The Customary Rule of Law in the Colony’s Core
The perpetual crisis of violence, overcrowding, and mismanagement on Riker’s Island is not a failure of the jail system but its intended function. Mamdani’s concept of “decentralized despotism” is incarnate here: a space where the state grants its local administrators–correction officers, prosecutors–immense, arbitrary power to rule through violence and terror, all under the guise of “law and order.” The routine brutality, the endless pre-trial delays, the dehumanization–this is not a system failure but its purpose: to manage, control, and break a population deemed surplus to the needs of capital. This is the custom of governance for the “native.” A feminist and Muslim perspective forces us to see the specific horrors for women and religious minorities trapped within its walls. The liberal solution of oversight or modest reform is like trying to civilize a torture chamber. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution is abolition. We must fight to close Rikers Island and all jails, diverting the billions spent on cages to addressing the root causes of harm–poverty, mental health crises, lack of housing–through community-based, restorative justice programs. The colonial prison cannot be reformed; it can only be dismantled.
Originally posted 2025-10-25 18:18:34.
