The Importance of Punishment

PRISON ABOLITION: Laurie Taylor talks to Tommie Shelby, Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, about a new study which considers the case for ending imprisonment. Mass incarceration and its devastating impact on black communities have been widely condemned as neoslavery or “the new Jim Crow.” Can the practice of imprisonment be reformed, or does justice require it to be ended altogether? They’re joined by Clare McGlynn, Professor of Law at Durham University, who questions 'anti carceral' approaches from a feminist perspective – do they serve the interests of survivors of male violence against women and girls?

Producer: Jayne Egerton