Pilar Maschi tells us what it’s like to win.
Liberal reformers in New York City are pushing for skyscraper jails to replace the notorious penal colony on Riker's Island. Supporters of the plan claim these facilities will be humane and rehabilitative, functioning as “justice hubs” and “sites of civic unity” tying communities together.
8Meanwhile, abolitionists organizing under the banner #NoNewJails demand the closure of Riker's, and substantive investment in the working-class communities of color historically decimated by mass incarceration, not new jails. In the process, abolitionists are pressing fundamental questions about the meanings of safety, community, and justice, amid a national moment of reckoning with the accumulated devastation of decades of mass incarceration.
Commune Magazine sat down with veteran organizer Pilar Maschi for a wide-ranging discussion of her path to abolitionism, her sense of strategy and tactics and how the present juncture can point toward a world without human cages.
