Notes from an Abolitionist by Emile Suotonye DeWeaver, Hardcover, 9781620977880 | Buy online at The Nile
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Notes from an Abolitionist

The Reasons We Struggle to Be Free

Author: Emile Suotonye DeWeaver  

Notes from an Abolitionist
Hardcover

"An activist, essayist, and organizer draws from his personal experience of imprisonment to interrogate the premises of prison reform efforts"--

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Pre order release date
19th August 2025
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Hardcover

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Summary

"An activist, essayist, and organizer draws from his personal experience of imprisonment to interrogate the premises of prison reform efforts"--

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Description

A powerful personal investigation of the insidious ways white supremacy compromises criminal justice reform, from the award-winning, formerly incarcerated activist and Soros Justice Fellow

Despite reform efforts that have grown in scope and intensity over the last two decades, the machine of American mass incarceration continues to flourish. In this powerful polemic, formerly incarcerated activist, essayist, and organizer Emile Suotonye DeWeaver argues that the root of the problem is white supremacy. In the same vein as James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, DeWeaver's Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine brilliantly combines social commentary and personal narrative. This fiery debut is an original and provocative critique of the deeply troubling racial logic behind parole boards, police unions, prison administrations, and more.


During his twenty-one years in prison, DeWeaver covertly organized to pass legislation impacting juveniles in California's criminal legal system; was a culture writer for Easy Street Magazine; and co-founded Prison Renaissance, an organization centering incarcerated voices and incarcerated leadership. DeWeaver draws on these experiences to interrogate the central premise of reform efforts, including prisoner rehabilitation programs, arguing that they demand self-abnegation, entrench white supremacy, and ignore the role of structural oppression.


With lucid, urgent prose, DeWeaver intervenes in contemporary debates on criminal justice and racial justice efforts with his eye-opening discussion of the tools we need to end white supremacy-both within and outside the carceral setting. For readers of Mariame Kaba, Susan Burton, and Derecka Purnell, Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine adds a sharp and unique perspective to the growing discourse on racial justice, incarceration, and abolition.

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Critic Reviews

Praise for Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine:
“An erudite commentary built on solid research and undergirded by the author’s intimate knowledge of the abuses built into America’s systems of criminal justice and incarceration.”
—Kirkus Reviews

"What an incredibly powerful book—everyone has to read this. Journalist Emile Suotonye DeWeaver’s searing, startling, and ultimately deeply empowering look at the true logics of this nation’s carceral system, and at the ways in which white supremacy is fundamental to how it operates as well as to how we have imagined its undoing, is a sobering must-read for anyone who seeks a just society."
—Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

 

"DeWeaver’s debut book is a powerful and timely critique of mass incarceration. Drawing on a lifetime of personal experience, DeWeaver takes the reader on a journey to the darkest depths and helps imagine a brighter future."
—Chesa Boudin, executive director at the Criminal Law & Justice Center, UC Berkeley School of Law

 

"Reading about both DeWeaver’s experience as a formerly incarcerated person and his abolitionist theory exposed to me the narrowness of my understanding of oppressive systems. It made me confront my complicity with whiteness AND it gave me a numinous glimpse of what community-based abolition can look like. This is required reading for anyone engaged in the work of resistance and revolution. This is the text we need to help us dismantle systems and imagine the future we truly deserve and desire."
—Nayomi Munaweera, award-winning novelist

 

"Wherever you land on the spectrum—from prison reformer to prison abolitionist—Emile DeWeaver’s powerful words will challenge and inspire you."
—James Forman Jr., J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law, Yale Law School

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About the Author

Emile Suotonye DeWeaver is a formerly incarcerated activist, widely published essayist, owner of Re:Frame LLC, and a 2022 Soros Justice Fellow. California's Governor Brown commuted his life sentence after twenty-one years for his community work. He has written for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, Colorlines, The Appeal, The Rumpus, and Seventh Wave. He lives in Oakland, California.

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Product Details

Publisher
The New Press
Published
26th June 2025
Pages
240
ISBN
9781620977880

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