Abolition and Trauma: Learning to Imagine Again

We know that prisons are not effectively reducing recidivism and continue to perpetuate harm. And yet, most people uncritically accept that those who commit harm should be harshly punished and that this is the only just option. The more we invest into this system financially and emotionally, the less we are able to believe there are better alternatives. 

We don’t spend time thinking about different options and resources are not directed towards projects and people practicing alternative justice processes. We assume this is the only possible system. 

These oppressive structures rely on our hopelessness to thrive. As Erica Miners succinctly writes, “Liberation under oppression is unthinkable by design.” I’ve been thinking about how relational trauma enacts a similar result on an individual basis.

Imagine growing up in a dysfunctional home environment where no caregiver feels safe or comforting. Violence and instability poisons daily life. This reality is your baseline. It is your normal. Growing up this way, we may assume others were raised in similar environments, and that this is a common experience. Then, when we enter early adulthood, we may find ourselves gravitating towards relationships with similar power dynamics because familiarity feels good. Our worlds stay small and the people harming us may use isolation to keep us from experiencing and learning from a larger community. 

Suffering may feel like a natural, unavoidable part of life. When we see people who are not in pain in the same ways we are, we may even feel angry, resentful or jealous.

“Why shouldn’t they suffer in the ways I suffered? They should feel scared too.”

This is another example of how prioritizing punitive mindsets rob us of opportunities to live better lives or provide a better world for others. Eventually, we enter our 30s never having felt nurturing, tender love. We seemingly lose the ability to imagine better for ourselves and others. Do we even know that better things are possible? We can easily become trapped in a “false sense of inevitability.” 

Trauma can rob us of our ability to imagine differently and better for ourselves. We forget, or sometimes never learn, that relationships do not have to feel scarce, unstable, and unpredictable. It takes so much time, practice, and trust-building in order to unlearn these norms about closeness and vulnerability. 

Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba call on us to practice “unrestrained imagination” to push back on the fixed hopelessness perpetuated by oppressive systems. How can we practice relational unrestrained imagination after trauma?

For me, this work does not feel optional. Every time I place my trust in someone, I may feel like I’m taking a massive risk, but every time someone else catches me, I learn that the world is not as unsafe as I thought. I’m teaching my brain new possibilities and new ways of behaving towards other people, which feels equal parts scary and rewarding. Just as I work to imagine a better world where prisons and carceral systems do not exist, I have to very consciously and deliberately imagine that I can experience vulnerability, closeness and safe love.