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Prisons Must Fall

Mariame Kaba | Olly Costello | Jane Ball
€21.99
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A01=Jane Ball
A01=Mariame Kaba
A12=Olly Costello
abolitionist
abolitionist kids
abolitionist parents
Author_Jane Ball
Author_Mariame Kaba
Author_Olly Costello
Category=YXZ
Category=YXZB
Category=YXZD
Category=YXZH
eq_bestseller
eq_childrens
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_personal-social-topics
family separation
incarceration
jail
PIC
prison abolition
prison abolition for kids
prison education
Prison industrial complex
restorative justice
story time
transformative justice

Product details

  • ISBN 9798888904411
  • Dimensions: 254 x 254mm
  • Publication Date: 08 Apr 2025
  • Publisher: Haymarket Books
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
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Description

From Mariame Kaba, New York Times-bestselling author of We Do This ‘Til We Free Us, and social worker Jane Ball comes a powerful book showing the harm that prisons cause and exploring alternatives, gorgeously illustrated by Olly Costello.

Prisons, they do no good.
They do not help. 
They do not teach.

On a moonlit road, tucked away from prying eyes, a child sees a prison complex—cinder blocks, watch towers, barbed wire. Page by page, we come to see the prison as a child sees it. 

Prisons hurt people and leave them lonely, without loved ones to comfort them or lend a listening ear.

As dandelion stars float up in the air, this dreamscape becomes a hope-scape, where love transcends the prison walls. All the families and friends of the people in the prison march and protest in beautiful song, march together to a new way and a new dawn—in this case a cooperative housing and community center, next to a neighborhood greenhouse for restoration and healing. A new world, where connection and repair are fundamental, and even tangible, as people around a table quilt messages, “I hear you. I’m sorry for what I did. How can I make it better?”

In Prisons Must Fall, Mariame Kaba, a longtime activist, together with co-author Jane Ball, present solutions that do not involve incarceration, such as meeting people’s basic needs, restorative justice, and community support—seeds for a safe world. Illustrator Olly Costello provides textured images of a global majority community and a grey, monotone backdrop that is overtaken by joyful colors. A gentle but effective addition to all social justice bookshelves and libraries. Discussion questions included.

Perfect for:

  • Parents, teachers, and librarians looking for books on the prison industrial complex and prison reform
  • Kids who are interested in fairness and social justice
  • Readers who love exceptional and sophisticated illustration
About Jane Ball | Mariame Kaba | Olly Costello
Mariame Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization focused on ending youth incarceration, and co-leads the initiative Interrupting Criminalization with fellow organizer Andrea J. Ritchie. Kaba is the author of the New York Times Bestseller We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Haymarket Books, 2021), among several other titles that offer support and tools for repair, transformation, and moving toward a future without incarceration and policing. Olly Costello is a white queer illustrator, PIC abolitionist, food growing enthusiast and community seed saver, who is committed to participating in the creative, collective work of building a liberated and flourishing future for all of us. Through their artistic and community based practices they explore themes of interconnectedness, spiritual ecology, emergence, accountability, community building, Prison Industrial Complex Abolition, Transformative Justice and belonging. Jane Ball is a social worker, artist, parent, children’s yoga instructor, and creative collaborator. She spent the early years of her career assisting survivors of domestic violence and their children, in navigating systems that did not serve them. She has worked in multiple communities to organize youth, engage in creative resistance, counsel folks in crisis, and advocate for children with disabilities. Jane regularly uses art and movement as mediums to engage in self-reflection and explore challenging questions, with young people. This work has inspired her to explore a multitude of possibilities, what-ifs, opportunities, and alternatives to the many inequitable and destructive systems folks will encounter during their lifetime. She remains hopeful.

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