Structural Violence, Police/Prison Abolition, and Decoloniality

Our global south partner in the Middle East-based MENA Prison Forum (MPF), which facilitates and calls for multi-disciplinary understandings of “the prison” and experiences of imprisonment in the MENA region. The MPF works broadly on: 1. Tracking and Coalition, 2. Research and Documentation, and 3. Public Outreach and Advocacy. The MPF tracks and complies resources and content related to incarceration in the region. This also includes various artistic pieces that reflect on carcerality and imprisonment. The research and documentation component of the project includes producing original content through getting testimonies from former prisoners, looking at literature, and compiling material from newspapers and statements. Finally, the MPF is concerned with engaging with a variety of public domains so as to raise the profile of prison-related matters to “mainstream” discussions. 

The Structural Violence, Police/Prison Abolition, and Decoloniality cluster is inspired by the work that the MPF does, and finds that they share many of the same goals and approaches. The cluster has taken MPF’s pedagogical and academic approach as a roadmap from which to begin conducting and compiling academic syllabi, bibliographies, and other resources.