As the Black Lives Matter movement gained strength in 2020 following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others by police officers, so too did the call to Defund the Police. But for many activists, the message is even stronger: Abolish the Police.
The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of Black organizations, has developed the Defund the Police campaign to “divest from excessive, brutal, discriminatory policing and invest in a vision of community safety that works for everyone, not just an elite few.” They aim to achieve this goal by:
- Shifting massive spending on policing that does not keep us safe and reinvesting it in a shared vision of community safety that actually works.
- Spending on health and human services that meet our needs and the needs of our communities.
- Ensuring that public safety remains the responsibility of elected officials and communities.
- Investing directly in our communities: This means well-funded schools, good living-wage jobs, affordable housing, and health and human resources.
(Jonathan Muriu, Unsplash) 
(Gabe Pierce, Unsplash)
Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons
This month, Kaepernick Publishing has partnered with the LEVEL Editors at Medium to publish Abolition for the People: 30 essays from organizers, political prisoners, scholars, and advocates, “all of which point to the crucial conclusion that policing and prisons do not serve as catch-all solutions for the issues and people the state deems social problems.” Together, the essays will argue for abolition—the full dismantling of the carceral state and the institutions that support it.
The articles are still being published, but here are links to the ones that are out now:
- The Demand for Abolition (Colin Kaepernick) Only by dismantling unjust systems can we imagine a future that is safe, healthy, and truly free.
- Why Arguments Against Abolition Inevitably Fail (Dr. Angela Y. Davis) For centuries, people have been unwilling to grasp the concept that only by undoing the foundation can we build a new future.
- We Can Dismantle the System at the Polls Too (Rukia Lumumba) Voting out those who perpetuate harm is a key part of abolition.
- Building a World Where Breonna Taylor Could Live (Andrea J. Ritchie) Victory will not be achieved through prosecutions, but through transforming the conditions of violence.
- Creating Solutions is About Answering Questions Prisons Never Asked (Marlon Peterson) I was 19 when I went to prison, but prison isn’t what healed me.
- From One Struggle to Another: Lessons From the First Abolition Movement (Mumia Abu-Jamal) When people came together in the 19th century to oppose the expanding slave system, they were considered an aberration—but the course they charted continues to this day.
- What Abolition Looks Like, From the Panthers to the People (Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley) Calls to defund prisons and policing is neither new nor hopelessly utopian.
- The Shiny, High-Tech Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (Dr. Ruha Benjamin) Far from loosening incarceration’s grip, modern tools like predictive policing and tracking apps have instead deepened the carceral state’s influence over everyday life.
- Black Cops Don’t Make Policing Any Less Anti-Black (Bree Newsome Bass) The idea that we can resolve racism by integrating a fundamentally anti-Black institution in the U.S. is the most absurd notion of all.
- Police Reform Works – For the Police (Dr. Naomi Murakawa) Decades of reform have built an agile, deadly force that pushes millions of people into the largest carceral system in the world.
- Reformism Isn’t Liberation, It’s Counterinsurgency (Dr. Dylan Rodriguez) You can’t abolish systemic anti-Blackness and racial-colonial violence by protecting the system itself.
- Criminal Justice Reform Cost Me 21 Years of My Life (Derrick Hamilton) President Clinton’s infamous 1994 crime bill is just one example of why reform never goes far enough—and only exacerbates issues it’s meant to solve.
- The System is Built for Power, Not Justice (Derecka Purnell) Reforms don’t create more just societies—just ones where more people of color are in charge of the violence.
- We’re All Living in a Future Created by Slavery (Dr. Ameer Hasan Loggins) For centuries, we’ve had our freedoms ripped from us. Buy like our ancestors, we resist.
- A Son’s Fight for His Father’s Freedom (Russel “Maroon” Shoatz and Russell Shoatz III) Russel “Maroon” Shoatz and Russell Shoatz III share how they built an unshakeable relationship in spite of incarceration and separation.
- Prisons Are a Public Health Crisis—And the Cure Is Right In Front of Us (Kenyon Farrow) The best way to curb pandemics like Covid-19 is to abolish the conditions that breed their spread.
- Why We’re Fighting for a World Without ICE (Cristina Jiménez Moreta and Cynthia Garcia) Under the cover of post-9/11 antiterrorism, the Department of Homeland Security has unleashed a carceral assault on immigrant families and children.
- The Queer and Trans Fight for Liberation—and Abolition (Dean Spade) LGBTQ activists have a long history of protesting against the violence of police and prisons.
- Stolen Freedom: The Ongoing Incarceration of California’s Indigenous Peoples (Morning Star Gali) For 350 years, California has imprisoned and disenfranchised its Native peoples like few other places.
- Breonna Taylor and Bearing Witness to Black Women’s Expendability (Kimberlé Crenshaw) Why #SayHerName is crucial to the struggle for Black freedom.
- Funneling Our Children From Classrooms to Cages Ends Now (Dr. kihana ross) Policing in schools doesn’t just feed students to the carceral system—it corrupts the very nature of education.
- Disability Justice Is an Essential Part of Abolishing Police and Prisons (Talila “TL” Lewis) Ableism forms and informs violence, oppression, and incarceration, yet it continues to be ignored by social justice movements.
- When Police Play Soldier, Everybody Loses (Dr. Stuart Schrader) The militarization of police departments has only intensified an ongoing cycle of failure and oppression.
- Losing My Son to Police Violence: A Conversation with Gwendolyn Woods (Kiese Laymon) In a candid conversation with Kiese Laymon, Mario Woods’ mother reflects on his life—and the violence that robbed him of his future.
- Pop Culture Helped Turn Police Officers Into Rock Stars—And Black Folks Into Criminals (Dr. Mark Anthony Neal) Exploring how copaganda empowers law enforcement to terrorize with impunity.
- The Feds Are Watching: A History of Resisting Anti-Black Surveillance (Dr. Simone Browne) More than a century of countersurveillance methods emphasizes the importance of abolition.
Read More About the Movements to Defund and Abolish the Police:
- The Time Has Come to Defund the Police (The Movement for Black Lives)
- New Era of Public Safety: An Advocacy Toolkit for Fair, Safe, and Effective Community Policing (The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights)
- Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police (Mariame Kaba, The New York Times)
- Defund the Police? Here’s What That Really Means. (Christy E. Lopez, The Washington Post)
- The Only Solution Is to Defund the Police (Alex S. Vitale, The Nation)
- Defunding the Police Will Actually Make Us Safer (ACLU)
- How Much Do We Need The Police? (NPR)