Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future without Policing & Prisons

by Mariame Kaba (Editor), Colin Kaepernick (Editor)

Edited by activist and former San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Abolition for the People is a manifesto calling for a world beyond prisons and policing.


Abolition for the People brings together thirty essays representing a diversity of voices--political prisoners, grassroots organizers, scholars, and relatives of those killed by the anti-Black terrorism of policing and prisons. This collection presents readers with a moral "Will you continue to be actively complicit in the perpetuation of these systems," Kaepernick asks in his introduction, "or will you take action to dismantle them for the benefit of a just future?"


Powered by courageous hope and imagination, Abolition for the People provides a blueprint and vision for creating an abolitionist future where communities can be safe, valued, and truly free. "Another world is possible," Kaepernick writes, "a world grounded in love, justice, and accountability, a world grounded in safety and good health, a world grounded in meeting the needs of the people."


The complexity of abolitionist concepts and the enormity of the task at hand can be overwhelming. To help readers on their journey toward a greater understanding, each essay in the collection is followed by a reader's guide that offers further provocations on the subject.


Newcomers to these ideas might Is the abolition of the prison industrial complex too drastic? Can we really get rid of prisons and policing altogether? As writes organizer and New York Times bestselling author Mariame Kaba, "The short We can. We must. We are."


Abolition for the People begins by uncovering the lethal anti-Black histories of policing and incarceration in the United States. Juxtaposing today's moment with 19th-century movements for the abolition of slavery, freedom fighter Angela Y. Davis writes "Just as we hear calls today for a more humane policing, people then called for a more humane slavery."

drawing on decades of scholarship and personal experience, each author deftly refutes the notion that police and prisons can be made fairer and more humane through piecemeal reformation. As Derecka Purnell argues, "reforms do not make the criminal legal system more just, but obscure its violence more efficiently."


Blending rigorous analysis with first-person narratives, Abolition for the People definitively makes the case that the only political future worth building is one without and beyond police and prisons.


You won't find all the answers here, but you will find the right questions--questions that open up radical possibilities for a future where all communities can thrive.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Social Justice, Race, History, Sociology, Activism

364 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Sandrine · Rating 1 out of 5]

The image of black women have been dragged through the mud enough. Colin should have used his mother as the image for his book. Or a black man. Enough is enough

[Elyse]

I am here for this! I fully supported Kaepernick's actions and then supported Nike (which I had never bought from before the whole issue (non-issue in my book), not like they needed my money though lol) for supporting Kaepernick.

[Alexa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disgusted by the cover of this book. Black women have communicated that they do not want to be the face of this movement and yet here we are…

[Ajoa · Rating 1 out of 5]

terrible awful book, scapegoating black women huh? use your Arab wife for the cover. BLACK WOMEN DO NOT SUPPORT POLICE ABOLITION

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to start with the controversy over the cover. I’ve read that there was backlash over making a Black woman the face of the fight for abolition when Black womxn have been forced to fight for themselves on so many fronts already. I do believe that Colin Kaepernick should have listened to the Black womxn speaking up about this and changed the cover. That said, I think I understand the thoughts behind the cover, recognizing and honoring the Black womxn and femmes who have fought for their freedom. Still, if the people you are representing do not want to be represented in this context, you should listen and respect that.

The essays themselves were incredible. This book looks at abolition from so many intersecting yet distinct perspectives, showing that while the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) was created to oppress BIPOC, abolition also reaches those harmed by ableism, gender violence, poverty, and more. Everyone is impacted. I learned that abolition is as much a daily practice as a global movement. I considered the various claims of the PIC and how none of them have ever been fulfilled. The question is not “So I can’t call the police when I’m in danger?” but “How can we build a better community where the police are the only option (and just as likely to harm you as help you)?” Abolition is not simply tearing down a structure that efficiently harms all those deemed “other”, but also the building of a better future. It recognizes that there are so many other institutions and movements to invest in that can actually heal communities. I see the critiques that others have made, and I’m glad to have that context. But I agree with these writers that we can dream bigger than putting bandaids on symptoms and making real progress at the roots.

[Bella · Rating 4 out of 5]

**3.5/5

[Potatohead · Rating 1 out of 5]

Instead of using your platform to help black women and girls you use us as away to promote your performative stance. If you truly cared about black women or even black people you would not have used black women as the face of this cover. Black women and girls are already being killed every 6hrs. You’re creating a documentary on Netflix that includes a darkskin black girl as the lead, in real life you won’t date and help black women but yet you’re using our image to promote this dangerous agenda.“Black Lives Matter” but you’re trying to get rid of police which help protect black women and girls who are the least protected group in society. ARE YOU NOT ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!!!!!

[Chan Fry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could've been so much better. Instead, it felt like the authors spent a lot of time/space repeating each other's assertions in slightly different phrasing, using tons of recently popular catch-phrases, and preaching to the choir. I don't want to be misunderstood: there IS a lot of valuable information in the book (statistics, historical references and explanations, etc.), and there are plenty of well-reasoned arguments. It just seemed like they were hidden behind rhetoric that would instantly turn off anyone who doesn't already full agree with the premises.

(Note: I finished it some time in late 2022, but am only getting around to rating it in early 2023.)

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say not only for teens -- this has some good ideas, and some sad history to be absorbed. The current system needs to be abolished, because it was developed to work the way it does

[Donna Bijas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rated this 4 stars bc of the backlash from Black Women on being the cover that looks to abolish the police. They have every right to be angry. That being said, I did learn quite a bit about abolition and believe that some of my other readings touched on similar topics. Some great ideas that I hope come to fruition instead of more prisons. Glad I read it.

[Hannah]

basically my entire twitter feed got together and wrote a book

[Luna M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good collection of essays for those who are new to the concept of police and prison abolition and would like a place to get started. It does not provide a very deep analysis of the issues, because that’s not its goal— instead, it gives a high-level overview of the different intersections between some social struggles and incarceration (disability justice, queer liberation, Indigenous self-determination, etc). The essays are short (3-10 pages) and they each close with some resources to check out and a list of prompts to discuss in a group setting or to think about on one’s own. There are also some helpful graphics breaking down the statistics of mass incarceration and policing in the US.

Overall, I thought it was a helpful blueprint for folks to build a baseline understanding of abolitionist politics and hopefully get involved with one of the many grassroots organizations and progressive social movements cited in the book.

[mark mendoza · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books you read, then immediately want to buy a copy of for every local community and neighborhood you can think of. A tremendous educational resource.

[Joshua Glasgow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to get THE 1619 PROJECT from the library to read over Juneteenth but, perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a waitlist for it. I therefore selected another book on my WTRs, Colin Kaepernick’s ABOLITION FOR THE PEOPLE. I was excited for this book as well. I do have a very negative view of police and policing, so the concept of abolition intrigues me, but I, like many I presume, was skeptical: how do we handle crime (murder in particular is the go-to) in a world without police?

Although that question was in the back of my mind, the book grabbed me from the very first page. In the introduction, it makes some powerful statements. “Neither prisons nor police keep people safe . . . efforts to reform police and prisons nearly always enhanced their power, reach, and legitimacy. Simply stated, police and prisons . . . are death-making machines that run counter to harm reduction and the possibility of authentic human flourishing.” Dang, ain’t that the truth? Then Angela Y. Davis joins to argue against the view that police abolition is a utopian but unworkable idea: “Abolitionist[s] . . . ask us to enlarge our field of vision so that rather than focusing myopically on the problematic institution and asking what needs to be changed about that institution, we raise radical questions about the organization of the larger society. For those . . . who still insist that these institutions are simply in need of deliberate reform, it might be helpful to reflect on the fact that similar logic was used about slavery. Just as there are those who want change today but fear that these institutions are so necessary to human society that social organization would collapse without them, there were those who believed that the cruelty of the ‘peculiar institution’ was not inherent to slavery and could indeed be eradicated by reform.”

Of course, at this moment I am thinking that if I weren’t so receptive to the idea of police abolition I might be inclined to scoff at the idea that policing shares any equivalence with slavery. But the book will soon provide facts and figures to support the view that policing is ultimately a net harm, as well as providing examples of the many ways that the carceral state terrorizes and impairs society—Black people in particular—rather than doing anything to quote-unquote “protect and serve”. For example, although Black people account for about 13% of the U.S. population they are 30% of those arrested (and 33.9% of youth arrests), 35% of those imprisoned, 42% of those on death row, and 56% of those with life sentences. Nearly half of people murdered by police have disabilities and they make up 85% of incarcerated youth despite being about 26% of the population. And trans women and men are 7x more likely than cisgender people to experience physical violence by the police.

The unjustifiable disparities in policing alone are an indictment of the system, but there’s so much more than that. Take, for instance, what Talia Lewis terms “civil disabilities” caused by incarceration, e.g. being barred from voting afterward. We take it for granted, but the result is social, economic, and physical marginalization of those society deems unfit. Or how about the way government polices Native people, conducting a “paper genocide”, as Morning Star Gali says, by requiring proof of blood quantum to prove ancestry, a system intentionally designed to limit Tribal enrollment and control the definition of who is and who is not considered to be a Native American person. Native people, incidentally, are incarcerated at 4x the rate of whites, despite being just 2% of the population. Or, more to the point, take the literal “acts of terror”, as Kaepernick himself bluntly writes, perpetrated by the police—the killings of Eric Garner, Tamil Rice, Kathryn Johnston. Or Breonna Taylor, who was killed in her own home without provocation and her death justified by her boyfriend’s mistaken belief that self-defense is a right that applies to Black people, as Kimberlé Crenshaw writes. The killers face no prosecution, her death “dismissed as just one of those things that happens: A no-harm, no-foul misfortune that counts among the acceptable costs of maintaining the anti-Black foundations of police and policing.” Or Mario Woods, whose mother is interviewed here and asks rhetorically: “You saw my child shot twenty-one times after posing not threat to all those police, and you don’t understand why Colin took a knee?” The people police surveil and harass are not seen by them as persons, which is to say specifically Blacks, Native, queer and trans people, and the poor. Incarceration forces those people into “conditions of squalor” (overcrowded, violent, lack of health care), according to Kenyon Farrow, “all intended to be part and parcel of the sentence itself”. It often takes lawsuits to get even basic sanitation in prisons, making them centers for disease… again, because those overseeing them see their population as expendable. As Ameer Hasan Loggins realized in Malcolm X’s statement “You are nothing but an ex-slave”— You are nothing. You are a thing.

Attempts to reform the police invariably embolden them. As Derrick Hamilton writes, reforms are often framed as a way to make the criminal legal system more fair and equal but really give police “the means to incarcerate more people without concern for justice itself.” When the police fail, says Stuart Schrader, they turn to the military for a model or order, but they don’t improve—they just become more dangerous, adopt a “martial mentality” that they are in hostile enemy territory. Or, as Derecka Purnell notes, reforms of the criminal legal system can “obscure its violence more efficiently” by moving the police into the homes, churches, therapy sessions, and workplaces of those it subjects to its chains. Naomi Murakawa, in my favorite essay of the collection, states it plainly: “Reform the police” usually means “reward the police”. The more police brutalize and kill, the greater their budgets for training, hiring, and hardware. Obama gave police $43 million for body cameras, which expanded surveillance powers. Both Trump and Biden in 2020, in spite of the protests against violent and racist policing, pledged to increase police spending—albeit one in the name of supporting the draconian acts and the other in the futile effort to “train” them out of their racist ways. Except racism “didn’t seep into policing via loopholes; they have explicit permission”—courts validate pretext stops, Miranda rights (RIP as of this week because of the fuckin’ right-wing Supreme Court justice) provides protection to cops by appearing as “proof of professionalism” even as they lie, intimidate, and confine to extract confessions. In the most striking portion of Murakawa’s essay, she describes how 16 died from chokeholds in L.A. in the 1980s, so chokeholds were banned; then Rodney King was beaten with batons, so now batons are not used (“apparently it was the baton—and not the police—that got a bad reputation for brutalizing Black people”); now Tazers are used to injure and kill… except “legally” people who die from being Tazed aren’t considered to have been killed because Tazing is allegedly non-lethal. Black people who die from being Tazed, Murakami writes, “die instead of suffering” as was intended.

The carceral state destroys families, doesn’t make communities safer, and intensified poverty. To quote Derrick Hamilton again, “As long as any member of society can be treated as a slave, there will be abuse of the power by the slave owner.” It is no accident that, as Bree Newsome Bass points out, “rampant violence, fraud, and theft [is perpetrated] by powerful figures in society with little to no consequence while massive amounts of resources are devoted to hyper-policing the poor for infractions as minor as trespassing, shoplifting, and turnstile jumping at subway stations.” This cannot be reformed into justice, it must be abolished entirely. The call for reform works “[o]n the assumption the system must remain intact—even as it produces asymmetrical misery, suffering, premature death, and violent life conditions for those targeted by it,” per Dylan Rodriguez. But Marlon Peterson makes a trenchant point when he asks: “Who taught you that prison was justice for any human?”

The question anybody has about abolition gets a response here, but not without Naomi Murakawa’s pointed rebuttal: “Why not ask how reform has worked? Decades of reform have built a deadly police force and the largest prison system in the world. It is reform that is a fantasy.” Indeed, nobody talks about the unworkability of the status quo. But the real answer to the question, as stated by Ruha Benjamin is that the key tenet of abolition is that caging people works against safety by failing to address the *underlying reasons* for crime, and “exacerbate the problem by making it harder to live, work, or make amends”. Instead of giving $100 billion annually to the police, including $1 of every $10 spent by towns and municipalities, abolition means investing in services that will decrease criminality in the long-term: education, health care, housing, employment assistance, food justice, violence prevention and restorative justice programs. Kids who do not attend preschool are 70% more likely to be arrested by 18; teens in summer jobs are 43% less likely to be arrested. Meanwhile, incarceration has minimal impact on crime rates. As Mariame Kaba stresses, “Economic precarity is correlated with crime.” The carceral state, an institution which disposes of people, is not achieving ends with preserving. To return to Kaepernick: “An institution based on social control instead of social well-being is an institution that needs to be abolished”.

All of these voices make a potent, compelling case for abolition. I do have a few small quibbles with the book, though. First, many of the essays seem to end just as they are building momentum; that is, they seem like primers in the issues they address without getting as deeply into them as I’d have liked. This problem lessens as the book goes along and I think that being a simple introduction to abolition *is* part of the book’s goal but nevertheless I found it frustrating to be getting invested in a particular writer or thought only for it to end in 4-5 pages. On a similar note, saying that we should reinvest from police to “community safety” or the like is all well and good, but *what does that look like*? It seems the answer is that we still need to figure that out. The nebulousness of what a world of abolition might become dampens things somewhat. Maybe it’s unfair to expect a point-by-point plan. Or maybe the plan is found outside of the book: it sounds like the BREATHE Act and INCITE! both have platforms for what a non-police state might look like. As is though, I don’t think this book does a great job of responding to the most obvious objection: what do we do about murderers? The issue is acknowledged but the response is that compassion and mentorship helped one convicted murderer to become a better person. Again, that’s great in the long-term but in the short term? It feels like *some* restraint is necessary, no?

I’m interested in reading more to figure out how abolitionist thinkers handle these issues. In fact, I already have Derecka Purnell’s BECOMING ABOLITIONISTS at home from the library to follow this up with. I think ABOLITION FOR THE PEOPLE m, despite some frustrations with the depths it does or does not plumb, is more often than not a persuasive, emotionally and intellectually riveting read. I was very impressed. 4.5 stars.

[Mike Horne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review of Abolition for the People

I imagine that Colin Kaepernick is a caring, intelligent, sincere American who wants the best for his country. He is just terribly wrong.

Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons is edited by Kaepernick. I only recognized two authors: Kimberle Crenshaw and Angela Davis. These are folk who drank deep from the 60s and 70s. I cannot explain Marcuse or Foucalt, but I think these people have bought into an anti-bourgeois, anti-capitalism, anti-"American Dream" mindset. Angela Davis is a Marxist. But I don't know what that means. What kind of political, economic, social society does she want for the US?

Before you try to convince me of getting rid of police and prisons--the carceral system, I need a clear picture of the society you think we can have without them. In fact, I want to see it actually working. Let San Francisco or maybe the entire state of Oregon do it for 20 years. I have little faith in the utopias that these writers hardly even hint at. Does it have laws? Who enforces them and how? What do you do with the lust, vanity, greed, and fear that people always have?

I think we can make police more professional and more responsive to murders in the black communities. And there must be a better way to punish and/or rehabilitate those people who break the law than our present prison system. But this book gives no answers.

Why should normal, hardworking, lower middle class white, Asian, or Hispanic folk want to get rid of police? They don't have enough money to live in gated communities or have private security driving through their neighborhoods. Bad stuff goes on. You would really like to have more police on patrol, more substations, more cops walking the beat.

And what about normal, hard working black folk? In Houston the city council members did not cut the police budget but increased it. You cannot survive as a council member if you want to defund the police. Across America only 23% of Black folk want to decrease spending on police. I don't think this book is going to change normal folks' minds.

I will only discuss one of the essays (none of them were convincing or helped me to put myself in someone's shoes). Kimberle Crenshaw tried to convince me that Breonna Taylor was the Emmet Till of today. Certainly the killing of Taylor and the failure to indict the officers has caused a reaction. But not the same reaction that Emmet Till's death (or George Floyd's death) caused.

But Crenshaw hopes that Taylor's death will be as powerful to changing society as Till's was. She says that "Neither death could be remotely imaginable had the racial roles been reversed." But just the year before Rhogena Ann Nicholas (a white woman) was killed by a similar police raid in Houston. Why does Crenshaw think that Breonna Taylor's death was just because of race? And why would Crenshaw say, "It has forced every Black woman to confront a horrifying fact: 'Breonna could easily be me'" (83). The odds of a black woman being killed by the police are extremely low. And if you exclude black women resisting arrest, in jail, or being killed by someone they know (who is a policeman), the chances are almost nil.

Police shootings of black folk (mostly men) are used as evidence of systemic racism. Each one become the poetic truth of “the terror of the anti-Blackness that suffuses policing in the United States” (86). But the death of Breonna Taylor is nothing like the death of George Floyd or Ahmaud Aubrey. And the very clear details of Michael Brown and Jacob Blake shootings show that the policemen did the correct thing. Policing needs to be questioned. Cameras, training, and new technological innovations will perhaps help police kill fewer black and white people. But this book did not convince me at all to get rid of the police and prisons.


https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THIS MOVEMENT

Kaepernick played quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers from 2011-2016. His controversial silent protests during the pregame performance of the National Anthem was certainly the reason why his football career came to a premature end. But since then, he has created his own book publishing company (Kaepernick Publishing), which publishes books of social commentary, as well as books for young people (including two about his own childhood and youth, and one written with his long-time partner, Nessa Diab, with whom he has a child).

He wrote in the introductory section of this 2021 book, “[This book] draws on historical analysis, empirical data, and the firsthand accounts of survivors of interpersonal and state-sanctioned … violence in the form of the carceral state to make a straightforward argument: Neither prisons nor police keep people safe, nor do they create the conditions necessary for communities to thrive. [The book] further argues that efforts to reform police and prisons have nearly always enhanced their power, reach, and legitimacy. Simply stated, police and prisons… are death-making machines that run counter to harm reduction and the possibility of authentic human flourishing.” (Pg. 13)

He continues, “We began this project … at a time when an increasingly broad swatch of the US public were yearning for ways to uproot the devastation of policing and incarceration… Not only does [this book] serve as a rejoinder to such reformist discourses and interventions… but it also provides a blueprint and vision for creating better and non-punitive ways of being together in the world. In October 2020, we published the first iteration of [this book] as a digital collection… This book expands significantly on our original efforts...” (Pg. 15)

He explains, “This book brings together 32 essays representing a broad array of voices and experiences, including political prisoners, grassroots and formerly incarcerated community organizers, scholars, and family members... Their experiences and analyses provide us with the framework to better understand the violences of prisons and policing. Ultimately, we believe that [this book] will present you with a moral choice: Will you remain actively complicit in the perpetuation of these systems or will you take action to dismantle them for the benefit of a just future?” (Pg. 16)

He acknowledges, “The complexity of abolitionist concepts and the enormity of the task at hand can be daunting… each essay in this collection is followed by a reader’s guide that will help you to assess your comprehension of the material, sharpen your critical analysis, and contextualize your own lived experiences within the arguments of the text. You won’t find all the answers here, but we believe you will find useful and provocative questions… that can open up radical possibilities for a future where all communities can thrive. Our hope is that you will consider using this book as an organizing tool and curricular resource for furthering the development of you and your community’s political education.” (Pg. 16)

Angela Davis wrote in the Foreword, “For those who recognize the deeply conservative repercussions of equating ‘reform’ with change, the call to defund the police manifested an abolitionist impulse to eschew the usual calls for punishing individual police officers and instituting some form of civilian overview of the department… organizers began to think more deeply about pathways toward more radical change… that would begin to respond to some of the root causes of why poor communities… are particularly vulnerable to the criminal legal system. But for others it had a jarring effect, conjuring up images of chaotic, crime-ridden… communities, with no force in place to guarantee order. Some people, who live in so-called high crime neighborhoods where they are preyed upon not only by the police, but also by armed individuals and groups from their own communities, and for whom the demand to defund the police was their first introduction to abolitionist ideas, were understandably bewildered. How would they survive at the mercy of malevolent groups who hardly care about the trajectory of stray bullets that have taken the lives of children and bystanders? Their fears are real and not to be dismissed. But this is absolutely the moment to engage in the kind of educational activism that might help to encourage all of us, especially those of us who live in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, to purposefully rethink the meaning of safety and security.” (Pg. 20)

Kaepernick explains in his own essay, “It’s been five years since I first protested during ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ At the time, my protest was tethered to my understanding that something was not right. I saw the bodies … in the streets…. I saw little to no accountability … It is only logical that systemic problems demand systemic solutions…” (Pg. 25-26)

Stuart Schrader notes, “When protesters chant ‘Defund the police,’ cops respond, ‘But who will come to your rescue when you’re in crisis?’ We could turn the question back on the police: What if you didn’t have the military to rescue you in your moments of crisis? And this new question opens onto a new horizon of abolition, and of hope: a world without police or soldiers.” (Pg. 58)

Dean Space explains, “Why is abolition so important to [LGBT] resistance, and why have [LGBT] people and communities been leaders and visionaries in the fight for abolition? First, because … 48% of LGBT people … report experiencing police misconduct… trans people are nearly four times more likely than cisgender people to experience police violence…” (Pg. 100)

Derecka Purnell asserts, “Reforms are the master’s tools. Sometimes, Black public defenders will be able to use a tool in order to get their client free, or a Black prosecutor or judge will even appear to be in charge… But this will never bring about genuine change. Reforms do not solve the root causes of harm---individual or institutional.” (Pg. 148)

Bree Newsome Bass points out, “Black people fall on both sides of this divide, which is why we find so many Black police officers in uniform arguing for a reformist agenda even as every reform they propose is vociferously opposed by … police unions and most of the rank and file.” (Pg. 177)

Robin D.G. Kelly argues, “Shifting [funds] from policing to education and restorative justice initiatives will not only strengthen communities---it will make them safer.” (Pg. 188)

Mariame Kaba clarifies, “Some people may ask, ‘Does this mean that I can never call the cops if my life is in serious danger?’ Abolition does not center that question. Instead, abolition challenges us to ask, ‘Why do we have no other well-resourced options?’ and pushes us to creatively consider how we can grow, build, and try other avenues to reduce harm.” (Pg. 240)

Obviously, there is a LOT more to this book, and it will be of great interest to those studying these issues.

[Corey Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

@kaepernickpublishing @kaepernick7 with this book helped me understand reform vs abolition MUCH better! “Abolition is a means to create a future where justice and liberation are fundamental to realizing the full humanity of communities.” “Harm reduction, public health, and the well being of the people” are at the heart of abolition.

"Abolition is really about rethinking the kind of future we want."

One of the more compelling statements from the book that shows why reforming systems with racist and oppressive legacies isn't really possible is the following:

"The first modern police force was organized in Boston in 1838. Slave patrols in the south predated this Northern innovation of police reform, and guess who had no voice in the establishment of either? Black people, Brown people, Indigenous people, and poor whites. Rich white men dreamt of the idea of an armed group of white men who would protect the property of landowners, catching runaway slaves."

Our imaginations need to be bigger as we reimagine a world without oppression, racism, misogyny, and sexism. The current system is not at all broken. It is functioning very well, just for the oppressors that established it.

[Jamey Yadon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a lot of books of essays, this one is really mixed. Parts of the argument are really compelling, but most of the essays are too short. In that way, it's unlike most books. I much more often find myself saying, "That book would have been just as convincing at 2/3 the length" than "That book needed to be longer." But in Abolition for the People, the essays are often unconvincing because they need more detail and more elaboration. Six pages is enough to briefly discuss that two forms of oppression are intertwined (sexism and racism, for example), but hardly gives the author room to discuss how they are intertwined.

Though the case is ultimately uncompelling, the book does introduce the reader to the understandings and theories of police abolitionists and, if read charitably, shows that policing is a problem and that reform has never worked.

[Aiden · Rating 3 out of 5]

fairly short book but it really did feel bloated to hell, so many stories told the same statistics from the same perspective. the final chapter should have been fleshed out more, telling people to join groups and communities isn’t good enough for people that don’t have any in their area. 95% of this book never went deeper than “the system is bad so let’s abolish it” if i didn’t already agree with police and prison abolition this book wouldn’t have sold me on a single thing and i’m unable to recommend it to anyone if they’re looking for a book on abolition. This is a book with a lot of data and a few really good stories but it isn’t a book ABOUT prison abolition.

[Logan Heil · Rating 1 out of 5]

I actually didn’t finish this. I was 158 pages in and just couldn’t do it anymore. If you’re going to write something to get people behind the idea of abolition, then you should probably make sure the general public is able to comprehend it. I felt like I was reading articles for research papers, but none of the information was sticking. The book doesn’t follow one clear direction and changes the topic every 5 pages.

[Lindsey Moore · Rating 1 out of 5]

Black women do not need to be the cover. Black women and girls are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and homicide. We need the police the most out of any other community. Using the rhetoric he uses, then putting a black woman on the cover does us no good. Colin is detached from the real world, and the real problems in the black community.

[SophiaStuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it and thought that if you're interested in abolition that it's a good jumping off point, but I wish it was more indepth and the essays were longer.

[Brandon Rivera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before I read this book, all I knew was that essentially all current forms of policing (including ICE), the prison industrial complex (PIC) as a whole, was deeply flawed and immensely troubling to say the least. But, I wasn’t really sure of what to fight for. I always wondered, “Why are people so quick to want to throw a person in jail/prison as if it were an actual solution? Why not get both the victims and the perpetrators the help they need? Why doesn’t anyone look into the actual reasons that lead people to commit crimes in the first place.” On the other hand, I used to also think, “But, if we completely and suddenly abolish police and prisons, wouldn’t chaos and anarchy just ensue?” Those were my first thoughts upon hearing the term “abolition” being used in regard to the PIC and policing. As I’ve learned, this was/is a common misconception when it comes to abolition. Fortunately, after reading this book, I’ve learned so much and found answers to some of my own questions, including “What would our world be like without the police and prisons?”

Throughout the course of this book, I’ve learned that abolition (in regard to the police and PIC), is NOT a new idea that randomly popped up during the worldwide protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020. It actually has roots stemming way back to the Reconstruction Era. It gained even more traction after the implementation of the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude unless as “punishment for a crime after due conviction” (a.k.a. slavery never really truly ended). Hence why we see more Black and Brown people in jail/prison at rates much higher than any other group. The Black Panther Party also fought for abolition as well during the 60s and 70s. It has been engrained in the civil rights movement from its inception all the way up to the grassroots organizing we see today. I also learned more about the history of the police, with roots dating back to the times of chattel slavery, in which they were tasked with catching runaway slaves and protecting white landowners’ property.

I’ve also learned that the main widespread misconception about abolition (simply getting rid of police and letting everyone out of prison in one day) is far from accurate. Abolition is much more than that. Is the end goal of abolition a world without policing and prisons… absolutely! However, it is not to be simply thrust upon the world in a moment’s notice and without any preparation. It is a broader movement and plan that includes the fight for (and implementation of) education, guaranteed affordable housing, health care, social services and more as a RIGHT, not a luxury afforded to those who can afford it. Without access to these basic things, crime has and always will flourish. These are the basic necessities for a healthy and productive life. It is a plan to focus on the actual root causes, both interpersonal and systemic, of crime (many of which are directly linked to the aforementioned necessities for a healthy life) and eradicate them. This, in turn, will liberate all people, especially those of color and other marginalized groups, from the endless suffering and fear of imprisonment. Then, and only then, can a world without policing and prisons exist.

Lastly, I’ve learned that ABOLITION is the answer, NOT reform. When it’s all said and done, we’ve “done” reform. It clearly doesn’t work. We’ve banned chokeholds. We’ve provided more and more money to the police for training. We’ve fought to incorporate the use of body cameras, hoping it would deter the police from committing further brutality. What were the results? More of the same. More police brutality, followed by more calls for reform. A few indictments here and there. But, at the end of the day, the system is not broken, it’s working exactly as intended. In the words of this book itself, “Fuck Reform. Abolition Now.”

All in all, I recommend this book to anyone who deep down knows that the criminal justice system as a whole is flawed. The data presented in the book is hard to deny or brush off. It is obvious that Black, Brown, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ people are actively being targeted by the system currently in place (whether by the police, PIC, ICE, etc.). This is a very real problem that needs a swift resolution. Abolition is the only logical answer.

[Dan McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays surrounding defunding police and abolishing the Prison Industrial System from a wide range of activists. Full of cited sources and statistics, it provides a great starting point for anyone new to the arguments against our current law enforcement system.

Some of the strongest quotes came from the section "Fuck Reform". Retorts against the arguments of just reforming the system instead of dismantling it.

"Believing that the system is "broken" rather than functioning exactly as intended requires a certain adherence to white supremacist and anti-Black beliefs. One has to ignore the rampant amount of violence, fraud, and theft being committed by some of the most powerful figures in society with little to no legal consequence while massive amounts of resources are devoted to the hyper-policing of the poor for infractions as minor as trespassing, shoplifting, and turnstile jumping at subway stations."

"Reform orbits around bad "incidents," as if police brutality and police profiling are somehow discrete moments when police do something wrong. But brutality and racism are woven into policing. This becomes clear when we name the core police function: to use coercive power to preserve the status quo. And what is the status quo? Put simply by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, "capitalism requires inequality and racism en- shrines it. Thus, criminalization and mass incarceration are class war... Police killings are the most dramatic events in a contemporary land- scape thick with preventable, premature deaths."20 Police protect pri vate property, enforce the color line, patrol the gender binary, and hold national borders for everyone except the corporations. No amount of reform can erase these core functions."

"Part of the reason why calls to defund police have sent such shock waves through the nation, prompting placement of pro-police billboards and pushback from figures of the Black establishment, is because it cuts right to the heart of how structural racism operates in the United States. At a time when the Black elite would prefer to measure progress by their own tokenized positions of power and symbolic gestures like murals, the push to defund police would require direct confrontation with how the white supremacist system has been organized since the end of chattel slavery - when the prisons replaced plantations as the primary tool of racial control. Actions that may have been widely seen as adequate responses to injustice just a couple of decades ago now ring hollow to many observers who see that Black people continue to be killed by a system that remains largely unchanged."

[Brittany]

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

"Who taught you that prison was justice (outside of the Old Testament axiom of "an eye for an eye") for people who live in the headlines like I once did. Who taught you that prison was justice for any human? Where did you learn that police equates to public safety? Where di you first hear that vengeance is what healing and accountability looks like?" (p. 211, Marlon Peterson "Who Is Being Healed? Creating solutions is about answering questions prisons never asked")

A great introduction to what abolition is, including statistics on why the police and many institutions are not here to protect us, and are indeed doing way more harm. This is filled with essays from many activists, writers, and more who believe in a better future for us all.

I am somewhat of a visual learner, so I especially appreciated the sections of statistics interspersed throughout the essays. Here are some of them:
looking at the representation of people of color in cop tv-shows, in TV writers' rooms
the rate in which Black people are stopped by police (it's more than twice the rate for white people)
the statistics of how Black people are subjected to higher rates of police surveillance, violence, and arrest
data on how schools act as carceral spaces for Black children
how the misdemeanor systems contributes to over-criminalization and mass incarceration
the injustices and second-class citizen treatment of incarcerated folks
how probation and parole continue this cycle

There are also resources noted at the end of each essay, which I found so helpful and hopeful. It shows you that so many organizations and activists are already doing such vital work in community care, advocacy, and healing.

I highly recommend this <3

Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Classism

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Review

This was an absolutely moving and thought-provoking read. These essays really dived deep into the shocking realities for people of color, and the need for police and prison reform in the United States. The racism that has embedded itself into nearly every fiber and nook of the institutions of this nation, from the field of entertainment and athletics to politics and law enforcement, is staggering.

Yet it was the compelling words and powerful emotions of the writers of these essays and their subject matter. One story that really brought a tear to my eyes and expanded upon my understanding of this topic greatly was My Son Was Executed by an Ideal, based on a conversation with Gwendolyn Woods, the mother of Mario Woods, a young man executed in the streets of San Francisco in 2015, and the writer Kiese Laymon. The honesty and heartbreak of this mother’s story and the shocking realities of the legal system and the protections that the police enjoy, even those who get away with these crimes, will keep the reader engaged yet stunned as this eyewitness event takes center stage.

The Verdict

Engaging, heartbreaking, and thought-provoking, QB turned activist Colin Kaepernick presents a stunning collection of extraordinary writers and their unique perspectives on modern justice in today’s world in the book “Abolition for the People. The shocking realities that not everyone experiences in this nation and the fight for real change are presented perfectly in this book, and everyone in this world should take the time to read this work.

[Viral · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a phenomenal collection of essays from some of the most brilliant minds in current abolitionist thought. Together, they weave the powerful truths and ask the right questions that we need to ask as we struggle for a world without police and prisons. This book is perfect for anyone with a cursory understanding of the flaws of our prison industrial complex and looking to learn more about PIC abolition.

Also, ignore all the 1 star reviews you see here on Goodreads. There was an obvious coordinated smear campaign against this book when it came out. All the negative reviews are almost completely identical and written from ghost accounts that were made right before the posts were made and haven't been used since.

[Elyrria]

After reading about how Black women were harmed by the cover of this book, I will not be giving it a star rating. I did learn alot, because many of the essays were fantastic, but I think the authors of those essays deserve to be centered- not the editor who ignored Black women's voices. For this reason, I will be going to each essayist's platform or website to support them directly. Black women made beautiful contributions to this book, and I want to support their labor and viewpoints without uplifting the person who chose to ignore their trauma(s). The dangers Black women face are immense, and I am disgusted that this was not acknowledged or mitigated by Kaepernick when he was made aware of the problematic cover.

[Bruin Mccon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible selection of essays on abolition. I had about 50 quoted ideas from the book and managed to accidentally delete them. So, no quotes, but this book is not just a phenomenal explanation of why abolition is so important right here and now. It shows how intersectional this issue is—beyond race, class, disability, immigration status, politics, elections, sexuality, gender, education level, issue—abolition touches everything. The other key idea is reform isn’t the appropriate goal here. We’ve been trying to make tweaks to a system that is not only working as intended by those who created it, but also one where changes have only made it exponentially bigger and more unjust.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of essays about prison and police abolition. There are perspectives here tackling Black and Indigenous experiences, as well as those imprisoned for a variety of reasons, and Black Lives Matter activists. The focus is firmly on the USA. The content here is most useful for those still fairly new to the topic, which in some ways sits oddly with the marketing which seems firmly aimed at the convinced. That it began life as a series online makes sense, and as a reference volume alone, this is worth picking up for those either interested or who might need a refresher.