Notes from an Abolitionist

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

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.