While the United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, it holds almost 25% of the world’s incarcerated people, according to the U.S. Census and World Prison Population List. Why?
“Prison Abolition,” an interdisciplinary American Cultures course sponsored by the College of Letters & Science Big Ideas program, explores this issue by examining the social impacts of incarceration and its alternatives. During the Spring 2025 term, the course was taught by Ethnic Studies Professor and Former Department Chair Keith Feldman alongside Gender and Women’s Studies professors Eric Stanley and Ianna Hawkins Owen, and Social Welfare Professor Erin Michelle Turner Kerrison.
The course was first launched in 2014 by an interdisciplinary faculty research group and a voluntary discussion group that included formerly incarcerated students and those directly impacted by the criminal justice system.
Reflecting on the origins of the course, Feldman said: “With unlawful overcrowding in California prisons, the opprobrious use of solitary confinement, a widening visibility of police violence, and an acceleration in deportations — students and faculty alike were eager to understand how and why we got here, and what other futures we might be able to envision in the present.”
The course has been offered four times and shaped by various faculty from different departments, including African American Studies, Architecture and Legal Studies, who have joined the teaching team. This year, the teaching team drew on cultural studies and critical theory, Black feminist thought, poetry, legal epidemiology, and gender and sexuality studies, Feldman said.
Many students taking the class enjoyed how the interdisciplinary approach offered a range of insights into the ways prison abolition attempts to address injustices. Students engaged in discussions about the history of imprisonment practices — questioning the normality of mass incarceration and promoting other forms of justice.
“Getting to learn alongside peers and professors from different disciplines and perspectives created really robust dialogue that gave me more insight into abolitionist praxis and how we can take care of one another,” Ethnic Studies Junior Amelia Pinto said. “All four professors brought something different to the table, and that was truly the greatest gift to all of us as learners.”
Another student in the course, Tiva Gandhi, an Ethnic Studies junior said: “I entered the course to gain a deeper understanding of whether prison abolition could address many of the injustices that persist in our current ‘eye for an eye’ society and overall unempathetic approach to systemic issues. I surprisingly left with validation for my empathy-driven approaches that have typically been dismissed as overly optimistic; I firmly believe in giving people a space to grow and understand the patterns that may have led them to create harm.”
The course was also supported by the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship initiative (ACES). Through ACES, over a dozen students earned additional units by working with organizations on and off campus that are relevant to the course. This included environmental initiatives, youth tutoring and letter writing.
Evan Sakuma, an ACES fellow, organized the “Abolitionist Futures, Rewriting Justice” speaker series, inviting notable scholars, organizers and legal advocates to speak on campus. Featured speakers included Berkeley alums Dylan Rodriguez and Connie Wun, along with Kelli Dillon and Cynthia Chandler, who are notable voices committed to protecting the rights of imprisoned people and finding ways to promote community safety beyond violent tactics like police brutality and prisons. Initiatives such as ACES are especially relevant in today’s political climate, Professor Feldman said.
In the past decade, the course has only grown more timely.
“It appears we're in a moment when carceral and policing technologies are intensifying, when processes of criminalization are increasingly targeting Black, immigrant, trans and queer communities and international students, when fundamental legal protections are being winnowed away,” Feldman said. “The course, and the initiatives that support it, invite students to develop a rigorous understanding of how we got here, and what kinds of resources we have — and could create — to formulate life-affirming practices of collective safety.”