Jails function as localized imprisonment – in the US this is often on a county level – usually caging people for shorter amounts of time than state or federal prisons. People imprisoned in jails are often awaiting trial, have been sentenced to lower level charges, are awaiting placement into mental health hospitals or other jailing facilities, or may have been sentenced to “flash incarceration”.
Jails are an integral component in the functioning of the prison industrial complex connecting the systems of policing, courts, and imprisonment. Jails must be abolished.
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Abolitionist Responses to Jail Expansion and Reform (chart)
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Towards the Abolition of Imprisonment: Dismantling Jails