Keywords

• This article is written to celebrate the fine contribution and constant optimism of Louk Hulsman to the debate about penal abolition
• the rethinking of popular and political discourses on "crime"
• and the institutionalised responses of the "criminal justice system". Reflecting on his experiences of incarceration and on his critical analysis of the political economic relations of power
• Louk Hulsman talked of the defining "moment of abolition" &ndash
• his reading of Thomas Mathiesen's ground-breaking text
• The Politics of Abolition. Having considered the key elements of Louk Hulsman's work and its critical challenge to the criminological enterprise
• the article explores the apparent political contradiction in campaigning for humane conditions while seeking abolition within the context of an ever-expanding
• global prison-industrial complex