RESOURCES
Abolition and Transformative Justice Resources
Much has been written not only on how to implement a system of justice designed for reparation instead of retribution, there’s mounting experiential evidence of the advantages of these approaches.
BOOKS
Are Prisons Obsolete? (Angela Davis)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Michelle Alexander)
Prison by Any Other Name (Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law)
The End of Policing (Alex Vitale)
White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logistics of Genocide (Dylan Rodriguez)
The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America (Naomi Murakawa)
Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families — and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World (Dorothy Roberts)
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (Alisa Bierria)
No Mercy Here Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity (Sarah Haley)
Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation (Beth Ritchie)
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (Robin DiAngelo)
Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing (Ruth Wilson Gilmore)
The War Before The True Life Story of Becoming A Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & Fighting for Those Left Behind (Safiya Bukhari)
Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology! (INCITE!)
How to Not Call the Po'Lice Ever (POOR Press)
Abolishing the Police (Koshka Duff and Cat Sims)
We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Mariame Kaba)
Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom (Derecka Purnell)
How to Abolish Prisons: Lessons from the Movement Against Imprisonment (Rachel Herzing and Justin Piché)
Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor)
Change Everything: Racial Capitalism and the Case for Abolition (Ruth Wilson Gilmore)
WEBSITES
Don't Call The Police (Police Alternatives)
We Need to Talk (The Justice Collaborative)
The Breathe Act (Movement for Black Lives)
TOOLKITS, CURRICULA, GUIDES, PRINTOUTS AND REPORTS
Your #AbolitionForThePeople Resource Guide
Concrete Steps Toward Divestment from Policing & Investment in Community Safety (Interrupting Criminalization / The Movement for Black Lives)
The Demand is Still #DefundPolice (Interrupting Criminalization)
What's Next? Safer and More Just Communities Without Policing (Interrupting Criminalization)
In It Together: A Framework for Conflict Transformation in Movement-Building Groups (Interrupting Criminalization)
What About the Rapists? (An Abolitionist FAQ) (Interrupting Criminalization)
Reimagining Justice: The Challenges of Violence & Punitive Excess (Bruce Western, Daedalus, American Academy of Arts & Sciences)
Police and Prison Abolition 101: A Syllabus and FAQ (Rachel Kincaid)
If You’re New to Abolition: Study Group Guide (Abolition Journal)
Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing (Critical Resistance)
#DefundPolice (BCRW Social Justice Institute)
What’s Next? Safer and More Just Communities Without Policing (BCRW Social Justice Institute)
Stop Law Enforcement Violence Toolkit (INCITE!)
We Came to Learn: A Call to Action for Police-Free Schools (Advancement Project)
Freedom to Thrive (Popular Democracy)
Agenda to Build Black Futures (Black Youth Project 100)
Police and Prison Abolition Resource Guide/Syllabus (Thinking Abolition)
Navigating DOJ Consent Decrees in the Context of Campaigns to Defund Police (Community Resource Hub for Safety & Accountability)
No Abolition Without Autonomy (Hasta Muerte Coffee, Huichin Village, Lisjan Ohlone territory)
The Prison Industry (Worth Rises)
The TEN DEMANDS Flyer (TEN DEMANDS)
STUDIES AND REPORTS
Custodial Sanctions and Reoffending: A Meta-Analytic Review (Proof Incarceration Doesn't Work) (Damon M. Petrich, Travis C. Pratt, Cheryl Lero Jonson, and Francis T. Cullen)
Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Systematic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States ("Crimes Against Humanity")
Poll Reveals: Nearly 8 in 10 Believe Mental Health Professionals — and Not Police — Should Respond to Mental Health Calls (National Alliance on Mental Illness)
ARTICLES AND ESSAYS
What About the Rapists and Murderers? (Angel Parker)
So You’re Thinking About Becoming an Abolitionist (A Roadmap) (Mariame Kaba)
Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police (Mariame Kaba)
Police ‘Reforms’ You Should Always Oppose (Mariame Kaba)
The Demand for Abolition (Colin Kaepernick)
Why Arguments Against Abolition Inevitably Fail (Angela Davis)
What Is and What Could Be: The Policies of Abolition (Dan Berger and David Stein)
From One Struggle to Another: Lessons From the First Abolition Movement (Mumia Abu-Jamal)
How to Build a Global Abolition Movement (Brendan O'Connor)
Police Reform Works — For the Police (Naomi Murakawa)
Reformism Isn’t Liberation, It’s Counterinsurgency (Dylan Rodriguez)
The System Is Built for Power, Not Justice (Derecka Purnell)
Black Cops Don’t Make Policing Any Less Anti-Black (Bree Newsome Bass)
The Shiny, High-Tech Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (Ruha Benjamin)
We Must Center Black Women (Kimberlé Crenshaw)
How Abolition Makes Schools Safer (Kihana Miraya Ross)
We Don’t Need Cops to Become Social Workers: We Need Peer Support + Community Response Networks (Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu)
Pop Culture Helped Turn Police Officers Into Rock Stars — And Black Folks Into Criminals (Mark Anthony Neal)
The Feds Are Watching: A History of Resisting Anti-Black Surveillance (Simone Browne)
Prisons Are a Public Health Crisis — and the Cure Is Right in Front of Us (Kenyon Farrow)
Disability Justice Is an Essential Part of Abolishing Police and Prisons (Talila "TL" Lewis)
Broken Chains & Colonial Cages (Morning Star Gali)
The Queer and Trans Fight for Liberation — and Abolition (Dean Spade)
Why We're Fighting for a World Without ICE (Cristina Jiménez Moreta and Cynthia Garcia)
Policing Has Failed: For Real Public Safety, We Need A Million Community-Driven Experiments (Mary Hooks, Movement for Black Lives)
How I Became an Abolitionist (Derecka Purnell)
Reckoning with Violence (Michelle Alexander)
Abolish Family Policing, Too (Dorothy Roberts)
The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration (Ta-Nehisi Coates)
What Will it Take to Stop the Police from Killing (CrimethInc.)
Broken Windows Policing (Bench Ansfield)
How to End the US Prison State Quick and Easy (Lee Camp)
The George Floyd Killing in Minneapolis Exposes the Failures of Police Reform (Alice Speri)
Policing and Militarism Go Hand in Hand. We Must Abolish Both. (Destiny Harris)
The Rise of Defund the Police: The New Civil Rights Movement 2.0 (Nick, TEN DEMANDS)
The Case of Ramsey Orta (AWKWORD)
The Case of Temujin Kensu (AWKWORD)
Prisons Serving as Litmus Test for How Governments Worldwide are Responding to COVID-19 (AWKWORD)
INTERVIEWS
A World Without Police: Dean Spade Interviews Derecka Purnell (them.)
Towards the Horizon of Abolition: A Conversation with Mariame Kaba (The Next System)
Black Liberation and the Abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex: An Interview with Rachel Herzing (The Black Scholar)
How Would Prison Abolition Actually Work? (An Interview with Woods Ervin of Critical Resistance) (GQ)
VIDEOS
So after we abolish prisons and policing... then what? (Derecka Purnell and Charlene Carruthers)
Building Accountable Communities (BCRW Social Justice Institute)
What Does it Mean to Defund the Police (CBS News)
An Interview with Dylan Rodriguez, Author, Professor & Critical Resistance Founding Member (AWKWORD)
An Interview with Carlton Williams, Movement Lawyer & Cornell Professor (AWKWORD)
An Interview with Nicole Porter, Sentencing Project Director of Advocacy (AWKWORD)
An Interview with Victoria Law, Author, Prison By Any Other Name (AWKWORD)
An Interview with Alec Karakatsanis, Founder and Executive Director, Civil Rights Corps (AWKWORD)
An Interview with Scott Hechinger, Civil Rights Lawyer (AWKWORD)
An Interview with Alex Vitale, Author, The End of Policing (AWKWORD)
An Interview with Emily Galvin-Almanza, Co-Founder, Partners for Justice (AWKWORD)
TEN DEMANDS Keynote Address at Extinction Rebellion XR World 2021
Nick Breaks Down the Ten Demands for Justice
The TEN DEMANDS Team Breaks Down Demand 2: Demilitarize the Police
PODCASTS
Abolishing Prisons with Mariame Kaba (Why Is This Happening? with Chris Hayes)
Join the Abolitionist Movement with Mariame Kaba (Rebel Steps)
Behind the Police: Slavery, Mass Murder and the Birth of American Policing (Behind The Bastards)
Beyond Prisons: A Podcast on Prison Abolition (Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein)
The Punishment Bureaucracy with Alec Karakatsanis (Historic.ly)
Prison & Police Abolition: Finding True Safety (Be Antiracist with Ibram X. Kendi)
Abolish the Police (Upstream Podcast, featuring Cat Brooks and Alex Vitale)