“Abolition is Inherently Experimental” Craig Gilmore on Fighting Prisons and Defunding Police

In this episode we interview Craig Gilmore. Gilmore is a prison abolitionist, cofounder of California Prison Moratorium Project, and a member of the Community Advisory board of Critical Resistance.   Gilmore shares practical examples of prison abolitionists stopping new prison construction in California and how those examples have helped inform organizer approaches to stopping new prisons and jails. We also talk about possible lessons these abolitionist fights have to the fight to defund police. Gilmore also addresses various recent critiques of abolition on the left. And talks about work he uses to orient his abolitionist practice, including explaining what he thinks the relevance of Amilcar Cabral and the PAIGC is to abolitionist fights in the US.  In conversation we also talk about violence, harm, self defense, and the opportunities and threats of this moment.