Our Position

The Bukit Bail Fund of Pittsburgh is an abolitionist organization. Prison abolition is founded on the premise that prisons, policing and the current “justice” system do not work to reduce harm in our society. The current criminal justice system tortures, exploits, and demonizes Black, Brown, and poor people. As abolitionists, we understand that punishment is not an effective tool for healing. We believe that a world without prisons is possible and however slowly, we can work toward other ways to deal with conflict and harm.

While the Bukit Bail Fund does not believe anyone should be behind bars, it prioritizes inmates who are at the highest risk of experiencing violence in jail: Melanated folks (including, but not limited to, folks who are Black, Latinx, and Native), those who experience chronic illness & disability, the working class and poor folk, those without homes, trans, queer, and gender non-conforming folk, people who are pregnant, those struggling with mental illness, and any other identity that has been disproportionately targeted by the systems of oppression that keep the industries of prison and jail running.

“Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.” 

― Angela Davis

Resources:

Are prisons obsolete? -Angela Davis

Burn Down the American Plantation: A call for a Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - Michelle Alexander

Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement - Ejeris Dixon, Leah Lakshmi Peipzna-Samarashinha