This essay reveals the ways that runaways and abolitionists, through their critiques of American prisons in the decades prior to the American Civil War, collectively originated the ideas and practices of prison abolition. It began with fugitive slaves who named slavery the ‘prison house’. Runaways, and the most radical amongst abolitionists, many of whom served time for their activism, used fugitives’ carceral language to grasp the place of prisons within the greater ‘prison house’ of American slavery. They actively assisted others to escape this ‘prison house’. They engaged in projects of prison reform and abolition of capital punishment. They freed incarcerated runaways and abolitionists from jails, and resisted racist policing. In the process, these radicals became disenchanted with the modernizing reform project known as the ‘penitentiary’, in some cases calling for the abolition of prisons and police, alongside the abolition of slavery. In short, because the plantation and the penitentiary merged after the Civil War, abolitionist critiques of both provided the little-studied roots of contemporary prison-abolitionist thought.

中文翻译：

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逃亡奴隶、激进的废奴主义者和对美国监狱的批判，1830-60

这篇文章揭示了逃亡者和废奴主义者通过他们在美国内战前几十年对美国监狱的批评，共同创造了废除监狱的思想和实践的方式。它始于将奴隶制称为“监狱之家”的逃亡奴隶。逃亡者和废奴主义者中最激进的人，其中许多人为他们的激进主义服务过一段时间，他们使用逃犯的监狱语言来掌握监狱在美国奴隶制更大的“监狱屋”中的位置。他们积极协助其他人逃离这座“牢房”。他们从事监狱改革和废除死刑的项目。他们从监狱中释放了被监禁的逃亡者和废奴主义者，并抵制种族主义警察。在这个过程中，这些激进分子对被称为“监狱”的现代化改革项目不再抱有幻想，在某些情况下，要求在废除奴隶制的同时废除监狱和警察。简而言之，由于种植园和监狱在内战后合并，对两者的废奴主义批评为当代监狱废奴主义思想提供了鲜为人知的根源。