Abolitionist reflections on museums of confinement

 Several decommissioned carceral institutions have been transformed into museums across the world. Do these museums contribute to or hinder the movement to abolish prisons? Based on a study of 45 museums in Canada, this article shows that, in the majority of cases, the sites reaffirm state, legal and popular definitions of what constitutes a “crime”, demonize “criminals” in ways that justify their criminalization and captivity, and advance the idea that punitive justice is an appropriate social response to harms that are currently criminalized and punished.