Minnesota True

September 17, 2025

In this post I am going to discuss a movement within Critical Race Theory called “Prison Abolition.” The goal is as straight-forward as the names implies; to abolish prisons. The ideology behind it is more mainstream than you might think and underlies a number of disturbing trends in our criminal justice system. These issues have gained public attention in cases such as the murder of Iryna Zarutska. Zarutska was murdered by a man who should have been in jail. The judge who released Decarlos Brown Jr. most likely subscribes to the ideologies related to prison abolition which require a soft-on-crime approach as a means of racial reparation.

As a branch of race-based critical theories, the prison abolition movement stems from the belief that our systems of crime and punishment are incurably racist, and that redefining crime and ending incarceration is the best way to balance out race-based inequalities. A driving concern is the fact that the number of incarcerated people in the US is disproportionately black. However, race is not the highest shared commonality among men in prison. The most common shared experience among prison inmates is fatherlessness. The bloated prison system and high rates of crime in our nation are not a symptom of racism, but of generations of offenses against children. Today, only about 50% of American children are growing up in a home with their married father and mother. Among black Americans, as few as 20% grow up with their mother and father in their home.* Even Barak Obama publicly noted this problem in a Father’s Day speech that he gave in 2008 saying, “If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that way too many fathers are…missing from too many lives and too many homes.” **

When children grow up feeling abandoned by either their father or mother (or both), the consequence is that those children are at a higher risk for crime and anti-social behaviors. Prison abolition is really quite superficial, looking only at skin color to explain incarceration trends. It tends to dismiss explanations like family break-down which is the leading predictor for criminal behavior across all races. Because the cause identified by prison abolition is superficial, the solution is also naive.

We would never think that we had cured cancer by ceasing to diagnose or treat the disease. However, the prison abolition movement believes that the answer to our high rates of incarceration is to stop sending people to jail and stop calling crime “crime.” Now, in case you think that is a bizarre idea that no one could possibly be taking seriously, think again.

• “Defunding the Police” is a preliminary step towards prison abolition.

• In 2023 Minnesota adopted Ethnic Studies benchmarks that include introducing prison abolition to 9th graders. The benchmark is described this way: Explore how criminality is constructed and how social, political and legal systems define a person as a criminal, and the possible impact of that label on individuals and communities. While it would be possible to have an open conversation with varying viewpoints based on that prompt, the terms used here are straight out of the prison abolition playbook. Brian Lozenski, who was appointed by Governor Walz to oversee the Ethnic Studies standards, is an advocate for critical race theory and prison abolition. You can get a brief introduction to his ideas in the video clip below:

• Prison abolition is mainstream enough to be the focus of a display at the Minnesota Science Museum. I am not sure how this made it into the science museum, but here you have it:

Prison abolition falls under a larger ideological canopy called “Racial Capitalism” which the National Review describes this way:

“The idea of ‘racial capitalism’ is breathtakingly radical. It delegitimates America’s free enterprise system, America’s legal system, and even the very belief that there can be such a thing as ‘crime,’ under current circumstances. Implicit in the racial capitalism concept — and sometimes explicit — is the belief that America’s unjust system may need to be swept away by a violent rebellion or revolution…This is what civics has become under the governance of Tim Walz.”

These ideas are being imported to Minnesota students via the Ethnic Studies portion of Minnesota’s K-12 Academic Standards. These standards were adopted by legislators in 2023 but by 2026 they are expected to be fully activated in Minnesota’s social studies curriculum.

Below is one example of the current Ethnic Studies standards for Kindergarten. This standard requires that students be able to “Describe how individuals have fought for freedom and liberation against systemic and coordinated exercises of power locally and globally.” And “Retell a story about an unfair experience that conveys a power imbalance.” (This should take tattling to a whole new level!) Can’t you just see a five year old running inside after recess to breathlessly tell Mrs. W. that she saw a power imbalance on the playground?

The ideas of Racial Capitalism generally, and Prison Abolition specifically are on display in an illustrated book for kids. These are the kinds of ideas that the Ethnic Studies portion of Minnesota’s education benchmarks would hope to introduce to children. You can find the whole book at the link below, but I will share and discuss a few of the pages here:

Link to Comic Book PDF

I wonder why “many thousands” of people are fleeing countries that were “devastated by centuries of U.S. imperialism” and yet, they want to come to the U.S.? Only in Radical Left social theories do people flee into the loving arms of an Evil Empire that has devastated their own countries, expecting to find safety in that Evil Empire. And if this is one of their talking points, why did they choose the phrase ‘many thousands’ to refer to the estimate of at least 13.7 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States?

This rather tiresome proposition of Critical Race Theory implies that if there had never been slave patrols, there would never have been police. This is absurd. There have always been people employed in law enforcement since the dawn of human civilization. Wherever there is a law, there are people who enforce the law. If the radical progressives ever do remake America into their dream utopia, there will most definitely be a set of people trained and empowered to enforce the laws of the new State. The applause and glee that the Left has displayed in celebration of the murder of Charlie Kirk shows that they will be more than happy to allow and encourage such “punishment” of all people who disagree with them, truly believing that they are doing the world a favor for removing the scum of the earth. To the Left, Tyler Robinson is a law enforcer, and Charlie Kirk is a criminal. Keep this in mind as you hear the prison abolition rhetoric. It is not about creating a civilization with no law. It is about creating a civilization with a radical new concept of law. This will be a complete reversal in the true meaning of Good and Evil.

As you can see in the video clip above, Racial Capitalists like Brian Lozenski believe that America is irreversibly racist and must be overthrown. He has made a clear value-statement that racism is a great crime that is impossible to overcome in the present system. In his view, in order to bring about justice, the United States must be “overthrown.” Now, an overthrow is not a peaceful transfer of power. An overthrow is violent. We saw this play out in the protests following George Floyd’s death. Billions of dollars of property was destroyed all across the country and people (including black people) lost their homes, businesses and lives in the chaos and violence. Meanwhile the promoters of Racial Capitalism stood safely in their ivory towers, tapping away at their keyboards with praise for the violence and destruction. Why? Because they really believe that there must be a violent overthrow of the U.S. as we know it, in the hopes that out of the ashes and dust, a perfectly just society will arise. And in that new society, there will be no need for prisons.

In this perfect society they are going to figure out how to make things so good that no one will want to commit crimes such as rape or murder:

How do Prison Abolitionists envision a better and more just society?

Has Rojava really created a peaceful utopia in the center of war-torn Syria?

Let’s check out their Wikipedia page:

And finally, behold the glorious Someday Utopia envisioned by Prison Abolitionists:

Whether you homeschool, send your kids to private school, or public school, I am a firm believer that in each of these situations we must equip our children to understand and recognize cultural trends and how they impact current events. Parents are responsible to teach their children a true understanding of sin, personal responsibility, crime, and justice.

Romans 13:1-5 speaks to the legitimacy of the government in keeping law and order.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.” (ESV)

Government is established by God to reward good and punish evil. But, when the government becomes unjust, we do not have to lose hope. Some day there will be a perfectly just judgment before the throne of God where all the records will be set straight.

Revelation 22:11-16 gives us some of Jesus’ final recorded words in his message to John, who was also unjustly imprisoned on the island of Patmos:

“Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy. Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they might have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. I Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star.” (ESV)

Know the truth, stand for the truth, teach your children the truth. And when you have done all that, stand firm. A day is coming when:

Psalm 91:7-8

A thousand may fall at your side,

ten thousand at your right hand,

but it will not come near you.

You will only look with your eyes

and see the recompense of the wicked.

*”Turning the Corner on Father Absence in Black America: A statement from the Morehouse Conference on African American Fathers,” Morehouse College, fall 1998.

**Obama’s Father’s Day remarks, New York Times, June 15th, 2008 here