Essay #122: Alejandro Forero Cuéllar, ‘Anarchism and the Abolition of the Criminal Justice System’

In this essay, Alejandro Forero examines how bourgeois criminology weaponized positivist science to pathologize dissent, pseudoscientifically labeling anarchists as "born criminals" to justify state repression and legal exclusion. In response, Spanish anarchists repurposed evolutionary theory to propose the total abolition of prisons, advocating for a society rooted in mutual aid, rational education, and the elimination of the social inequalities that breed crime. Alejandro Forero is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Barcelona. His most recent publications on the topic are: (2025) Anarchism and the Abolition of the Criminal Justice System: The Struggle for the Discourse on Evolution and Social Order in Spain., in Envisioning Abolition (edited by David Scott and Emma Bell), and 2023 “The new man and the abolition of punishment: Hulsman’s approach and its similarities with the anarchist tradition” in Pain in Vain: Challenging the Penal System, Towards the Abolition of Punishment: On the Legacies of Louk Hulsman.   Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.