ABSTRACT
Penal abolition has not been realized at the scale of the state in contemporary times - indeed, law, police, courts and prisons are currently used, albeit unevenly, across the world. Yet, in many ways and in numerous circumstances, a penal abolitionist logic is actually at work: (1) more frequently than not, the state does not engage criminalizable acts through the institutions and practices of the criminalizing system, and (2) actors impacted by social harm frequently do not resort to the punitive means and ends of the criminalization system to hold transgressors accountable for their actions and meet their needs. We refer to these phenomena as the “dark matter” of justice, which illustrate how penal abolition is far from being a distant utopian ideal and is instead - more frequently than not - already at work in everyday life. In so doing, we highlight the possibilities that exist for the further entrenchment of penal abolition and the eventual eradication of the criminalizing system.
