CHANGE: A World Without Prisons - Ruth Wilson Gilmore in Conversation with Mariame Kaba

Watch the event "A World Without Prisons," recorded live on Zoom on September 16, 2020.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore is a leader in the movement to abolish prisons, which has taken on new resonance amidst current protests for racial justice and calls to “defund the police.” According to a New York Times feature on her work, “Abolition means not just the closing of prisons but the presence, instead, of vital systems of support that many communities lack,” such as education, housing, and health care. Gilmore, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at The Graduate Center and author of the influential book Golden Gulag, discusses her vision not only to end mass incarceration but to transform the structure of society. She speaks with organizer Mariame Kaba, founder and director of Project NIA and author of a recent New York Times op-ed, “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish Police.”

Presented with the Center for the Study of Women and Society.

Part of CHANGE, an online event series, fall 2020. This time of extraordinary social upheaval demands — and presents new opportunities for — change. In this weekly series, learn from leading thinkers and explore ways to create a more equal and democratic society.

CHANGE is produced by The Graduate Center’s Office of Public Programs as part of the Promise and Perils of Democracy project with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

For more information about our events, visit: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/publicprograms