Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition

by Liat Ben-moshe, Margaret Strom (Reading)

Prison abolition and decarceration are increasingly debated, but it is often without taking into account the largest exodus of people from carceral facilities in the twentieth century: the closure of disability institutions and psychiatric hospitals. Decarcerating Disability provides a much-needed corrective, combining a genealogy of deinstitutionalization with critiques of the current prison system. Liat Ben-Moshe provides groundbreaking case studies that show how abolition is not an unattainable goal but rather a reality, and how it plays out in different arenas of incarceration--antipsychiatry, the field of intellectual disabilities, and the fight against the prison-industrial complex. Ben-Moshe discusses a range of topics, including why deinstitutionalization is often wrongly blamed for the rise in incarceration; who resists decarceration and deinstitutionalization, and the coalitions opposing such resistance; and how understanding deinstitutionalization as a form of residential integration makes visible intersections with racial desegregation. By connecting deinstitutionalization with prison abolition, Decarcerating Disability also illuminates some of the limitations of disability rights and inclusion discourses, as well as tactics such as litigation, in securing freedom.

Genres: Disability, Nonfiction, Disability Studies, History, Social Justice, Politics, Mental Health

Audio CD

First published May 19, 2020

Reviews

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The brilliant, much-needed successor to Ben-Moshe's earlier and also-fantastic Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the United States and Canada, Decarcerating Disability blends ongoing work at the nexus of prison and psychiatric abolition to create a robust, disability justice-centered praxis we desperately need as we manifest freer futures for every bodymind.

[Molly Roach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition by Liat Ben-Moshe

Y’all. This BOOK. Woah. This text is essential. I’ll warn that it is VERY academic - steeped in theory - definitely not a text to dig into without a basic level of knowledge on disability and/or carceral theory. That being said, I learned so much from this. Ben-Moshe draws incredible parallels between the deinstitutionalization movements in the 50s-70s and prison abolition. She takes great care to recognize the intersections of those who are criminalized and those who are deemed disabled. She also sheds light on the antipsychiatry movement, which was really eye opening. This is a book you’ll need to sit with and engage with, so be prepared for that. But just know that the insight you’ll gain is absolutely worth it.
5/5⭐️

[bird · Rating 4 out of 5]

first of all, really strikingly expansive stuff here. it took me a long time to read and often i would start a chapter saying huh i dont know about this and then i'd go huh! i DONT know about this! which was a terrific experience-- seeing the horizon continuing to unfold with things you haven't put together before. well-researched and comprehensive, particularly in her commitment to forefronting i/dd people within all these intersections, and i would recommend it to anyone.

like all academics she is constantly inventing words and then as constantly reminding you what those words mean, and some of them don't work for me and some of them are swell (dis-epistemology). this i suppose is a hazard of the genre.

i had a couple grapples that maybe are less criticisms of this specific work than questions to carry on into the future, but with which i was really wrestling-- one, that she repeatedly makes reference to how crip/mad of color theory criticizes or expands understandings of normative oppression of both disability and poc, and then she also says briefly at one point that disability pride movements have struggled to transform in a way that would center poc, because poc are more likely to be attacked by the state in practice in other immediate and violent ways, and do not have the same access to resources or safety and therefore often need like, to be able to go to work, etc, and therefore some of the conceptions of pride in madness or disability propagated by white people land as absurd, given their relative concerns-- i would have liked to hear more about this! i would have liked this gap and the theoretical vs. practical-- in terms of normative and oppressive expectations of "functioning" and the trust that you have or don't have in community care and resources and how all of these open you to persecution or harm-- to have continued within the other lights as well.

sort of similarly, i really liked her framing of abolition as many-pronged, with one prong iirc representing the abolition of the mind / the theory and looking-out-place of abolition regarding deserved power and agency and freedom for all people. and then she sort of briefly says both in chapter two and at the end that some group homes or community programming for i/dd people can be normatively oppressive in an institutional/carceral sense due to how they are run and how they produce expectations-- i would have liked more of this, too.

i do not ultimately believe that community-based homes and programming for i/dd individuals are inherently neither carceral nor oppressive-- nor even that family living is necessarily so-- and i don't think the author seems to either, but perhaps she ran out of time. closer examination on the relational level of abolitionist vs. disempowering or controlling thinking, including on the relational level, including through forms of abuse and control, were necessary to close the loop on inclusion for this population. like, deinstitutionalization happened in the 60s and 70s, and today 87% of people with i/dds have experienced sexual abuse, predominantly from service providers or caregivers. this does not feel like a separate onslaught; this is a population for whom legitimate abolition from imprisonment, control, and abuse requires more thinking.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important books I’ve read in a long time.

[Cody Bivins-Starr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben-Moshe provides a must read for anyone interested in disability studies/theology or abolition/prison policy. Not only does she make the connection between carceral logics in medicine, psychiatry, and prisons with disability and madness clear, she also provides a rich argument for the inherent abolitionist ideas behind deinstitutionalization (though the latter is complex and neither a success nor failure). Much of the strength of the book is the pure analysis of data, something much to be desired imo within disability/mad studies. However, despite Ben-Moshe’s fantastic ties on neoliberalism as a factor in deinstitutionalization that averted the abolitionist logic, she still relies heavily on an assumed identity politics as the key viable coalition option, despite many times pointing to the volatile nature of identity/pride discourse in ending carceral logics.

All in all, a fantastic (but not necessarily page-turning) read.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This absolutely stunning book is a new essential for abolitionists. Ben-moshe provides necessary insight into the success of deinstitutionalization. More than that this book provides opportunities to dream of worlds beyond incarceration

[Ariane · Rating 3 out of 5]

To say this book is very academic, and/or uses too much jargon, is... generous. I'm currently writing my master's thesis on disability and abolition, so believe me when I say that I know a bit and care deeply about the topic. I didn't feel that the writing was overly academic so much as it was unpolished, and could have used a more thorough edit. Readers can expect unnecessarily long words (e.g. "utilize" instead of "use") and convoluted sentence structure.

This book does cover some vital topics. Although it focused more on movements & theory than on lived experience within carceral spaces (which I was looking for), I appreciate the insight and perspective it offers, encouraging abolitionists to recognize the disabled activists who've been paving the road.

Unfortunately, I found the argumentation here was... odd. Analyses were shallow when I was most skeptical, whereas the most intuitive (imo) were dragged out with repetetive & unnecessary explanation. A silver lining: the intro and conclusion of each chapter were by far the clearest parts (several chapters' conclusions actually had the supporting arguments & evidence which I'd felt was missing from the body). They offer a thorough overview of the chapter (with more concise & convincing writing), making it easier to just skim the body.

Again, this topic is important. I hope to see more writing in the future which connects abolitionism and disability--especially psychosocial disability (not the term used in this book, which dances around terminology a lot). I would definitely recommend reading certain chapters, but probably not the whole book (and expect a bit of a slog). Then again, some chapters were simply less relevant to my own thesis, so you can take this with a grain of salt :)

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is 5 stars for the power and importance of the writing; the contents that need to be said. So much of what we already know in crip community, but until this book had not been written.

However, the book could do significantly better in terms of accessibility to the community it is writing for: much of it is dense, difficult to parse, and for many cognitively/intellectually disabled kin, impossible to read unless translated into easy English or digestible sections in community reading groups. I wish that there had been two versions of this book, for that reason; or at the very least, an effort to provide simpler break-down sections following very complex and dense writing.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up. I feel like the things I struggled most with in this book could've been remedied by different editing. Definitions of theoretical terms often needed to be more succinct, which would have also reduced the need for repeatedly defining them throughout the book. Other times I really wanted further elaboration, I wanted examples and other people's theory to reference—particularly when we got to sections on intersectionality.

Nonetheless, this book is a vital source text for prison abolition and the relationship of incarceration to disability (and the carceral institutions constructed around disability). I appreciated this book's dedication to connecting the historical to the present, and representing a diversity of theoretical perspectives in this process. While not always extensive, the fact that there was inclusion of the impacts across so many populations meant a lot to me.

[Care · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

This was really interesting. It does get bogged down in esoteric jargon and references and it's dense in detail, but I found the arguments made very compelling.
content warnings:
Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Mental illness, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racism, and Police brutality

[Alex Contreras Montesano · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most relevant and urgent books to read right now! Details the history of confinement in relation to disability and the failure of legal avenues for true decarceration. Aligns the struggles of abolition and disability decarceration, drawing important parallels and contrasts. Pulls from amazing scholars such as Rod Ferguson, Sara Ahmed, and more. A book I’ll come back to again and again for the work of disability justice.

[Jupiter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not an easy book to read. It has a lot to unpack.

[Kendra McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book and Ben-Moshe's work! Easily my favourite book of 2020-2021.

[javor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just an absolutely phenomenal book that brilliantly intertwines disability (particularly I/DD) with critical carceral studies. Ben-Moshe’s scope of decarceration involves both prison abolition and deinstitutionalization, the relationship between which she complicates beyond the hegemonic narrative of the “new asylum” thesis. Introducing an impressive array of concepts, including race-ability, criminal pathologization, carceral ableism/sanism, and the decarceration–industrial complex, Ben-Moshe demonstrates that the theorization of disability cannot be theorized apart from carceral logics, and vice versa. She complicates notions of community, safety, danger, innocence, competence, etc. that demonstrate the affective investments undergirding biopolitical constructions of race-ability. As someone currently researching how carceral logics and affective economies structure the construction of language disability, this book has given me a lot to think about.

[Daniel Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

as someone who works in psychiatry (as a result of my own experiences as a patient, wanting to "fix" the problems I saw), this was at times a challenging read- The valid criticisms of the field as a whole felt personal at times, AND i needed to hear them.
I really liked this book, and I think I need to read it a second time for everything to sink in. as others have said, this is a dense book, both as written and the topic itself. drawing the link between the Institution of prison, the Institution of hospitalization and the other Institutions we use to intend to support disabled and neurodivergent folks- which actually harm us.
It's a good book, but don't expect to have it fed to you gently.

[Swarm Feral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great takedown of the myth of the great de-institutionalization under Raegan as why there's homelessness now and how deinstitutionalization was part a larger struggle against medicalization, psychiatric confinement, and institutionalization rather than just neoliberal state-phobia. Also does a good job at tying pathologization and criminialization to social, economic, gendering, and racializing factors. And also critiques carceral responses and calls for new forms of insitutionalization and so on. And how prisons produce disability rather than address root causes like housing, healthcare, and "structural inequality." Homelessness and disability are systemically produced condition not individual pathologies.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew this book is dense and I mean that in a good way. Sometimes I found myself overwhelmed with the sheer amount information being thrown at me. It feels like every area of research, movement and legal case in the history of America's institutionalization of disabled people is covered in this book. If you want a complete overview of the disabled fight for abolition this is the book for you. My only issue is that the introduction was needlessly convoluted and overlong to the extent I couldn't tell when it had ended. Apart from that, I have no qualms with this meticulously researched book.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love when there is something I have been thinking about and then there is a book that helps me think about it more. Lots of good notes and thoughts about applying a framework of abolition to deinstitutionalization and the lessons and coalitions we can build on from that. The book was weighed down by jargon which I found difficult at times. And was heavy on the academic-style of telling me what you’re going to tell me and what theories/style of research is being used.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if I'm going to write a review. It would probably help future me remember what I read, but present me is so focused on school starting tomorrow during a mismanaged pandemic so I'm kind of lacking motivation. We'll see. Really, really glad I read this though. I learned a lot and it's prompted me to ask new questions and reframe old questions.

[LaanSiBB]

Powerful combined discourse of abolishionist and de-medicalisation

[Ciara · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!!!

[Kai Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC~

[Kora Dzbinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

truly cannot overstate how important this book is

[Boka]

drawing connections

[Chris Nagel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The butler did it.

[Niko · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent book, but it feels like the author cares more about her academic prowess than teaching prison abolition. So full of jargon and theory that it feels a little empty.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25⭐

A lot of really important information, but it's hard to get through at times. I am used to reading dense and academic texts but this was tough. 

[Charlie - disableddaydreamer | itsbarbieparis (looking for mutuals) · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a standout favorite read of the year. i learned so much! and i highly recommend to anyone interested in intersectionality based issues which is much needed.