Prison abolition movement
The prison abolition movement is a network of groups and activists that seek to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with systems of rehabilitation and education that do not focus on punishment and government institutionalization. The prison abolitionist movement is distinct from conventional prison reform, which is intended to improve conditions inside prisons.
Anarchist banner in Melbourne Australia, on 16 June 2017
2022 Spanish-language graffiti in Vallcarca i els Penitents (Barcelona) advocating for the freeing of prisoners
2022 Catalan-language graffiti in Vallcarca i els Penitents (Barcelona) deeming prisons as torture
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are confined against their will and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state, generally as punishment for various crimes. Authorities most commonly use prisons within a criminal-justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial; those who have pled or been found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment.
An old jail cell room in Indonesia, 2003
A common punishment in Early Modern Europe was to be made a galley slave. The galley pictured here belonged to the Mediterranean fleet of Louis XIV, c. 1694.
Women in Plymouth, England (Black-eyed Sue and Sweet Poll) mourning their lovers who are soon to be transported to Botany Bay (1792)
The beached convict ship HMS Discovery at Deptford served as a convict hulk between 1818 and 1834.