How can your boycott actually work? Won there always be architects who are not opposed to prisons, or are willing to set aside their ethical objections at the right price?
Probably not all architects will agree to boycott designing prisons. But that does not make our protest useless. Boycotts and other forms of protest work in many ways simultaneously – it did not take anywhere near full participation for the boycott of investment in South Africa to add substantial pressure to end apartheid, nor did Cesar Chavez’s boycott of California grapes need full participation to make the treatment of farmworkers a national issue. Even absent the ability to directly impede prison projects, the pledges of design professionals to refuse to work on prisons will help to raise awareness of the problems inherent in the prison system. This boycott is a powerful tool with which to change public perceptions of the prison system, and thereby change the willingness of government decision-makers to build new prisons.
