‘I will not be party to this violent system’: An abolitionist against jailing gets a jury summons in Baltimore City

I open the envelope from the city of Baltimore with the usual dispassion that accompanies bills. But this time it is a jury duty summons with pages of instructions and warnings. I panic. I consider myself an abolitionist, focused on ending the punitive status quo that relies upon policing, prisons and jails. My academic work surrounds the use of the United States criminal courts to shape and perpetuate racial, ethnic, economic, ableist and sexuality-based oppressions. I have been in jails and prisons as a public health worker. They are unimaginably awful, and I am haunted by them.