Krimpedia – das Kriminologie-Wiki

Abolitionism

Version vom 12. Juli 2013, 20:28 Uhr von Tiao (Diskussion | Beiträge) (→‎The Cause for Conflict)

Abolitionism is not a household world which we are using every day. Some of us may be familiar with it, but some are certainly not, and one proof of the widespread unfamiliarity is the fact that even when we stumble over a text that uses the word it is more often than never being misspelled as absolutionism, abulitionism or the like. In other words: it is completely legitimate to ask the question: what exactly does this word mean, where does it come from, and why is it important to know?


The Concept

The term goes back to ancient Roman times. In Latin the verb abolēre (aboleō) means: to do away with something, and to do so completely, wholly. To nullify, and that is also the meaning of the present-day English verb "to abolish" - and of its equivalents in today's Roman languages, like, e.g., abolir, abolire ... . The noun abolitio was used in Roman law. It meant something like "wiping out a criminal prosecution against somebody before a verdict was spoken". In other words, the lifting of criminal prosecution during the process.

There were two kinds of abolition in Roman law, the abolitio privata and the abolitio publica, the private and the public one. Whereas the abolitio privata had only limited relevance, the abolitio publica was comparable to an amnesty – with the difference that an amnesty usually concerns convicted delinquents, whereas an abolition stops the criminal procedure and thus prevents the judge from reaching a verdict. In Roman times, the birthday of the Emperor or the birth of a crown prince or similar joyful occasions could be cause for such an abolitio. In later times, kings used to claim their right to inferfere with criminal procedures at their will. The king of France, e.g., would just write a letter of abolition (lettre d’abolition) to free any of his subjects from prosecution – the opposite being the more infamous lettre de cachet which would send anyone who had angered the king into the dungeon.

The nouns abolitionist and abolitionism did not appear until much later. They are linked to demands “from below” against repressive legal institutions that are being seen as utterly unjust by some people who therefore demand their abolition (= abolitionists). The first movement that used these terms was the group around Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharpe and others who campaigned – starting in 1787 - against the trans-atlantic slave-trade.

Later, other movements also called themselves abolitionist – especially those that vindicated the rights of prostitutes (demanding the abolition of repressive legislation), the end of slavery as a legal institution, the end of capital punishment, prisons, or, even more broadly, the criminal justice system as a whole. What is the common denominator of all these movements and ideologies? Well, in spite of their significant differences, each and every abolitionist movement consists of

  1. the demand for an immediate end to a practice which is
  2. tolerated or prescribed by the present legal order on the one hand, but
  3. seen as a dramatic violation of higher values and normative orders by part of the public and abolitionists.

To sum it all up: all abolitionist movements are calling for the immediate end of a legal institution they see as inhumane.

The First Abolitionist Movements

Trans-atlantic slave trade

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, slavery had few opponents in England. Indeed, English society valued the slave trade for its significant contribution to the nation’s wealth, and romanticized the adventurous lives of traders on the high seas. In the late eighteenth century, however, Quakers and other religious leaders began to change attitudes toward slavery by drawing attention to the inhumanity and cruelty of the slave trade. One of most effective voices against slavery in England was Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846). Clarkson, along with the abolitionist Granville Sharpe, established the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787. To expose the barbarity of the slave trade, Clarkson gathered evidence, such as the tools of torture used on slave ships, and interviewed thousands of slave ship sailors. He also developed powerful allies, such as M.P. William Wilberforce, who used his political influence to lobby for abolitionist causes in Parliament. Clarkson, Granville, Wilberforce, and other activists began spreading their message. They published protest pamphlets, raised funds, and organized public lectures and rallies. Twenty years after the founding of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, their work was partially rewarded by the passage of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807. This act prohibited Great Britain from participating in the transatlantic slave trade. (from: “I will be heard” - Origins.)

Slavery

Moderate and radical critics of slavery employed all manner of strategies to persuade the American public and its leadership to end this "peculiar institution"..

Abolitionists vs. Gradualists

Gradualists wanted to slowly free slaves and send them back to Africa. This is how the West African State of Liberia came into existence. Abolitionsts did not believe that this strategy could ever work out.

Peaceful and violent abolitionists

Persuasion and Agitation

Peaceful abolitionists assembled individuals to form groups of like-minded individuals to fight as a body. Initially, groups like the American Anti-Slavery Society used lecturing and moral persuasion to attempt to change the hearts and minds of individuals. Many later activists found moral persuasion tactics insufficient and turned their attention to political lobbying. Most famous of all abolitionist activities was the Underground Railroad, a network of assistance and safe houses for runaway slaves. The Underground Railroad stretched from the Southern states to Canada, and until 1865 provided shelter, safety, and guidance for thousands of runaway slaves. Activists used the press to spread the abolitionist message. Newspapers like William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator circulated vehement attacks on government sanctioned bondage. Other publications, such as pamphlets and leaflets, contained anti-slavery poems, slogans, essays, sermons, and songs. Abolitionists also looked to future generations to carry on their work, creating a body of children’s literature to bring the harsh realities of slavery before a young audience. These materials were deemed so threatening in slave states that they were outlawed.

Armed abolitionism: terrorism for good ends?

Still other abolitionists felt that violence was the only way to end slavery. These militants resorted to extreme and deadly tactics, and incited violent insurrections. These acts of terror aroused fear in slaveholders, but also led to the execution of perpetrators (from: “I will be heard” – Strategies).

One of these militants was a man named John Brown.

John Brown was a man of action -- a man who would not be deterred from his mission of abolishing slavery. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured.

John Brown was born into a deeply religious family in Torrington, Connecticut, in 1800. Led by a father who was vehemently opposed to slavery, the family moved to northern Ohio when John was five, to a district that would become known for its antislavery views.

During his first fifty years, Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, and taking along his ever-growing family. (He would father twenty children.) Working at various times as a farmer, wool merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was finacially successful -- he even filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to fugitive slaves. He and his wife agreed to raise a black youth as one of their own. He also participated in the Underground Railroad and, in 1851, helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers.

In 1847 Frederick Douglass met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." It was at this meeting that Brown first outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.

Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to act as a "kind father to them."

Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory. There, he became the leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack against the antislavery town of Lawrence. The following year, in retribution for another attack, Brown went to a proslavery town and brutally killed five of its settlers. Brown and his sons would continue to fight in the territory and in Missouri for the rest of the year.

Brown returned to the east and began to think more seriously about his plan for a war in Virginia against slavery. He sought money to fund an "army" he would lead. On October 16, 1859, he set his plan to action when he and 21 other men -- 5 blacks and 16 whites -- raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

Brown was wounded and quickly captured, and moved to Charlestown, Virginia, where he was tried and convicted of treason, Before hearing his sentence, Brown was allowed make an address to the court.


. . . I believe to have interfered as I have done, . . . in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done."


Although initially shocked by Brown's exploits, many Northerners began to speak favorably of the militant abolitionist. "He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. . . .," said Henry David Thoreau in an address to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts. "No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature. . . ."

John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859. (from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1550.html)

Success Story

The US abolished slavery on January 31, 1865, by means of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution reading: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Brazil followed in 1888. Today, there is still hidden de facto slavery in many parts of the world, but not a single country officially admits de jure slavery on its territory.

Later Aims of Abolitionist Movements

Prostitution

The Cause for Conflict

In the 1860s, the British government enacted some so-called Contagious Diseases Acts that were aimed at a repressive control of prostitutes deemed by many a violation of human rights. The Contagious Diseases Acts , also known as the CD Acts, were originally passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1864, with alterations and editions made in 1866 and 1869. In 1862, a committee was established to inquire into venereal disease in the armed forces; on its recommendation the first Contagious Diseases Act was passed. The legislation allowed police officers to arrest prostitutes in certain ports and army towns, and the women were then subjected to compulsory checks for venereal disease. If a woman was declared to be infected, she would be confined in what was known as a Lock Hospital until "cured". The original act was only lawful in a few selected naval ports and army towns, but by 1869 the acts had been extended to be in operation in eighteen "subjected districts".

The Act of 1864 stated that women found to be infected could be interned in locked hospitals for up to three months, a period gradually extended to one year with the 1869 Act. These measures were justified by medical and military officials as the most effective method to shield men from venereal disease. As military men were discouraged from marriage and homosexual behaviour was criminal, prostitution was considered a necessary evil. However, no provision was made for the examination of prostitutes' clientele. This became a major point of controversy. After 1866, proposals were introduced to extend the acts to the north of England and to the civilian population. The issue exploded the debate over the double standards between men and women. It was one of the first political issues that led to women organizing themselves and actively campaigning for their rights.

A prostitute's testimony encouraged by Josephine Butler:

It is men, only men, from the first to the last that we have to do with! To please a man I did wrong at first, then I was flung about from man to man. Men police lay hands on us. By men we are examined, handled, doctored. In the hospital it is a man again who makes prayer and reads the Bible for us. We are had up before magistrates who are men, and we never get out of the hands of men till we die! Contents

1 Prostitution in Victorian England 2 Extension and repeal 3 Conditions in Lock hospitals 4 Archives 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading Prostitution in Victorian England

The level of prostitution was high in Victorian England. The acts themselves would have affected a large proportion of the female workforce in Britain. For several reasons prostitution was predominantly a working class profession. For many working class women their journey into prostitution was one of circumstance. During the nineteenth century the public began to concern itself with particular social problems, an increasing view of the "ideal woman" was beginning to emerge and the "angel of the home" was becoming a popular stereotype. This rise of the middle class domestic morality made it increasingly harder for women to obtain work in certain professions, causing an increase in such areas as needle-trades, shop girls, agricultural gangs, factory work, and domestic servants,[4] all occupations with long hours and little pay. Low earnings, it is argued, meant that women had to resort to prostitution to be able to provide for themselves and their families, particularly in households where the main breadwinner was no longer around. A study from the late Victorian period showed that more than 90 per cent of prostitutes in Millbank prison were the daughters of "unskilled and semiskilled workingmen", more than 50 per cent of whom had been servants, the rest having worked in dead-end jobs such as laundering, charring, and street selling.[5] Prostitution is also an unskilled occupation; a woman does not need to go through any sort of training or apprenticeship.

The nature of the occupation makes it difficult to establish the exact number of prostitutes in operation during the Victorian Period. Judicial reports of the years 1857 to 1869 show that prostitutes were more common in commercial ports and pleasure resorts and less so in hardware towns, cotton and linen manufacturing centres and woollen and worsted centres.[6] The Westminster Review placed the figure between 50,000 and 368,000.[7] This would make prostitution the fourth-largest female occupation. However, the police estimates of known prostitutes portray an entirely different estimate:

Police estimates of known prostitutes[7]

Date London England and Wales 1839 6,371 – 1841 9,404 – 1856 8,600 – 1858 7,194 27,113 1859 6,649 28,743 1861 7,124 29,572 1862 5,795 28,449 1863 5,581 27,411 1864 5,689 26,802 1865 5,911 26,213 1866 5,544 24,717 1867 5,628 24,999 1888 5,678 24,311 However, this table relates only prostitutes known to the police. The unreliability of statistics during the nineteenth century prevents one from knowing if prostitution was increasing or decreasing during this period, but it is clear that Victorians during the 1840s and 1850s thought that prostitution and venereal disease were increasing .[8]

Regulating prostitution was the government's attempt to control the high level of venereal disease in its armed forces. By 1864, one out of three sick cases in the army were caused by venereal disease; admissions into hospitals for gonorrhoea and syphilis reached 290.7 per 1,000 of total troop strength.[9]

Prostitutes found work within the armed forces, mainly due to servicemen's forced celibacy and the conditions of the barracks the men were forced to endure.[10] The barracks were overcrowded and had a lack of ventilation and defective sanitation. Very few servicemen were permitted to marry, and even those were not given an allowance to support their wives, which often forced them to become prostitutes as well.[11]

Extension and repeal

In 1866, the Association for the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established and was just as prominent in the publishing of pamphlets and articles as the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was. The Association for the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts strongly campaigned for the extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts to be extended outside of the naval and army barracks and be made effective to the whole of the country, as they believed this was the best way of regulating prostitution.

There was much action taken towards the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. In 1869, the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established; initially restricting women from its meetings, causing the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts to be quickly established by Josephine Butler. These repeal organizations attracted the vigorous support of not only moralists and feminists but also those concerned with civil liberties, especially since the Acts were perceived as having violated basic human rights.

Both groups actively campaigned against the acts and between 1870 and 1885, 17,365 petitions against the acts bearing 2,606,429 signatures were presented to the House of Commons, and during the same period, more than 900 meetings were held.[7] The repealists struck a chord with the public consensus on the issues surrounding prostitution and they highlighted the issue of double standards. It was the men and women of the National Association and the Ladies National Association who won the battle over the Contagious Diseases Acts, and, in 1886, the Acts were repealed.

Conditions in Lock hospitals

If a woman was declared diseased she would be confined in what were known as Lock hospitals. The Lock hospitals or Lock wards were designed specifically to treat those infected with a venereal disease. Conditions in Lock Hospitals were inadequate. An 1882 survey estimated that there were only 402 beds for female patients in all the voluntary lock hospitals in Great Britain, and out of this number only 232 were "funded for use".[12] Female venereal patients generally had to resort to workhouse infirmaries.

Liberal and Feminist Action for Repeal

Since the liberal-minded National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act did not allow women among their ranks, Josephine Butler quickly founded the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Both organizations were vigorously supported by the liberal public, since the Acts were seen as violating basic human rights.

What was to be Abolished?

Success Story?

After a struggle of 16 years, the Acts were repealed. At the beginning and in the course of the 20th century, the legal prostitution regimes were softened and prostitutes gained some legal equality. On the other hand, a different conception arose about what was to be understood as abolitionism in this context. Some feminists argued that prostitution itself had to be abolished. As a consequence, the old and latent conflict between those who advocated civil rights for prostitutes on the one hand, and others who advocated an end to prostitution as such, on the other hand, became more virulent.

Death Penalty

Despite pressure for the abolition of the death penalty, many countries in the world still maintain the death penalty in their criminal codes and in practice. Capital punishment has, in the past, been practised by most societies; currently 58 nations actively practise it, and 97 countries have abolished it (the remainder have not used it for 10 years or allow it only in exceptional circumstances such as wartime).

Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment.

Currently, Amnesty International considers most countries abolitionist.

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007, 2008 and 2010, non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition.

Although many nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the world's population live in countries where executions take place, such as the People's Republic of China, India, the United States of America and Indonesia, the four most-populous countries in the world, which continue to apply the death penalty (although in India, Indonesia and in many US states it is rarely employed). Each of these four nations voted against the General Assembly resolutions. (from. capital punishment, in: en.wikipedia).

Prisons

The Quakers, once the inventors of the modern prison, have been at the forefront of questioning the sense of prisons altogether and of searching for better alternatives. The International Conference on Prison Abolition (ICOPA) can be seen as a contemporary attempt to continue abolitionist traditions.

Angela Davis attended the Toronto ICOPA conference and showed herself to be both positively and negatively surprised: she liked the fact that in these reactionary times the abolitionist idea was still being upheld, but she found that the - remarkable - fiath based initiatives showed a certain racial bias and narrowness, thus revealing a counterproductive isolation from relevant movements outside its circles.

Criminal Law

As a matter of fact, the ICOPA was renamed to encompass an even larger spectrum of demands. Instead of making halt at the demand to abolish prisons, the organization now envisaged to abolish the whole of the criminal justice system, including criminal law and criminal trials. One of the proponents of this enlargement of perspective was Louk Hulsman. Together with Nils Christie and Thomas Mathiesen from Norway, Hulsman is being seen as one of the most influential contemporary abolitionists.

Hulsman's perspective

  1. Problematic situations instead of crimes
  2. Autonomous conflict resolution instead of state-run trials
  3. Anascopic views instead of katascopic ones


Controversies

Controversies surrounding the abolitionist agenda today center on the question of idealism, utopianism, and on the question of the rule of law. Some emancipatory movements are investing their hopes into participatory power In the state and legal apparatus, and thus aim at enshrining their beliefs and values in the criminal law instead of abolishing the penal codes. This weakened the abolitionist movement, but the last word has not been spoken on this matter.

Literature

  • Bergalli, Roberto, and Inaki Rivera Beiras, cords. (2012) Louk Hulsman: ¿Qué queda de los abolicionismos? Barcelona: Anthropos.
  • Braithwaite, John (2002) Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Deleuze, Gilles (1990) Das elektronische Halsband (orig.: L'Autre Journal, 1, Mai 1990) http://www.nadir.org/nadir/archiv/netzkritik/postskriptum.html.
  • Hochschild, Adam (2005) Bury the Chains. The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery. New York: Houghton Mifflin 2005.
  • Hulsman, Louk H.C. (1986) Critical criminology and the concept of crime. Contemporary Crises 10: 63-79.
  • Hulsman, Louk, and Jacqueline Bernat de Celis (1982) Peines perdues. Paris: Le Centurion.
  • Mathiesen, Thomas (1974) The Politics of Abolition. London.
  • Mauz, Gerhard (1975) Das Spiel von Schuld und Sühne. Die Zukunft der Strafjustiz. Düsseldorf, Köln.
  • Scheerer, Sebastian (1991) "Abolitionismus". In: R. Sieverts, H.J. Schneider, Hg., Handwörterbuch der Kriminologie. In völlig neu bearb. zweiter Auflage, Band 5, Berlin: de Gruyter: 289-301.
  • Scheerer, Sebastian (1984) Die abolitionistische Perspektive. Kriminologisches Journal 90-111 [1].

Weblinks

Abgerufen von „https://www.krimpedia.de/index.php?title=Abolitionism&oldid=55228“