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abolition

83 posts in ‘abolition’

abolition

A Thousand Possibilities

Abolition requires the world-building work of imagining all the many life-affirming alternatives to incarceration.

Bill Ayers

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collective action

Making Labor Work

Today’s labor movements must see the carceral state not just as a related progressive battle, but as central to the struggle for workers’ rights.

Sandeep Dhaliwal

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Preview

Breaking the Chains

Ending prison slavery and giving fair wages to incarcerated workers are necessary steps on the pathway to justice.

Tommaso Bardelli, Andrew Ross & Aiyuba Thomas

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excerpt

No Good Prison

An incarcerated writer and advocate in California implores: “Don’t waste my time trying to make it more comfortable for me in here.”

Paula Lehman-Ewing

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abolition

The Transformation of Justice

What does genuine safety look like? And what will it take to prioritize it rather than simply managing inequality and other injustices?

Philip V. McHarris

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Reflections

Growing Up Post-Ferguson

I was the same age as Michael Brown when he was killed. The uprising set me on the path to abolition.

Rachel Rood-Ojalvo

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Essay

The Ferguson Decade

A decade on, Ferguson remains central for those working toward a world free from the harms of policing and prisons.

Adam McGee, Andrew Crespo & Premal Dharia

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abolition

Community Is a Verb

Defund gives us a platform and pathway to reimagine a society with less police, more care, and services that meet the needs of all.

CalvinJohn Smiley

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Film review

Big-Screen Abolition

Films that imagine decarceral futures are a cultural antidote for the carceral messages and aesthetics so prevalent in popular media.

Michelle Brown

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Futures

Abolitionist Social Work

Social work must be anti-carceral, against oppression, and committed to ending the systems, structures, and ideologies that cause people harm.

The Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work

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Policing

Safety Without Police

Even before the uprisings in Minneapolis, communities have been radically reimagining a world that doesn’t depend on policing.

Michelle Phelps

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organizing

A Safer, Healthier Boston

In seeking funding for non-carceral mental health crisis response, we're hoping to bring a small piece of our abolitionist horizon to our city.

Emy Takinami & Husain Rizvi

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Beyond Reform

Disability Justice Demands Abolition

When people need care, then the solution should be to get them care, not increase the risk of police violence.

Katie Tastrom

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abolition

For the People’s Health

Abolition and public health go hand in hand. Organizers are embracing both as they pursue decarceral projects that center everyone’s well-being.

Cristian Farias

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Futures

Abolition as Human Liberation

A hopeful, practical new book shows how abolitionist organizers today are building the world anew.

Rachel Herzing, Justin Piché & Maya Schenwar

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advocacy

Back to Appalachia

They were incarcerated in Eastern Kentucky, far from home. Now they’re free and back, hoping the region won’t build a new prison there.

Katie Myers

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In Depth

Sticking with the Sex

From sex work to sex offender registries, a queer politics requires that we end state practices of sex exceptionalism.

Joseph J. Fischel

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organizing

Building Community

For many years, Kentuckians have been fighting the construction of a federal prison. They’ve been winning, but their fight isn’t over.

Sylvia Ryerson

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abolition

How We Rode the Storm

After Hurricane Katrina, law enforcement criminalized sex work and Black women like never before. We fought back—and won.

Laura McTighe & Women With A Vision

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excerpt

Unmaking Prison Walls

Reacquainting ourselves with practices that made prisons more permeable can be a step toward ending mass incarceration.

Reiko Hillyer

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Futures

Abolition Can Mend Our Democracy

How might we reimagine our rights and liberties in the absence of incarceration?

Angela Y. Davis

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campaigns

Beauty on the Inside

A look at how decarceral, abolitionist filmmaking can help us envision new worlds.

Sylvia Ryerson, Andy Myers, Adamu Chan & Andrew Crespo

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recommendations

The Year in Books

As 2023 draws to a close, a look back at the books that informed, inspired, and empowered us to work for a world without mass incarceration.

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Essay

‘And They Stripped Him’

The Gospel narrative places on Christians a moral burden to not turn away from the sexual vulnerability of incarcerated people today.

Richard X

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Futures

No More Family Policing

Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled, and poor children and their families bear the brunt of a system that many now agree should be dismantled.

Eleanor Bader

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public history

The Long Revolt

Attica represents far more than a historic rebellion about prison reform. Its revolutionary abolitionist vision endures today.

Orisanmi Burton

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Futures

Fractal Abolition

The work of tearing down structures of harm while building the world we want can and must start small.

Andrea J. Ritchie

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abolition

In Defense of Hopelessness

Even among abolitionists, there's room for those who lack hope.

Charles Snyder

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collective action

Imprisoned but United

How the peaceful takeover of Walpole prison in 1973 holds lessons for abolitionists today.

Thomas Dichter

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first person

Envisioning Futures

The art of knowing what we’re confronting and revealing who is being made invisible by the carceral state.

Maria Gaspar & Gina Dent

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