Deinstitutionalization

Deinstitutionalization was NOT a “failure”

The main point I made at last Thursday's @idha_nyc panel...✌️⠀
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I'm certain you've heard the narrative before, how "deinstitutionalization was a failure" because of "how many mentally ill people there are in prisons". ⠀
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The argument is false and ignores structural issues: Capitalism, neoliberalism (the cuts to social safety net in the US and Canada during the 1980s, which saw significant cuts to health services, education, housing access). ⠀
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These arguments also tend to center “Cure” of people who are mentally ill or neurodivergent (which often translates to): "Lets make these folks ready for work and economic "freedom". For example, people sometimes say: "people in prisons need better mental health care (which is often a given) but doesn't really consider -- "why should people ever be caged?"⠀
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My aim is to point out that abolition is possible, it has been done before. I also hope to highlight how key it is to build solidarity with organizers struggling for social services and against neoliberal capitalist austerity. ⠀
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By struggling together we can insure that abolition of all carceral spaces is a success and that all people are able to live well.⠀
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[Image description: Cover: beige background with blue and orange bold font reading: "Institutionalization was not a failure". Slide 2: Orange text reading: "The "failure of ⠀
de-institutionalization” narrative is insulting and false. Deinstitutionalization was an abolitionist movement, and it was a success. The failure was that of the State. which continues to privilege the few wealthy, rather than us all."]

Deinstitutionalization was not a failure in cap lock blue and orange letters.