Category: Uncategorized
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Abolition Requires Struggle
What a time it is to be a prison abolitionist! Millions of people filled the streets during the 2020 uprisings, forcing a national conversation around defunding and abolishing the police. The abolitionist lexicon broke into the mainstream. Suddenly everyone had—and had to have—an opinion on the movement.
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Atlanta’s “Cop City” Is Putting Policing Before the Climate
On a gray, drizzly day last December, activists and organizers with the Atlanta-based Stop Cop City movement held a press conference on the edge of the Weelaunee Forest. Hours before, a massive police force had descended on Weelaunee, where a group of forest defenders have been living since 2021 to prevent the construction of a…
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Violent Order: Essays on the Nature of Police (Book Review)
A review of Violent Order: Essays on the Nature of Police by David Correia and Tyler Wall.
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It’s Not Enough to End Private Prisons. We Need a World Without Prisons.
“What do we want? Divestment! When do we want it? Now!” A group of student organizers chanted these words during a 2017 protest as we called on our university to divest from private prisons. The showdown followed nearly two years of campaigning, during which we had written proposals, circulated petitions, hosted teach-ins, and organized protests—all toward the demand…
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Mapping the Prison Industrial Complex: A Tool for Abolitionist Organizers
This document is meant to be a tool for organizers and others looking to better understand—and abolish—the PIC. It is a companion resource to the piece “Cop City and the Prison Industrial Complex in Atlanta.” It first offers a compilation of some existing thinking about the PIC—theory and visualizations of the PIC, developed by organizers…
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Cop City and the Prison Industrial Complex in Atlanta
Anyone listening to the virtual Atlanta City Council meeting on September 8, 2021 could hear the chants: “Stop Cop City!” It was a Wednesday night, and tensions were high. Protesters had gathered outside the houses of council members, outraged as discussion of a controversial proposal began. The police were on their way.
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The Failure of Police Reform
Two weeks after uprisings sparked by the murder of George Floyd left Atlanta littered with ashes, protesters flooded the city’s streets once more. The police had killed again, and this time the victim was an Atlantan: 27-year-old father and music lover Rayshard Brooks, shot in the back twice by Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe. The Wendy’s where Rolfe…
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Reading Guide: Becoming Abolitionists, by Derecka Purnell
A discussion guide I created for Astra Books to accompany Derecka Purnell’s Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom.
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Some Lessons from Mariame Kaba’s We Do This ‘Til We Free Us
We can and must collectively build a world without policing, prisons, surveillance, punishment, and capitalism — a world in which all are equipped with the tools to prevent and transform harm, one in which everyone has what they need to thrive in community with others. This is the through line of Mariame Kaba’s powerful new…
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What is Abolition, and Why Do We Need It?
In the midst of nationwide uprisings against ongoing police murders of Black people, a new set of demands has been thrust into public consciousness: Defund and abolish the police, and invest in new models of safety and communal well-being. Rather than ask for better policing, protesters are demanding an end to policing and instead massive investments in the communities most harmed…
micah herskind 