Thinking About Trump's Indictment from an Abolitionist Perspective

The present draft takes as its premise that anyone who wants to abandon the American system of imprisonment therefore believes that no one should be in custody. I don't think that is likely to be true. Custodial confinement is a basic attribute of the State in its role as keeper of public order. There are always some people in custody, and—as Justice Rehnquist infamously held in Schall v. Martin, children are always in someone's custody.

In the 21st century, electronic means of arranging for home confinement will make house arrest an increasingly common form of custody. That will no doubt be more available to the wealthy and those with high social capital.

But there will always be reasons, including reputational penalties, involved in being held in state institutional custody rather than by surveillance robots at home. I have referred before to Dutch prisons, some of which are designed to hold dangerous, violent offenders, and some of which are intended for a general social population, none of which are designed—like our "country clubs," for the well-to-do and the reputable, but all of which are dignified, humane, and lawful in their operation. If Donald Trump could be sent to serve a sentence in Nieuw Vosselveld, I should not be in the least opposed.

So is this a dispute about things or about words? Are we trying to justify an adjective or to define the practical realities of what we would consider to be a just and achievable society? If the latter, I think the next draft should strike directly at those practical conclusions, rather than worrying about what someone else would label the position.