ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that abolitionism demands an understanding of the penal/colonial complex - the embedded relationships among penality, the prison and colonised peoples that characterise settler colonialism. It is argued that there are important intersections between abolitionism and settler colonialism. While abolitionist theory offers an understanding of the nature of carceral state, settler colonialism provides insights into the establishment and continuance of the colonial state. Their intersection allows us to better understand how state formations are both carceral and colonial. Both abolitionism and settler colonialism challenge the state’s focus on prison, punishment and carcerality, and the legitimacy of the state’s sovereign power to punish. For abolitionists and Indigenous peoples there is something that can be learnt by both groups from their respective struggles against the colonial state. Both abolitionist and Indigenous critiques of the prison and punishment emerge from a radical disbelief in the ability of colonial state penality to achieve positive long-term changes for either individuals or communities.
