Disposable Human

Beyond punishment and restrictive practices, calls for a more caring society *** Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and references to people who have died

“This language of “care” & “safety” has become the moral cover for violence. These are sites built on control, warehouses for those our society has deemed too old, too “mad”, too disabled, or too dangerous to be free.”

www.croakey.org/beyond-punis...

Prisons don’t solve poverty; they sustain it. They strip people of everything, profit from their labour, and then release them back into deeper poverty.

Let’s start talking about the economic and moral cost of funding punishment instead of care.
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As Anti-Poverty Week unfolds, we need to talk about the part of poverty the public conversation always avoids: the prison system.

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Heyyyyy everyone in Adelaide
Please join me this weekend to make/write Christmas cards for people in prison this Christmas 🎄
It’s a drop in session, so come for an hour or come for the whole session. All materials provided.
WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!

What’s left out are the intersections: race, class, gender, disability, and criminalisation. I’d really like us to start talking about what gets erased when we keep talking about poverty without complexity, and about why that erasure matters.
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These stories flatten lived realities into neat categories that policymakers can manage: stories that soothe rather than confront, that individualise structural violence instead of naming it.
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We hear about people “doing it tough,” about homelessness and “crimes of poverty,” but never about the racial, gendered, and systemic forces that make some people poor, criminalised, and excluded in the first place.
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Every year during Anti-Poverty Week, I find myself frustrated by how the public conversation about poverty and criminalisation plays out. The narratives are always the same: predictable, comfortable, and stripped of complexity.
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An invocation for remembrance, resistance, and renewal - we remake ourselves, bone by bone, light by light.

For friends who are talking with young people about our Xmas cards for prisoners project, these slides might help guide conversations gently. They offer age-appropriate ways to talk about care, kindness, & connection to remind kids that everyone deserves to feel valued at Xmas.

Repair work reminds us that accountability and care can coexist, that community can hold rupture without collapse.

Repair is how we find our way back to each other. It’s how we mend what’s been frayed, not to erase the tear, but to weave something stronger, more honest, and more real.
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In a world that teaches us to discard people when harm happens, choosing repair is a radical act. It’s how we resist the carceral logic that says punishment is the only way to respond to pain.
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Donate to Help Disabled Australians Advocate for Fair Pay!, organized by Shaun Bickley Hi, my name is Shaun, an Autistic person with a brain injury living in … Shaun Bickley needs your support for Help Disabled Australians Advocate for Fair Pay!

Our Fair Go has a fundraiser for basic operating costs. Our first goal is raising $234 to pay for a year of Zoom to have online Board meetings with quality captions for our #Deaf and #neurodivergent directors.

www.gofundme.com/f/help-disab...

#disability #selfadvocacy #disabled

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The poverty machine speaks in slogans. It tells us to “have a go,” that “nobody wants to work,” that being poor is a choice. This is gaslighting on a national scale.

Let’s unpack some of that.

Prisons don’t just cage bodies, they twist language. Carceral gaslighting is how the state convinces us harm is help.

Ps: carceral gaslighting also includes the slogans, excuses and justifications used to keep us caged.

Carceral gaslighting is when the system tells you one thing but does the opposite. It dresses up violence as care, punishment as rehabilitation & control as protection.

BINGO & make it radical.

This is about everyday actions that bring us closer to freedom. Abolition isn’t theory or slogans, it’s practice, imagination, refusal, & connection. Each square is a small act of resistance, a reminder that another world is possible & already being built.

S104: Building Communities of Care with Lorraine Pryor

New episode of the #freeher podcast out today, by Sisters Inside with Debbie Kilroy and myself

This episode features a yarn with Lorraine Pryor, founder of Voice of Hope

Check it out at:
open.spotify.com/episode/4HZ5...

Or on Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio or PodChaser

A Prison is a Prison is a Prison This essay reflects on the brutal realities of incarceration, particularly for Indigenous women in Australia. It begins with the tragic death of Selesa Tafaifa, who was killed in custody, highlight...

The first piece in our Special Issue on ICL & abolition is out! It is an incredible essay by @disposablehuman.bsky.social & @debbiekilroy.bsky.social on 'the brutal realities of incarceration, particularly for Indigenous women in Australia.' Open Access here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Ok, we’re at the pointy end of the election, and you might need some sharp, grounded responses to get through the next day or so, to cut through the absolute nonsense that is out there right now.

Remember, we CAN talk back, because our voices matter, because the future is political & personal
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