and young adults by promoting restorative and transformative justice practices.
They support youth in trouble with the law as well as those victimized by violence and crime through community-based alternatives to the criminal legal process. They partner with local activists and organizations to create such alternatives.
Jericho Movement
The United States government is imprisoning dozens of political prisoners and prisoners of war. The Jericho Movement is raising up their voices and working for their amnesty and freedom.
Abolitionist Law Center
The Abolitionist Law Center is a public interest law firm inspired by the struggle of political and politicized prisoners, and organized for the purpose of abolishing class and race based mass incarceration in the United States.
Black Abolitionist Network
Black Abolitionist Network (BAN) is a self-described “constellation of people and organizations collaborating to dismantle anti-Black & carceral systems and build systems that affirm and nurture Black lives.”
Abolish Slavery National Network
Abolish Slavery National Network is a national coalition fighting to abolish constitutional slavery and involuntary servitude in all forms, for all people. They envision a United States where all people, without exception, are free from slavery and involuntary servitude and where all people are protected by their state and federal constitution.
Release Aging People in Prison
Release Aging People in Prison/RAPP works to end mass incarceration and promote racial justice through the release from prison of older and aging people and those serving long and life sentences. The number of people aged 50 and older in New York State, where RAPP was founded, doubled after 2000; when we began our work it totaled 10,000—about 20% of the total NYS prison population. This reflects a national crisis in the prison system and the extension of a culture of revenge and punishment into all areas of our society.
Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action is an initiative at the BCRW Social Justice Institute led by researchers Woods Ervin, Mariame Kaba, and Andrea J. Ritchie. The project aims to interrupt and end the growing criminalization and incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color for criminalized acts related to public order, poverty, child welfare, drug use, survival and self-defense, including criminalization and incarceration of survivors of violence.
DC Books to Prisons
Founded in 1999, DC Books to Prisons provides free books to individual prisoners. We also develop and support prison libraries. Our work is done solely by concerned volunteers using donated time and resources. DC Books to Prisons is a fiscally sponsored project of Empowerment WORKS, a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
Noname Book Club
Noname Bookclub is an online/irl community dedicated to uplifting POC voices. They do this by highlighting two books each month written by authors of color. In addition to building community with folks across the country we also send our monthly book picks to incarcerated comrades through their Prison Program.
Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas
Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas is a collective of revolutionaries within the Black freedom struggle and Afrikan liberation efforts, who bring a speculative vibe to our radical work.
No New Jails NYC
No New Jails NYC formed in September 2018, shortly after the Mayor launched the formal land-use approval process for the jail expansion plan. A direct continuation of the grassroots efforts to close Rikers immediately, No New Jails NYC also draws on the success of previous of jail construction fights in NYC. At the same time, No New Jails NYC is building power in communities throughout New York City and with its incarcerated members.
Abolition Journal
Abolition Journal takes cues from the abolition-democracy espoused by figures like W.E.B Du Bois, Angela Davis, and Joel Olson. Our orientation toward academic insurgency builds upon the struggles of the Black campus movement against the White University, the American Indian movement against the Colonial University, feminist and queer movements against the Hetero-Patriarchal University, and anarchist and communist movements against the Capitalist University.
Asian Prisoner Support Committee
Asian Prisoner Support Committee (APSC) provides direct support to Asian and Pacific Islander (API) prisoners and to raise awareness about the growing number of APIs being imprisoned, detained, and deported.
CURB Prison Spending
Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) is a statewide coalition of 70 grassroots organizations that is reducing the number of people in prisons and jails, shrinking the imprisonment system, and shifting public spending from corrections and policing to human services.
Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity
Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity (MAPS) is a group of abolitionists organizing in solidarity with the imprisoned against the violence of incarceration. The joining a nationwide fight to end the prison and police systems that pose a constant threat to our communities. They formed in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 Kinross rebellion in order to do anti-repression and media work.
The Advancement Project
The Advancement Project is a next generation, multi-racial civil rights organization. Rooted in the great human rights struggles for equality and justice, they exist to fulfill America’s promise of a caring, inclusive and just democracy. They use innovative tools and strategies to strengthen social movements and achieve high impact policy change. They envision a future where people of color are free – where they can thrive, be safe and exercise power.
iamWE Prisoner Advocacy Network
iamWe Prison Advocacy Network is a grassroots, Human Rights organization dedicated to promoting religious tolerance, prisoner rights, and human kindness.
Books Through Bars Collective
Members of the Books Through Bars Collective have different beliefs about the American prison system — some of them are abolitionists, and some are pro-prison-reform. But all of us are startled and angered by how difficult it is for people in prison to access decent educational reading material on the inside. They believe literacy and access to reading material is a human right.
Transgender Gender & Intersex Justice Project
Transgender Gender & Intersex Justice Project works in collaboration with others to forge a culture of resistance and resilience to strengthen us for the fight against human rights abuses, imprisonment, police violence, racism, poverty, and societal pressures. We seek to create a world rooted in self- determination, freedom of expression, and gender justice. The mission of TGIJP is to challenge and end the human rights abuses committed against TGI people in California prisons, jails, detention centers and beyond.
The Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective
The Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (BATJC) is a community group based out of Oakland, CA working to build and support transformative justice responses to child sexual abuse. They envision a world where everyday people can intervene in incidences of child sexual abuse in ways that not only meet immediate needs but also prevent future violence and harm.
Rustbelt Abolition Radio
Rustbelt Abolition Radio is an abolitionist media and movement-building project based in Detroit, MI. Each episode broadcasts the voices of those impacted by incarceration and explores ongoing work in the movement to abolish the carceral state
Survived & Punished
Survived & Punished (S&P) is a national coalition that includes survivors, organizers, victim advocates, legal advocates and attorneys, policy experts, scholars, and currently and formerly incarcerated people. S&P has affiliates in New York, Chicago, and California.
California Coalition of Women Prisoners
California Coalition of Women Prisoners (CCWP) is a grassroots social justice organization, with members inside and outside prison, that challenges the institutional violence imposed on women, transgender people, and communities of color by the prison industrial complex (PIC).
INCITE!
INCITE! is a network of radical feminists of color organizing to end state violence and violence in our homes and communities. In 2000, INCITE! founders organized the “The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women of Color” conference held at University of California-Santa Cruz on April 28-29.
The Sentencing Project
The Sentencing Project works for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system by producing groundbreaking research to promote reforms in sentencing policy, address unjust racial disparities and practices, and to advocate for alternatives to incarceration.
Transform Harm
TransformHarm.org is a resource hub about ending violence. They are not an organization but rather a site that offers an introduction to transformative justice. Ceated by Mariame Kaba and designed by Lu Design Studio, the site includes selected articles, audio-visual resources, curricula, and more.
Prison Abolition and Prisoner Support
Prison Abolition and Prisoner Support are committed to ending racism, classism, patriarchy, ableism, cis-gendered privilege and ALL other interrelated forms of oppression. They recognize the prison-industrial complex is a racist institution, trans prisoners are especially vulnerable, and that women currently have the highest increase in rate of incarceration.
The Innocence Project
The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 at Cardozo School of Law, while not an abolitionist organization, exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
The Prison Policy Initiative
The Prison Policy Initiative’s research and advocacy is at the center of the national conversation about criminal justice reform and over-criminalization. They also created the Abolitionists Handbook.
Re:Store Justice
Founded inside prison, Re:Store Justice works to end life and extreme sentences by changing the way society and the legal system respond to violence & harm.
Abolition Apostles
a national jail and prison ministry based in New Orleans, Louisiana – the most incarcerated place in the world. Founded in 2019 by Pastors David Brazil and Sarah Pritchard, we now serve over one thousand incarcerated people in thirty states with the help of hundreds of volunteers across the country.
Prison Legal News
Prison Legal News, a project of the Human Rights Defense Center, is an independent 72-page monthly magazine that provides cutting edge review and analysis of prisoners' rights, court rulings and news concerning criminal justice-related issues. PLN has a national (U.S.) focus on both state and federal prison issues, with some international coverage.
The Prison Watch Network
The Prison Watch Network is dedicated to gathering documentation directly from prisoners, from media and other sources about prisons and prisoners' human rights abuses.
The Northeast Political Prisoner Coalition
The Northeast Political Prisoner Coalition (NEPPC) is an organization comprised of activists, former Political Prisoners/Prisoners of War and members of organizations dedicated to freeing Political Prisoners as well as ending Mass Incarceration.
Florida Prisoner Solidarity
Florida Prisoner Solidarity (FPS) is a carceral abolitionist collective with membership expanding across the state, both inside and outside prisons. Their efforts are focused around the needs of all incarcerated individuals, their care networks, and the people in community with them.
Chicago Community Jail Support
Chicago Community Jail Support is a daily, on the ground, grassroots mutual aid project run completely by volunteers. Their mission is to assist anyone being released from Cook County Jail, their loved ones, and the surrounding community.
Prisons Kill
PrisonsKill is a movement led by incarcerated people that aims to expose the abuse inherent to prisons.They have set up a Twitter page where currently and formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones can share accounts of abuses they have witnessed or experienced behind prison walls.
Decarcerate PA
Decarcerate PA is a coalition of organizations and individuals seeking an end to mass incarceration and the harms it brings our communities. Decarcerate PA seeks mechanisms to build whole, healthy communities and believes that imprisonment exacerbates the problems we face.
The Prison Library Support Network
The Prison Library Support Network is an information-based collective founded in 2016 to support incarcerated people by organizing networks for sharing resources and building community around prison abolition in libraries, archives, and other knowledge-based institutions.
Appalachian Prison Book Project
Appalachian Prison Book Project: by mailing books, creating prison book clubs, and providing tuition support for incarcerated people taking college classes, APBP celebrates creative expression and defends the liberties that make it possible…
Women’s Prison Book Project
Since 1994, the Women’s Prison Book Project (WPBP) has provided women and transgender persons in prison with free reading materials covering a wide range of topics from law and education (dictionaries, GED, etc.) to fiction, politics, history, and women’s health.
LGBT Books To Prisoners
LGBT Books To Prisoners is a trans-affirming, racial justice-focused, prison abolitionist project sending books to incarcerated LGBTQ-identified people across the United States.
Louisiana Books 2 Prisoners
Louisiana Books 2 Prisoners is a 100% volunteer-run 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to encouraging literacy and supporting incarcerated people in the Deep South by providing access to books and print resources
Movement for Black Lives
The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) formed in December of 2014, was created as a space for Black organizations across the country to debate and discuss the current political conditions, develop shared assessments of what political interventions were necessary in order to achieve key policy.
Oakland Abolition & Solidarity
Oakland Abolition & Solidarity supports prisoners’ efforts to organize for their own self-defense against inhumane treatment. They function as a liaison, building bridges between inside and outside to support prisoners organizing their local chapters. They advocate the abolition of incarceration, white supremacy, and capitalism
The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons
The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons (FTP) mission is to conduct grassroots organizing, advocacy, and direct action at the intersection of incarceration, health, and ecology.
Liberationlit
“We're a group of readers in Kansas City working directly with incarcerated readers to build a world without cages. We send books of all kinds to individuals incarcerated in Missouri and Kansas.”