Philosophers on prison abolitionism: Theory versus practice

Philosophers have long been debating the moral justifiability of punishment. However, they have seemingly ignored the adjacent question concerning the moral justifiability of incarceration, as demonstrated by the dearth of philosophical work on prison abolitionism. This silence is puzzling, given that, on closer examination, many philosophers implicitly (or even explicitly) endorse the core assumptions of prison abolitionism. By discussing some examples in the recent literature in philosophy of punishment, I argue that philosophers support prison abolitionism in practice, but not in theory. They endorse the practical strategies in the abolitionist agenda, yet refuse to engage with the normative assumptions that ground them. This ambiguity stems from a deliberate methodological choice that relegates issues concerning the reality of prisons to the margins of the philosophical inquiry. In doing so, philosophers hinder a fair assessment of prison abolitionism as a legitimate moral theory in criminal justice.