1

Police + Prisons Don’t Keep Us Safe—We Keep Each Other Safe

By Barnard Center for Research on Women (2014)

This video is a conversation filmed in February 2014 between CeCe McDonald and prison abolition activists Tourmaline and Dean Spade. McDonald is a Black trans woman who was arrested and imprisoned for 19 months after she experienced a racist and transphobic attack by a group of white people in Minneapolis. In the video, she discusses her experiences surviving trauma and the importance of collective organizing for people facing systems of violence. The video not only provides a personal account of why police do not keep Black people safe, but also importantly points to the intersections of racial and gendered violence.

03

Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind

By Rachel Kushner, The New York Times (April 17, 2019)

This article provides an overview of Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s grassroots activism and theorization of prison abolition. Gilmore provides a scathing critique of the carceral landscape in America, which she argues is sustained through complex relationships between political economy, natural resources, policing, and infrastructure. She considers how the system of incarceration now influences the administration of other sectors—”The education department, for instance, learns that it can receive money for metal detectors much more easily than it can for other kinds of facility upgrades. And prisons can access funds that traditionally went elsewhere — for example, money goes to county jails and state prisons for “mental health services” rather than into public health generally.” Unlike other critics of imprisonment, Gilmore does not focus primarily on non-violent offenders or Black incarceration, but rather seeks to rethink the structure of carceral punishment as a whole, asking if imprisonment is a logical and moral response to the problems of society.

“Abolition means not just the closing of prisons but the presence, instead, of vital systems of support that many communities lack. Instead of asking how, in a future without prisons, we will deal with so-called violent people, abolitionists ask how we resolve inequalities and get people the resources they need long before the hypothetical moment when, as Gilmore puts it, they “mess up.”

“Prisons are not a result of a desire by “bad” people, Gilmore says, to lock up poor people and people of color. “The state did not wake up one morning and say, ‘Let’s be mean to Black people.’ All these other things had to happen that made it turn out like this...Her fundamental point is that prison was not inevitable — not for individuals and not for California. But the more prisons the state built, the better the state became at filling them, even despite falling crime rates.”

“In the United States, it’s difficult for people to talk about prison without assuming there is a population that must stay there. “When people are looking for the relative innocence line,” Gilmore told me, “in order to show how sad it is that the relatively innocent are being subjected to the forces of state-organized violence as though they were criminals, they are missing something that they could see. It isn’t that hard. They could be asking whether people who have been criminalized should be subjected to the forces of organized violence. They could ask if we need organized violence”

“It is not serendipity that the movement of prison abolition is being led by Black women...“Historically, Black feminists have had visions to change the structure of society in ways that would benefit not just Black women but everyone.”

05

Abolitionists Still Have Work to Do In America

By Patrisse Cullors, The Guardian (July 30, 2017)

Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, sees the abolition of slavery as an incomplete project that has “yet to fully achieve a society and a world where Black folks and our lives are recognized with equal value and where institutions have repaired the harm caused to our people.” She views prison abolition as a commitment to the continuation of this project, by transforming institutions that disproportionately criminalize Black people. Rather than just thinking about how to destroy tools of oppression, Cullors asks us to imagine what other tools we can create that contribute to community well-being. She covers the work of several activist groups working across the U.S. and globally.

“What does it look like to build a city, state or nation invested in communities thriving rather than their death and destruction? To ask this question is the first act of an abolitionist.”

“The United States has more than 20% of the world’s prison population with only 5% of the world’s population. More than half of those incarcerated in the US are Black. Incarceration rates for Black women are among the highest, with Black women arrested four times more than white women.’”

“With abolition, it’s necessary to destroy systems of oppression. But it’s equally necessary to put at the forefront our conversations about creation. When we fight for justice, what exactly do we want for our communities?”

“An abolitionist strategy must encourage social and financial divestment from the military state and its institutions to social welfare. Our communities must demand dignified housing, satisfying jobs and proper labor conditions, our educational system must be culturally relevant, multi-lingual and teach our histories. Our value should not determined by legal records.”

07

The Price of Defunding the Police

By Brentin Mock, CityLab
(July 14, 2017)

This article covers the practical details of what, exactly, defunding the police entails, through an assessment of a 2017 report by a coalition of activist organizations titled “Freedom to Thrive: Reimagining Safety and Security in Our Communities.” The report shows the disparate investment of twelve municipal governments in local police at the expense of education, health, parks, and other public services. The article also delves into some of the critiques of police abolition, wondering if divestment would lead to less accountability and less training for police.

“This report is groundbreaking because we often talk about Black and brown communities, and particularly low-income communities as having no investments, no resources, and being starved,” says Jennifer Epps-Addison, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy. “What our report shows is that, in fact, there is an incredible amount of investment going into Black and brown communities. But it’s going into criminalizing them.”

“In Chicago, 17.6 percent of its operating budget, or roughly $1.5 billion, goes to the police, as opposed to a collective 5.4 percent ($450 million) going to the departments of planning and development (which handles affordable housing), public health, family and support services, and transportation.”

“Through surveys and interviews, “they found, unsurprisingly, that safety for these communities does not involve being regularly surveilled and monitored, but rather having better access to things like counseling for trauma and addiction. Community members said they felt safer with programs that help people overcome life’s challenges and coping with the stigmas that come with them.”

09

Is it Time To Reimagine Justice and Accountability for Sexual Misconduct?

By Maya Dukmasova, Chicago Reader (November 27, 2017)

The article covers a common doubt that might come up when considering abolition—what, then, do we do about victims of violent crime or sexual misconduct? The author covers the work of educator and activist Mariame Kaba, who argues that the criminal justice system “only makes the problem worse” by disbelieving and degrading victims of sexual assault. Moreover, it focuses on punishing individual harassers without addressing the root causes of sexual misconduct and assault. The extremely low conviction rates for these crimes further show the inadequacy of the carceral policing system in enacting justice. In essence, Kaba argues, the police aren't helping prevent or prosecute these crimes to begin with. Instead, Kaba proposes a community accountability approach that centers the victim and considers the social ramifications of gendered violence.

“The criminal justice system has shown itself to be unresponsive and insensitive to the needs of women.”

“There's now growing interest in models of addressing interpersonal violence that don't rely on involving the legal system, corporate HR departments, or other formal institutions.”

“I am not proposing that sexual violence and domestic violence will no longer exist. I am proposing that we create a world where so many people are walking around with the skills and knowledge to support someone that there is no longer a need for anonymous hotlines. I am proposing that we break through the shame of survivors (a result of rape culture) and the victim-blaming ideology of all of us (also a result of rape culture), so that survivors can gain support from the people already in their lives. I am proposing that we create a society where community members care enough to hold an abuser accountable so that a survivor does not have to flee their home. I am proposing that all of the folks that have been disappointed by systems work together to create alternative systems. I am proposing that we organize.”