Seeing through the Game: Alexander Berkman and the Modern Prison Abolition Movement

Anarchists have long marched towards the horizon of police and prison abolition. From the anarchist point of view, law enforcement is the vehicle through which the financial and political ruling classes exert their control over the marginalized. One notable example was the anarchist communist Alexander Berkman, who was no stranger to the walls of a jail cell and a vociferous critic of the police and prisons as weapons of the powerful. His carefully articulated vision of abolition avoided tempting but illusory conflations of state legal systems with the communities they police. This chapter examines how Berkman’s ideas prefigured the modern prison abolition movement across multiple axes, including how police and prisons perpetuate themselves to maintain their relevance and how these systems are inextricably linked to colonialism. It also explores where Berkman stopped short of modern abolitionist analysis and models of transformative justice – as outlined by Mariame Kaba and other thinkers – while emphasizing aspects where Berkman linked abolition to critiques of the state and representative democracy. By connecting these historical and contemporary abolitionist perspectives, this chapter will present a holistic anarchist abolitionist synthesis for theoretical and practical use.