Reform or abolition ? Reading Angela Davis’ Freedom is a constant struggle*
( Contribution in the cycle InfomAnia (7/11 – 19/12) "Prison Break, how to escape from the Belgian prison system", Anarchist City Center, Gent www.anarchie.be ) Luk Vervaet To start with, I think it’s important to underline, against the widespread idea that prisons and incarceration always existed, that it is only in the last 200 years, that imprisonment has become the most important form of punishment in industrialized countries. Two factors which go back to the XVIII century, led to the replacement of the corporal punishment practiced until then, by prison. First. The Age of Enlightenment and the humanist ideals it generated led to opposition of the arbitrary rule of the monarchs of the Ancien Régime and recognition of the rights and freedoms of the individual as positive values. Within this philosophy, the absence of freedom, by putting someone in prison and isolating the prisoner from the community, became the ultimate form of punishment, but al