Critical Review of Cradle Community’s Brick by Brick: How We Build a World Without Prison

About Brick by Brick: How We Build A World Without Prisons: Author(s), Content, and Positioning

Brick by Brick: How We Build A World Without Prisons is a kind of written oral tradition: a compilation of the conversations and stories about abolition that rarely make it into widespread circulation. The first published work of Cradle Community, it advances Cradle’s central mission by using examples from British society to outline exactly which bricks need to be dismantled in order to transform the carceral state in which we live into one of justice, peace, inclusion, and care (ibid 14-15). In its mission statement, Cradle Community describes itself as:

…a collective of facilitators, organisers, educators and artists finding ways to make space for curiosity, compassion and creativity. In our mission to build a world with transformative justice responses to violence, we believe we all need to develop the skills to support radical approaches to collective care and healing in our communities. As a collective of individuals with complex identities and ancestries, we hope to reach beyond borders and binaries with this work and the legacies we follow as we pursue it. (“Cradle”)

As such, Cradle Community is both a people and a space for accountability, transformation, collective care, and, perhaps most importantly in this context, abolition (“We Facilitate!”). While not outwardly stated in their mission statement, abolition is a cornerstone of Cradle Community’s purpose; however, abolition is often considered a radical concept, one that brings outrage and censure from all sides. Cradle Community finds strength, solidarity, and security in their collective actions, and so the authors and collaborators of Brick by Brick publish under the name of their collective organization rather than their own individual names. They write, “Although we have all brought our individual experiences to creation of this book, we have written this as a collective in acknowledgement that individual acclaim is counter to our message, and because none of us could do this alone” (Cradle Community 2021, 7). 

While I respect this choice, in some ways I struggle with the authors’ sense of anonymity. On one hand, I completely understand the authors’ desire—some might even say, need—for anonymity, as merely saying the word “abolition” can tarnish a professional or political reputation, or in some cases even lead to a sense of physical insecurity—especially as some of the contributors are speaking out from within the prison context (ibid. 14). On the other hand, a cornerstone of Cradle Community’s mission is accountability and the open sharing of information. Publishing anonymously could suggest to the reader that Cradle’s message needs to be whispered, not shouted: in my mind, it cements the idea that abolitionist writing exists on the outskirts of public debates. Rather than normalizing, it emphasizes the fact that open discussion of abolition is not the norm. 

That said, Brick by Brick certainly brings contemporary debates about abolition to readers in a way that is both accessible and meaningful. It would be easy to look at the world today—to see clearly the violence, harm, incarceration, sexism, patriarchy, and generally insecurity that have become so commonplace—and to be discouraged. As Barat contends, “We are…engaged in a struggle that seems, if we look at it using a mainstream political framework and through a mass media prism, unwinnable” (cited in Davis 2016, xi-xii). As a result, we must continually ask ourselves questions like: “What can we do? How can we do it? With whom? What tactics should be used? How should we define a strategy that is accessible to everyone, including a general public that has reached levels of depoliticization that can make atrocities seem acceptable? What is our vision? How can we make sure ‘we’ are talking to ‘everyone’? How can we catalyze and connect sustainable, cross-border, and radical movements?” (ibid. xi). 

Writing Brick by Brick was Cradle Community’s response to these questions. Reading it and joining them in imagining a better society—one that does not rely on a criminogenic system of incarceration as the solution to widespread violence and harm—is ours. 

Central Themes in Brick by Brick: Abolition, Community, and Care

While undoubtedly and unashamedly an abolitionist work, Brick by Brick is not (as anti-abolitionist rhetoric might suggest), about the demolition of buildings and unlocking of cells; rather, it addresses “the dismantling of all social, political, and economic institutions that sustain systems of prisons and policing. Abolition is imagining a world full of shared abundance, human dignity, safety, justice and freedom” (Cradle Community 2021, 210). Only one section of Brick by Brick addresses the need to dismantle the prison system and work towards freeing those who are incarcerated (ibid. 163-177). On the subject, Cradle argues quite simply that “nobody, no matter their crime, deserves to be dehumanized and violated, and that control and surveillance do not enable us to build trust or repair relationships” (ibid. 165). 

The remaining four sections address other facets of the abolitionist perspective, including the criminal justice system (ibid. 17-29), the dismantling of the institutions of the carceral state (ibid. 31-99), the building of institutions that affirm humanity (ibid. 101-161), and the implementation of transformative justice mechanisms across all levels of society (ibid. 179-207). Each of these sections reveals another layer of arguments in defense of abolition—complete with statistics, analysis, and anecdotal evidence from those on the inside. 

The section on the criminal justice system describes the origins and institutions of the prison-industrial complex in Britain. Cradle Community uses stories of people inside the prison system, as well as statistics on targeted criminalization and the continued growth of the prison-industrial complex in Britain, as evidence to show that “prisons aren’t eliminating crime—they’re disappearing vulnerable people” (ibid. 20). Further, this section addresses the age-old question of prison reform: why push for total abolition when reform is, arguably, a more politically viable option? The authors contend that reforms, rather than correcting the harms of the prison-industrial complex, instead encourage its growth (ibid. 28). Reforms have led to advances in surveillance technology, mother-and-baby units that force women to give birth in cells, and so-called employment opportunities that exploit the labor of those incarcerated for institutional profit (ibid.). As such, Cradle demonstrates that all of the good that can come from reforms can just as easily be weaponized into mechanisms of state control: tools of coercion, punishment, and submission. 

Cradle Community takes an even deeper look at the prison-industrial complex in the sections on dismantling and building by showing how aspects of the carceral state are so embedded in our day-to-day lives. From imperialism and “crimmigration” to insecure housing and food poverty, from worker exploitation and the “copaganda” to the gender binary and rape culture, Cradle identifies aspects of the prison-industrial complex that are so deeply entrenched and normalized that they often go unseen—and even more importantly, unchallenged. In “The Dismantling,” these are finally challenged, and in “The Building” they are reimagined into systems which affirm life rather than deny it. To tackle the problematic brick of crimmigration, Cradle suggests a plan of decolonization and a reimagination of border security; in response to insecure housing and food resources, they create a system of mutual aid and housing justice on a community level; and so on. Cradle Community lays out concrete steps which we all can take to dismantle systemic violence and rebuild our communities with better and stronger bricks. 

The final section discusses how we might go about transforming our world through the careful implementation of transformative justice mechanisms across all levels of society. Cradle defines transformative justice as “a set of practices for responding to harm that rejects policing, prisons, and punishment, instead centering intervention in violence happening within our communities, support for people experiencing violence, understanding the community’s role in enabling harm, and taking collective responsibility for changing the conditions that allowed harm to occur” (ibid. 210).  Transformative justice mechanisms create a society that is proactive rather than reactive: rather than waiting for harm to (inevitably) occur and reacting with further punishment, we instead prevent harm from occurring at all by recognizing the systems which perpetuate violence and accounting for them (ibid. 193). 

Underlying all these discussions of abolition and transformative justice are the ideas of community and care. Many of Cradle’s imaginings require a commitment to active community engagement and a sense of mutual responsibility and care. In some ways I find Cradle’s emphasis on and commitment to community, healing, and care even more salient than their arguments about abolition. So often discussions of the carceral state, regardless of positioning, focus solely on the violent nature of incarceration and state control. By their very nature, these discussions are taxing, tiring, and often deeply disturbing. Without considerations for care and healing, abolition and transformative justice mechanisms will collapse—not only because the systems will not be able to sustain themselves, but also because people will not have the desire or capacity to advocate for them either. As Cradle writes, “we cannot sustain ourselves or each other is we are completely burned out or so close to the edge that we have no space for compassion” (ibid. 203). 

Further, no matter how well Cradle Community defends and advances their position on the need to dismantle and transform the violent prison-industrial complex, there will always be those who disagree with and malign their message. Abolition is controversial; it carries a negative sociopolitical connotation, to the extent that even mentioning the term in everyday political conversation will leave most people recoiling and changing the subject. The same cannot be said of care. Where abolition is controversial, care is vital; it crosses boundaries and transcends political beliefs. I doubt even the most devoted anti-abolitionist could truly argue against care or any of its societal manifestations, like charity or mutual aid. By connecting abolition, community and care, Cradle reconstructs the traditional abolitionist argument into one that is, I believe, more easily defensible against the overarching, anti-abolitionist, status-quo perspective. 

Conclusions

Cradle Community’s Brick by Brick draws inspiration from publications of other leading feminists, scholars, practitioners, and abolitionists—from Angela Davis to Claudia Jones, Lola Olufemi to Walter Rodney—and in doing so, finds itself in their company as well. Brick by Brick has become a resource for all those interested in discovering, or better yet, imagining, alternatives to the violence of the prison system in Britain and beyond. While no book, theory, movement, or idea can be all things to all people, Cradle Community deserves praise for trying to make Brick by Brick as accessible as possible to people of all genders, races, classes, and political backgrounds. By breaking down abolition—a controversial and loaded concept that carries a heavy sociopolitical connotation—into concise, easily digestible “bricks,” Cradle has created a framework and platform for abolitionists to use to carry on their conversations even with the staunchest of critics.  

This critique is hardly critical, but it is my sincerest hope that commenting on Brick by Brick’s discussions about abolition, strategies of transformative justice, community responsibility, and the need for care, will help normalize these conversations so future imaginings are not relegated to the fringe of politics. Messages like those from Cradle Community’s Brick by Brick: How We Build A World Without Prisons should not be whispered on the outskirts of public debate. They should be shouted, affirmed, read, and most importantly, shared.

References

• “Cradle.” Cradle Community. Accessed March 18, 2022.
• Cradle Community. 2021. Brick by Brick: How We Build a World Without Prisons. Hajar Press. Print. 
• Davis, Angela Y. 2016. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. New York, NY: Haymarket Books. Accessed March 18, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central.
• Olufemi, Lola. 2020. Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power. London: Pluto Press. Ebook.
• “We Facilitate!” Cradle Community. Accessed March 17, 2022.