Can Elections Still Help Defund Police?
Efforts to invest in “care, not cops” continue in advance of the 2024 election—albeit at a slower pace than in 2020.
Criminal justice reform
Colorado Prisons Just Got a Little Safer for Trans Women
A groundbreaking legal agreement mandates that Colorado cover gender-affirming health care for incarcerated trans women, and offers them the option to be housed with other women.
How Black Parents Got Cops Out of Oakland Schools
After adopting the George Floyd Resolution for Police-Free Schools, Oakland-area schools saw significant reductions in racist criminalization of Black and Brown kids.
Rap Is Art, Not Evidence
A new documentary chronicles efforts to keep rap lyrics from being used by prosecutors, combatting a long-standing trend of criminalizing this particular art form.
The Coffee Shops Countering Recidivism
A criminal record keeps many qualified candidates out of work; these coffee companies are helping clear the first hurdle.
Cop City Is a Disability Justice Issue, Too
Disability justice activists are joining grassroots efforts to shut down Atlanta’s Cop City, the largest police training campus in the U.S.
Practicing New Worlds with adrienne maree brown and Andrea Ritchie
In this exclusive conversation, two visionary abolitionist authors and reflect on the how the newest book in the Emergent Strategy series came to be.
Murmurations: Moving from Punishment to Accountability
How can we hold accountable systems that are designed only to understand punishment?
The Vision of a Renewable Rikers Island in NYC
This community-developed plan could serve as a model for how to simultaneously decarcerate and decarbonize.
Police Diversion Programs Work. Here’s Why
Treatment programs rather than incarceration are far more effective for drug-related offenses.
Becoming Abolitionist: A Lawyer’s Radical Vision
“The only way that we are going to get people to have a decent, equitable future is to completely re-envision this entire rubric that is suffocating and killing our people,” says lawyer Noelle Hanrahan.
Reversing the Damage of Cannabis Criminalization
People of color were the most harmed by the war on cannabis, but we can heal the damage of prohibition and ensure a fairer future.
The Yearning for Redemption
Re-entering society after being incarcerated takes a heavy emotional toll.
Freeing Black Mothers From Jail
A campaign to free Black mothers from pretrial detention highlights the role that women play in helping one another navigate a dehumanizing system.
Resistance to Atlanta’s Cop City Ramps Up
A week of action in Atlanta this March showcases widespread opposition to a planned police training center, which would be the largest in the nation. An organizer explains what’s at stake.
Judging the Judges
How Los Angeles abolitionist organizers are taking on pretrial incarceration and judicial power through community resistance.
Disrupting the Business of Bail
The Minnesota Freedom Fund offers resources to low-income people of color who are jailed—and so much more.
Abolishing the Nation’s Largest Jail System
L.A. County activists are working to replace violent jails with mental health facilities, and to reallocate funding from incarceration toward social services.
Where Racial Disparities Are Shrinking Fast … In Prisons
A big decrease in the incarceration rate of Black adults may lead to parity in the near future.
What Do We Do While Waiting to Realize Prison Abolition?
Attorney Sia Henry shares a wrenching personal experience highlighting the challenges of operating in world where prison abolition is not yet a reality.
An Abolitionist Makes a Case for “No More Police”
The demand to “defund the police” asks politicians to go beyond platitudes and actually end the violence of policing, shifting resources in ways that promote the redistribution of wealth.
Reimagining Safety and Liberation Without Police
We can work for safety and liberation by investing in community-based alternatives to policing, like mental health programs, public education, restorative justice practices, and economic justice.
Mass Shootings and the Culture of Violence in the U.S.
Gun violence cannot be abstracted from a broader culture of violence and authoritarianism that calls for more gun ownership, more police, and more national security.
Seeking Just Trials
Trials are far from impartial if the defendant is poor or reliant on public defenders. These people are working to re-balance the scales of justice.
Why Fatal Police Interactions Are Avoidable
Police too often claim that confusion during an encounter caused them to fire fatal shots, as in the case of Patrick Lyoya. But there are solutions.
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