Elle Jones’ new book is an act of resistance and mutual aid

Elle Jones will continue to fight for the voiceless.

in her new book Abolitionist Intimacya professor, author, poet, and social justice leader, takes readers behind bars and into the minds of those suffering human rights abuses inside Canadian prisons.

A conduit to the public for muted individuals, Jones draws on her decade of experience working with incarcerated people and their loved ones to introduce the humanity of her subjects. doing.

Abolitionist Intimacy A book about love and the complexities of relationships interrupted by the criminal justice system.

Jones wrote of her extensive experience of “listening, visiting, providing legal assistance, witnessing, intervening and loving.”

in spite of the name Abolitionist Intimacy It may sound academic, but Jones says it all comes down to two things: freedom and love.

Ahead of her official book launch, Jones said rabble.ca The title derives from the basic idea that ‘the state is abusing our intimacy’, citing strict requirements for visitation and unauthorized strip searches as two examples of corpse intimacy abuse. I am pointing out.

Jones first embraced the idea of ​​abolition as a young girl. When she was 13, Jones wrote that she discovered the writings of the famous poet Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde found him in 1895 for a homosexual relationship and he was sentenced to two years in prison.

“I quickly realized that prison was unfair,” she said. “It really spoke to me.”

When Jones became a postcolonial thinker and pieced together the pieces of colonization and race, the lesson she learned was to “record what happens in prison… pay some attention to people’s stories.” It helped tell her story when it came to “pay me.”

“A lot of the books are phone calls,” Jones explained. “Most of these people don’t see each other face-to-face. They may never meet. Obviously we’re free to meet eventually, but a lot of the relationships are over prison phones.” I’m here.

Finally, Abolitionist Intimacy It reflects a very rare personal conversation between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’.

“As humans, we normalize a lot of things,” Jones said. “We learn to normalize injustice, we learn to normalize torture, pain and suffering.”

Jones pointed out that it’s easy for people outside the criminal justice system to normalize the horrible and unjust things they’re mostly helpless about. She added that it doesn’t make sense.

paperwork violence

This book does more than just share the lived experiences of those incarcerated. Jones also exposes injustice in the criminal justice system in the form of violence through bureaucracy and paperwork.

One of the many powerful stories Jones tells in her book is the one where she had a front row seat.

In 2000, Abdi came to Canada as a young orphan with his sister Fatuma and was soon referred to the child welfare system. As Jones explains in his book, the state of Nova Scotia never sought citizenship for the Abdi family, and between the ages of six and his nineteen he moved into 31 different foster homes, after which they It was horribly abused, but the federal government started the process. banished Abdul.

Jones believes attorney Benjamin Perryman said it best.

The government may act like it “knows”, but what it really knows best is how to “take care of the children,” says Jones.

Nor is it in the child’s best interests. The same states that separate children from undocumented parents will continue to defend Border Patrol agents in court when the time comes to deport them as adults, she says.

Irrationality of Prison Space

For Jones Abolitionist Intimacy gives readers the opportunity to enter the “absurdity of prison space”, which is often “difficult to wrap one’s mind in the free world”.

“You enter this space from which you cannot deduce your way out,” said Jones.

Its irrationality also complicates opportunities for incarcerated individuals to defend themselves and others. Designed. That is why extreme protests like hunger strikes are so frequent.

“What it really shows, beyond specialization and concrete examples, is this very idea that the so-called instruments of justice operate outside the law, thanks to these stories about criminals. And they can,” said Jones.

She also noted that the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) currently does not monitor. In other words, no one complains when human rights are being violated. It also means that there is no accountability system for CBSA’s employees.

Reflecting on more than a decade of her work in legal advocacy, Jones has learned how the law is siled — criminal lawyers don’t understand immigration law, and immigration lawyers don’t understand prison law.

She is often asked by people in the legal system how well she knows the intersection of criminal law, immigration law, and prison law. The answer is simple.

“People in prison have taught me a lot about how these systems work,” she replies.

“It’s very mutual,” she said. “In this book, obviously I wrote it, but I didn’t save them. Their love and care nurtured and sustained me.”

For Jones, “It’s all about the acts of care we do, from the small to the big, that are our weapons against the nation.”

she explains Abolitionist Intimacy As an important book that often questions the ethics and humanity of the criminal justice system. She added that it is also a calm book to do.

“In that sense, it’s kind of like my life’s work.”

Abolitionist Intimacy Available online through Fernwood Publishing or at your local bookstore.

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