The NUS black students’ conference have voted to ban prisons

The motion was called ‘Prisons are Obsolete! Abolish Them Now!’


The NUS black students’ conference have voted to abolish all prisons, deeming them “sexist and racist.”

The motion, titled “Prisons are Obsolete! Abolish Them Now!”, calls for the removal of “the prison-industrial complex” due to high reoffending rates and a disproportionate number of black inmates.

The vote comes after the incoming NUS president Malia Bouattia, who is the current black students’ officer, was subject to an internal investigation into anti-semitism claims.

Following Bouattia’s election, universities such as Newcastle, Lincoln and Hull have voted to disaffiliate from the NUS.

Bouattia is to be replaced as black students’ officer by Aadam Muuse, whom she has endorsed.

Muuse is an official at Bradford SU, the Union who proposed the prison motion. In his manifesto, he vowed to take on “the racists in Parliament wrecking black lives with impunity.”

Those who voted also threatened to use “direct action” in their efforts to disrupt the prison system.

The proposition demanded that those detained under the Mental Health Act be taken into NHS care.

However no solution was provided about what to do with the rest of the UK’s 85,000 prisoners.