Who really said it
Angela Davis makes this statement in Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex (1998). Colorlines, 10 September 1998, opening section.
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Verified quote & credit
“Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings” Angela Y. Davis, Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex (1998), Colorlines, 10 September 1998, opening section.
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Provenance
Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings.
Original Colorlines articleHow we verified this
This is a modern English publication from 1998. Only a brief identifying excerpt is reproduced; no public-domain claim is made.
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Context
Davis lists poverty-linked problems such as homelessness, unemployment and illiteracy that imprisonment removes from public view without resolving. The article goes on to connect prison expansion with corporate and government interests, explaining the prison-industrial-complex argument behind the aphorism.
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Davis’s original bylined article dated 10 September 1998 contains the exact sentence preceded by But and its explanation.
Sourced entry credits the sentence to Masked Racism (1998).
University biography documents Davis’s prison-abolition advocacy and Critical Resistance role.
2015 campus account describes her prison-system criticism and emphasis on literacy, including her own discussion of circulating books in jail.
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The author
For writers & researchers
Davis, Angela Y. Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex. 1998. Colorlines, 10 September 1998, opening section.
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings’?” Last verified 9 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/prisons-do-not-disappear-problems-they-disappear-human/