Ep73. Abolition in the Colony, Robyn Oxley

I sat down with Robyn Oxley to talk about the criminal justice and need for abolition in the lands now called Australia. We talk about her journey into and with abolition, why community resourcing and accountability make so much more sense, how prisons simply do not achieve what they purport to achieve (especially in terms of rehabilitation), and the racism and colonial violence that runs all the way through the system – a violence that is entirely in keeping with the colonial project that has wrought trauma, displacement, and death on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples since British invasion.

Read Robyn’s great introduction on prison abolition and defunding the police here.

Read an excellent review she wrote that explores decolonization, prisons, and the problem of not asking the broader questions here

Robyn Oxley is a Tharawal woman and has family connections to Yorta Yorta. Robyn is an activist and a lecturer at Western Sydney University in Criminology. Her field is in the space of the criminal justice system and Aboriginal rights to self-determination. Her work primarily focuses on human rights, social justice, systemic racism, prison abolition, defunding police and improving outcomes of Aboriginal people in relation to the Australian legal system.

Follow her on Twitter @Robyn_Oxley

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