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No More Police: A Case for Abolition
An instant national best seller
A persuasive primer on police abolition from two veteran organizers “One of the world’s most prominent advocates, organizers and political educators of the [abolitionist] framework.” —NBCNews.com on Mariame Kaba In this powerful call to action, New York Times bestselling author Mariame Kaba and attorney and organizer Andrea J. Ritchie detail why policing doesn’t stop violence, instead perpetuating widespread harm; outline the many failures of contemporary police reforms; and explore demands to defund police, divest from policing, and invest in community resources to create greater safety through a Black feminist lens. Centering survivors of state, interpersonal, and community-based violence, and highlighting uprisings, campaigns, and community-based projects, No More Police makes a compelling case for a world where the tools required to prevent, interrupt, and transform violence in all its forms are abundant. Part handbook, part road map, No More Police calls on us to turn away from systems that perpetrate violence in the name of ending it toward a world where violence is the exception, and safe, well-resourced and thriving communities are the rule.
A persuasive primer on police abolition from two veteran organizers “One of the world’s most prominent advocates, organizers and political educators of the [abolitionist] framework.” —NBCNews.com on Mariame Kaba In this powerful call to action, New York Times bestselling author Mariame Kaba and attorney and organizer Andrea J. Ritchie detail why policing doesn’t stop violence, instead perpetuating widespread harm; outline the many failures of contemporary police reforms; and explore demands to defund police, divest from policing, and invest in community resources to create greater safety through a Black feminist lens. Centering survivors of state, interpersonal, and community-based violence, and highlighting uprisings, campaigns, and community-based projects, No More Police makes a compelling case for a world where the tools required to prevent, interrupt, and transform violence in all its forms are abundant. Part handbook, part road map, No More Police calls on us to turn away from systems that perpetrate violence in the name of ending it toward a world where violence is the exception, and safe, well-resourced and thriving communities are the rule.
416 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
July 5, 2022
The art and title of this book caught my eye. I wanted to read it because while I know some about calls to defund the police and change the way we support our communities and provide "safety" in the United States, I have not done in-depth research on the topic.
Whether you want to learn more about the police abolition movement or simply learn more about the state of policing in the United States, this book is excellent. It is extremely well-researched and all sources are cited. This would be a great title to use to find statistics, stories, and sources to share with people you're discussing policing, safety, and justice with. It is compelling and laid out very well so you can also jump to specific chapters if you need to.
If you are hesitant about the idea of police abolition or have an image of the police force as a solid, public good with a few "bad apples" - I encourage you to read this book. It also engages with "soft policing" by people not employed directly by police which I found very interesting. Take note of reflexive or high-emotion reactions as you read, and question them. Specifically, if you are white (like I am, for context), you must block the reflexive white supremacist narratives of "crime," "bad guys," and "friendly cops" that we are raised with.
This was a thought-provoking book that challenged some assumptions I still held about police and backed it up with a wealth of information and lived experiences. The authors also state that not everyone will be dedicated on the road to abolition but that similar goals will follow the same road. You may come out not agreeing with everything, but the author's arguments are excellent, and I think anyone who wants a better world without the violence inflicted by police and/or prison industrial complex will find something in this book.
This is not a casual read and is not intended to be one. The facts are stark and thoroughly backed up. A specific note I found resonant, and that challenged a lot of my thinking, is the refrain that living in a society that actually supports its people requires commitment. It has made me consider my own dedication, willingness and ability to help my neighbors. No More Police makes it clear that making things better is not a quick fix. There is no one answer. It will require many actions and people. This is a book I will think about for a very long time.
Reviewed via digital ARC from NetGalley.
I usually put content notes at the end of my reviews. The nature of this book means that it confronts many stories of racism, violence, abuse, sexual violence, transphobia, and more.
Whether you want to learn more about the police abolition movement or simply learn more about the state of policing in the United States, this book is excellent. It is extremely well-researched and all sources are cited. This would be a great title to use to find statistics, stories, and sources to share with people you're discussing policing, safety, and justice with. It is compelling and laid out very well so you can also jump to specific chapters if you need to.
If you are hesitant about the idea of police abolition or have an image of the police force as a solid, public good with a few "bad apples" - I encourage you to read this book. It also engages with "soft policing" by people not employed directly by police which I found very interesting. Take note of reflexive or high-emotion reactions as you read, and question them. Specifically, if you are white (like I am, for context), you must block the reflexive white supremacist narratives of "crime," "bad guys," and "friendly cops" that we are raised with.
This was a thought-provoking book that challenged some assumptions I still held about police and backed it up with a wealth of information and lived experiences. The authors also state that not everyone will be dedicated on the road to abolition but that similar goals will follow the same road. You may come out not agreeing with everything, but the author's arguments are excellent, and I think anyone who wants a better world without the violence inflicted by police and/or prison industrial complex will find something in this book.
This is not a casual read and is not intended to be one. The facts are stark and thoroughly backed up. A specific note I found resonant, and that challenged a lot of my thinking, is the refrain that living in a society that actually supports its people requires commitment. It has made me consider my own dedication, willingness and ability to help my neighbors. No More Police makes it clear that making things better is not a quick fix. There is no one answer. It will require many actions and people. This is a book I will think about for a very long time.
Reviewed via digital ARC from NetGalley.
I usually put content notes at the end of my reviews. The nature of this book means that it confronts many stories of racism, violence, abuse, sexual violence, transphobia, and more.
December 13, 2022
4.5
Police in the U.S. consume [close to] $130 billion a year...Carceral logics normalize policing and punishment in response to social problems rather than collective care and mutual support.
Police violence is not counted in the crime stats periodically trotted out to justify their existence—even though cops engage daily in actions that fall squarely within the definition of homicide, assault (including sexual assault), home invasions in the form of drug raids, and robbery and theft through asset forfeiture...A cop is caught engaging in acts of sexual “misconduct” every five days on average...Policing is not “broken,” it is operating exactly as it was intended: dealing out daily violence to contain, control, and criminalize Black and Brown communities while creating conditions for capital to flourish...Police embody and exercise the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
We have over a century’s worth of evidence demonstrating that attempts to re-form police don’t produce different results—whether it’s a reduction in police violence or a reduction in violence in communities.
Safety is not produced primarily by force. Safety is produced by resources, by connection, by equity, and by reciprocal accountability among neighbors (Danielle Sered).
Campaigns to defund and abolish policing [are about] shifting how we invest our collective resources into collective care and support instead of criminalization and punishment, [to meet] basic needs that include education, long-term housing, income support, health care, access to care for disabled people, childcare, elder care, youth programs, mental health crisis response, violence interruption programs.
Twenty-four community nonprofits per 100,000 residents led to a 29 percent decline in the murder rate, a 24 percent decline in the violent crime rate, and a 17 percent decline in the property crime rate...Community nonprofits were defined as organizations focused on crime prevention, neighborhood development, substance abuse prevention, job training and workforce development, and recreational and social activities for youth...Violence prevention programs in cities like Milwaukee and Oakland cost $4 and $26 per capita, compared to $502 and $727 per capita spending on their police departments.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, elimination of policing and punishment doesn’t mean that there will be no consequences for violence or harm. Instead, abolition focuses on accountability rather than punishment. Punishment is inflicting suffering for the sake of hurting someone, it does not require the person punished to do anything in particular but suffer the punishment; accountability is the voluntary process of stepping into responsibility for causing harm and committing to repair the harm. Whether or not a person steps into accountability, abolition contemplates consequences for acts of violence or harm. Consequences are nonpunitive responses that are necessary to increase safety for both the person harmed and the community. Importantly, these consequences do not deny the dignity and humanity of the person who caused harm, or their potential for transformation. A world without policing is not a world where violence is allowed to proceed unchecked. To the contrary...it is a world that creates greater possibilities for prevention, interruption, healing, and repair of violence by meeting material needs [and] fostering mutual accountability.
August 3, 2022
Mariame Kaba is without a doubt one of the most important voices in the movement for criminal justice reform and prison abolition. No More Police makes the case by using evidence and statistics on how police intervention is harmful and leads to violence in already marginalized communities. The call to Defund The Police has been met with nothing but negativity from a majority of politicians ranging from conservatives to liberals. Before explaining the goals of defund the police, I think it is important to highlight some stats that I found while reading.
"Research confirms that police are up to 4 times more likely to shoot Black people than white people, even when both groups are engaged int eh same levels of criminalized activity, even when they are unarmed."
"Longitudinal studies indicate that markers of resource deprivation - lack of sufficient income, health care, etc are critical factors in heightened violent crime rates." HOWEVER
"Less than 5% of the 10 million arrests made annually are for "violent crime" and "1%-4% of police calls are for "serious violent crime" like homicide, rape, or robbery. When cops do respond to such calls, they find the person responsible for violence 1/4 of the time." and finally,
"Crime was down overall in 2020, by about 6%, one of the largest decreases in decades." (These same 2020 crime rates were the exact reason why Biden enacted ARPA, giving $350 billion to police in 2022.
Kaba artfully explains the goal of defunding the police, which involves a divestment of resources that are then redistributed to communities ravaged by poverty and a lack of resources. Kaba further proves her point by citing statistics that show no correlation between crime rates and police budgets. Meaning, crime does not go up if police lose money and vise versa. The current state of policing is poisoned, there is no doubt about it. If the goal is abolition, then defunding the police is the starting point. Regardless of political view, anyone can resonate with this story as it is written with facts as well as emotions.
This literature is excellent for anyone who wants to read more about abolition, criminal justice reform, and transformative justice. It is relevant no matter what level your at, or whether you think the country as it currently stands needs to change. This book is likely to convince even status quo-ers that change is needed and that supporting our communities, especially communities of color, is how we actually tackle crime rates, violence, and recidivism.
"Research confirms that police are up to 4 times more likely to shoot Black people than white people, even when both groups are engaged int eh same levels of criminalized activity, even when they are unarmed."
"Longitudinal studies indicate that markers of resource deprivation - lack of sufficient income, health care, etc are critical factors in heightened violent crime rates." HOWEVER
"Less than 5% of the 10 million arrests made annually are for "violent crime" and "1%-4% of police calls are for "serious violent crime" like homicide, rape, or robbery. When cops do respond to such calls, they find the person responsible for violence 1/4 of the time." and finally,
"Crime was down overall in 2020, by about 6%, one of the largest decreases in decades." (These same 2020 crime rates were the exact reason why Biden enacted ARPA, giving $350 billion to police in 2022.
Kaba artfully explains the goal of defunding the police, which involves a divestment of resources that are then redistributed to communities ravaged by poverty and a lack of resources. Kaba further proves her point by citing statistics that show no correlation between crime rates and police budgets. Meaning, crime does not go up if police lose money and vise versa. The current state of policing is poisoned, there is no doubt about it. If the goal is abolition, then defunding the police is the starting point. Regardless of political view, anyone can resonate with this story as it is written with facts as well as emotions.
This literature is excellent for anyone who wants to read more about abolition, criminal justice reform, and transformative justice. It is relevant no matter what level your at, or whether you think the country as it currently stands needs to change. This book is likely to convince even status quo-ers that change is needed and that supporting our communities, especially communities of color, is how we actually tackle crime rates, violence, and recidivism.
November 23, 2023
The stuff was good. The messages sent were great. I loved so much of this. The structure is what got me.
It fluctuates so much between hard core quantitative data and opinion anecdotes which was a really challenging reading skill. I was constantly switching my mindset between wanting to take notes and reading a story. It was very challenging to stay engaged.
I would’ve liked this more as a textbook in a class where I can unpack each chapter separately with the whole class kind of thing. Not a great independent read.
It fluctuates so much between hard core quantitative data and opinion anecdotes which was a really challenging reading skill. I was constantly switching my mindset between wanting to take notes and reading a story. It was very challenging to stay engaged.
I would’ve liked this more as a textbook in a class where I can unpack each chapter separately with the whole class kind of thing. Not a great independent read.
February 23, 2023
Really fascinating! I've always been curious about "defunding the police" and what that might look like. The authors make a great case for how ineffective our systems of policing are.....and back up the argument with data, case studies, and anecdotes. They also paint a clear picture that "policing" is a practice that exists throughout our society, not just with the police. For a topic that is serious and stories that are sad, the book did inspire me to imagine a better and safer society.
October 9, 2023
If you only have time to read one book on abolition, make it this one. And read chapter 4 on soft policing carefully. This book is about so much more than “police” - it is based on Gilmore’s assertion that abolition is presence, not absence. It’s about building the world we want and need.
February 15, 2024
Excellent, comprehensive, and accessible. This book covers a lot of information, it's dense, yet accessibly written and rather short for how much it covers. The first few chapters give a background and address many of the critiques abolitionists hear. The last few chapters cover how people are currently doing the work and envisioning a better future. Highly recommend for anyone wanting to learn about working towards a world without police.
June 22, 2022
No More Police: A Case for Abolition, by Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie, is an organized and well-researched explanation of the need for abolishing the police.
The kneejerk response from those who support the white supremacist status quo is that pulling the cops off the street will lead to full scale violence and crime. In other words, these people not only don't know anything about what the abolitionist movement is, they are trying to use fear (which statistics don't actually support) to maintain their entitlement and power under the present system.
No matter where you currently stand on the issue, don't let the false fear these hypocrites are peddling be your "rationale" for taking a stand. Read this book. Think about the statistics and the stories. Think about their ideas based on this information. This is not an overnight type of movement. In fact, at one point, they state that achieving safe, supportive and a truly just society is multigenerational. But we must start.
I'm not going to try to restate their arguments, they do too good of a job for me to mess it up. But for anyone who wants a society that is just for all, they owe it to themselves to not listen to the slogans, whether from the fear-mongers or from the "defund the police" crowd. The research here is cited so you can verify things for yourself (isn't that the usual first complaint of those who won't believe anything?). If you're one of those who "do your own research" then this is ideal. Do it. With an open mind. You may not think every idea here is good, but if you disagree with the larger premise, that police do not make people safer and do nothing to decrease violence (in fact they increase violence), then I have to question whether you just like your position in a white supremacist society more than you care for or believe in any moral, ethical, or spiritual system.
Highly recommended for those who want to know about, or know more about, the abolitionist movement. In fact, I think this is one of a handful of books I would recommend to someone who doesn't really like the idea but wants to better understand it. Maybe you won't flip 180 degrees but I find it hard to believe you will be totally against it either.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
The kneejerk response from those who support the white supremacist status quo is that pulling the cops off the street will lead to full scale violence and crime. In other words, these people not only don't know anything about what the abolitionist movement is, they are trying to use fear (which statistics don't actually support) to maintain their entitlement and power under the present system.
No matter where you currently stand on the issue, don't let the false fear these hypocrites are peddling be your "rationale" for taking a stand. Read this book. Think about the statistics and the stories. Think about their ideas based on this information. This is not an overnight type of movement. In fact, at one point, they state that achieving safe, supportive and a truly just society is multigenerational. But we must start.
I'm not going to try to restate their arguments, they do too good of a job for me to mess it up. But for anyone who wants a society that is just for all, they owe it to themselves to not listen to the slogans, whether from the fear-mongers or from the "defund the police" crowd. The research here is cited so you can verify things for yourself (isn't that the usual first complaint of those who won't believe anything?). If you're one of those who "do your own research" then this is ideal. Do it. With an open mind. You may not think every idea here is good, but if you disagree with the larger premise, that police do not make people safer and do nothing to decrease violence (in fact they increase violence), then I have to question whether you just like your position in a white supremacist society more than you care for or believe in any moral, ethical, or spiritual system.
Highly recommended for those who want to know about, or know more about, the abolitionist movement. In fact, I think this is one of a handful of books I would recommend to someone who doesn't really like the idea but wants to better understand it. Maybe you won't flip 180 degrees but I find it hard to believe you will be totally against it either.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
June 30, 2023
5 stars. ‘No More Police’ by Andrea J. Ritchie and Mariame Kaba is an extraordinary and really essential piece of work that contains w/in it the power to ignite radical social change and is a challenge to the oppressive structures of our society. This book is an indispensable resource, providing a wealth of knowledge that has deepened my and likely many other’s understanding of the urgent need fr a world liberated frm the grip of policing and prisons. Ritchie and Kaba’s resolute dedication to radical liberation and their politics shines through in every chapter, based on principles of freedom and true justice, mutual aid and care, and an unwavering solidarity.
This book goes beyond a mere critique of the police, offering a comprehensive analysis of the historical, social, and economic factors that sustain the oppressive nature of policing and prisons and the PIC. W meticulous research and incredibly compelling arguments, Kaba and Ritchie unravel the interconnected web of racial injustice, state violence, and systemic oppression, leaving no room fr complacency or indifference.
‘No More Police’ serves as both a rallying cry and a profound validation of my beliefs and politics. Ritchie and Kaba's words resonated w me on a really deep level, reaffirming the urgency of our collective struggle against a system designed to uphold the interests of the few at the expense of the many. They skillfully dismantle the myth of policing as a solution to society’s issues, exposing it as a tool of social control and an enforcer of existing power structures. We are challenged to envision a society liberated frm the chains of surveillance, policing, and punishment, and we are shown the transformative potential of mutual aid, care, and collective responsibility, urging us to build communities grounded in compassion and solidarity rather than violence and punishment. This book is not just a theoretical exploration, but a practical guide fr new and seasoned activists, organisers, and revolutionaries seeking to shape a future free frm the oppressive grip of a violent and oppressive state.
I’d give this book 100 stars if I could. It’s a really fucking fantastic testament to the transformative power of collective action and mutual aid, and an urgent reminder that another world is not only possible but is in reach. Please read this book!
This book goes beyond a mere critique of the police, offering a comprehensive analysis of the historical, social, and economic factors that sustain the oppressive nature of policing and prisons and the PIC. W meticulous research and incredibly compelling arguments, Kaba and Ritchie unravel the interconnected web of racial injustice, state violence, and systemic oppression, leaving no room fr complacency or indifference.
‘No More Police’ serves as both a rallying cry and a profound validation of my beliefs and politics. Ritchie and Kaba's words resonated w me on a really deep level, reaffirming the urgency of our collective struggle against a system designed to uphold the interests of the few at the expense of the many. They skillfully dismantle the myth of policing as a solution to society’s issues, exposing it as a tool of social control and an enforcer of existing power structures. We are challenged to envision a society liberated frm the chains of surveillance, policing, and punishment, and we are shown the transformative potential of mutual aid, care, and collective responsibility, urging us to build communities grounded in compassion and solidarity rather than violence and punishment. This book is not just a theoretical exploration, but a practical guide fr new and seasoned activists, organisers, and revolutionaries seeking to shape a future free frm the oppressive grip of a violent and oppressive state.
I’d give this book 100 stars if I could. It’s a really fucking fantastic testament to the transformative power of collective action and mutual aid, and an urgent reminder that another world is not only possible but is in reach. Please read this book!
April 5, 2023
This topic is extremely important and timely, because of the 2020 uprisings that led to "Defund the Police" becoming a common refrain from many. I am also glad it came out a bit after that moment, because the authors are able to also respond to the backlash that occurred after those events and how we organize from there.
As a prison-industrial complex abolitionist, I was already on board with the main ideas presented, but the book did a good job of laying out the data and reasoning behind that position that makes it a bit clearer. I was glad to also learn more about how "policing" expands into healthcare, teaching, and drug treatment, and why its expansion in those areas is so insidious.
The book is strongest when it's describing concrete causes and events, peoples' lived experiences, and what they mean by "Defund the Police." It is heavy on logic and a bit dry, which is why I would have a hard time recommending it to people who aren't interested in reading a nearly 400-page book in order to make up their minds. Some of the points it makes could be presented more concisely, or with more examples that illustrate the point better. However, I really appreciated the book and its focus on the marginalized, explicitly calling out those harmed by policing in all aspects of life and being clear in who policing benefits. It also talks about the real difficulties in organizing around police budgets, because efforts can be co-opted and even reforms that seem to make progress on the issue of policing end up actually making it more entrenched in our society. It's so useful to read the words of organizers who have a lot of experience in this realm and who have had to switch tactics and recognize that certain positions they held weren't correct - no organizer is perfect and they both have made mistakes which they own and try to correct. The book also addresses how to look inward at your own actions and how they might be enforcing a pro-policing worldview rather than an abolitionist worldview, which is really helpful in living a life that better prefigures what we want to see.
As a prison-industrial complex abolitionist, I was already on board with the main ideas presented, but the book did a good job of laying out the data and reasoning behind that position that makes it a bit clearer. I was glad to also learn more about how "policing" expands into healthcare, teaching, and drug treatment, and why its expansion in those areas is so insidious.
The book is strongest when it's describing concrete causes and events, peoples' lived experiences, and what they mean by "Defund the Police." It is heavy on logic and a bit dry, which is why I would have a hard time recommending it to people who aren't interested in reading a nearly 400-page book in order to make up their minds. Some of the points it makes could be presented more concisely, or with more examples that illustrate the point better. However, I really appreciated the book and its focus on the marginalized, explicitly calling out those harmed by policing in all aspects of life and being clear in who policing benefits. It also talks about the real difficulties in organizing around police budgets, because efforts can be co-opted and even reforms that seem to make progress on the issue of policing end up actually making it more entrenched in our society. It's so useful to read the words of organizers who have a lot of experience in this realm and who have had to switch tactics and recognize that certain positions they held weren't correct - no organizer is perfect and they both have made mistakes which they own and try to correct. The book also addresses how to look inward at your own actions and how they might be enforcing a pro-policing worldview rather than an abolitionist worldview, which is really helpful in living a life that better prefigures what we want to see.
December 5, 2022
Stunning. Transformational. Unique. Comprehensive and comprehensible.
March 27, 2023
Excellent introduction to abolition and why it is the only possible way out of the violence of policing.
Kaba and Ritchie beautifully draw on decades of organizing and grassroot activism to explain every aspect of abolitionist thought in a personal, heartfelt way—supported by irrefutable data. Might be a tad repetitive at times, but it makes a lot of sense, pedagogically speaking, to insist on key points of abolition, including the importance of an intersectional, anti-capitalist lenses to make sense of the inherent violence of policing. No More Police posits abolition as a positive project fueled by radical care and imagination.
Kaba and Ritchie beautifully draw on decades of organizing and grassroot activism to explain every aspect of abolitionist thought in a personal, heartfelt way—supported by irrefutable data. Might be a tad repetitive at times, but it makes a lot of sense, pedagogically speaking, to insist on key points of abolition, including the importance of an intersectional, anti-capitalist lenses to make sense of the inherent violence of policing. No More Police posits abolition as a positive project fueled by radical care and imagination.
September 17, 2023
Kaba is so fucking good w words I don’t understand how she does it. This is a book that presented me with literally zero ideas I hadn’t heard before but someone strung them together so eloquently and intelligently that it unlocked all kinds of new connections in my brain.
Read
February 18, 2024DNF but not because it's bad. I don't know if it's just that I've read so many things like this over the years, but this felt very introductory and I wanted more. It also does the identity politics thing of repeating the long list of most marginalized demographics every 5 seconds which makes the book drag. I understand why they emphasize it but there's gotta be a way to say less so we can get more out of the tactical part that I'm interested in. Might return to it later.
March 6, 2024
No More Police: A Case for Abolition examines the white supremacist structure of the prison industrial complex and its impact on society. Statistical data is reviewed to show how policing has failed to provide safety, and instead, how it further perpetuates violence among communities. This Black feminist critique of policing makes a strong case for abolition in a society infested with police brutality and the emergence of multiple Cop Cities.
“We recognize … the future we are trying to build is not yet fully drawn. But we do know this: the carceral state is death-making, policing as we know it today is violence, and we desperately need life-affirming institutions built in their stead. This knowledge can ground us as we experiment and build toward a world free of policing.”
This book argues the necessity in divesting from the prison industrial complex and reinvesting resources, time, and energy into fulfilling the basic needs of communities. In doing so, communities have the capacity to be safe spaces for all peoples. This book also examines how Black, trans, Indigenous, queer, and disabled people are disproportionately targeted and affected by police violence and surveillance. I really enjoyed how this book tackled common questions and concerns regarding a society without the presence of policing. Creativity and imagination are key in addressing this issue.
“We’re all complicit - it’s just a matter of degree. In other words: we all have a part to play in transforming our conditions and ourselves. We must practice accountability with those we love, work to uproot all forms of oppression, organize across difference, and build power to dismantle the carceral state. It will take all of us to dismantle death-making institutions, change the ways we understand and relate to each other, and build safer and more just communities without them.”
Check out emergent strategy in conjunction with abolition!
“We recognize … the future we are trying to build is not yet fully drawn. But we do know this: the carceral state is death-making, policing as we know it today is violence, and we desperately need life-affirming institutions built in their stead. This knowledge can ground us as we experiment and build toward a world free of policing.”
This book argues the necessity in divesting from the prison industrial complex and reinvesting resources, time, and energy into fulfilling the basic needs of communities. In doing so, communities have the capacity to be safe spaces for all peoples. This book also examines how Black, trans, Indigenous, queer, and disabled people are disproportionately targeted and affected by police violence and surveillance. I really enjoyed how this book tackled common questions and concerns regarding a society without the presence of policing. Creativity and imagination are key in addressing this issue.
“We’re all complicit - it’s just a matter of degree. In other words: we all have a part to play in transforming our conditions and ourselves. We must practice accountability with those we love, work to uproot all forms of oppression, organize across difference, and build power to dismantle the carceral state. It will take all of us to dismantle death-making institutions, change the ways we understand and relate to each other, and build safer and more just communities without them.”
Check out emergent strategy in conjunction with abolition!
January 22, 2023
Excellent resource for anyone wanting to learn more about abolition & it's thoughts, goals, and some first steps. It may not answer all your questions, and it may not convince you entirely - but it will definitely give you some things to think about, investigate, and reconsider. I definitely recommend, especially to anyone who finds the title shocking/upsetting. It's really worth hearing these observations, critiques, and challenges to the current status quo.
March 9, 2023
This is a comprehensive handbook of PIC abolition. It does a great job of explaining the larger vision of abolition—that it isn’t solely about getting rid of cops and prisons but the soft forms of policing as well. This was a very substantive and rich read.
Want to read
March 12, 2022Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.
October 21, 2022
Pheeeeeew~ ! This is jam packed. A really definitive argument against policing and one I will refer to as I continue organizing!
September 21, 2024
Cops are violence workers. And I guess we use that term “workers” lightly or not in the same way we are cultural workers or educators, healthcare workers, etc. This book should be required reading for anyone who has an opinion on police and abolition. Cops don’t do anything good.
January 3, 2023
Couldn't imagine a better book to wrap up 2022. Make it your 2023 New Year's resolution to read this. One of the most inspiring, life-changing books I've read in a long time.
June 11, 2023
There are three things you cannot say about those who made calls to “defund the police” or more precisely, abolish the police (and the criminal justice system, or as they more accurately refer to it as, the “criminal punishment system”) in the wake of the George Floyd killing, or the 2020 Uprisings, as movement activists call it: 1.) That it was their first time calling for such a solution, as abolitionists had been working in that space, and even in Minneapolis where the killing occurred, for years, even decades, prior; 2.) That they haven’t extensively thought through the what, why, how, and then what of abolition; and 3.) That there aren’t a wide array of grassroots organizations, nonprofits, mutual aid groups, violence interventionists, and so on, that have been doing the work in communities experiencing violence (and violent police) for decades, already providing the groundwork for a world without police and the criminal punishment system. After the George Floyd killing and the 2020 Uprisings, I think all three criticisms were uttered in some form or fashion by politicians, pundits, and the public: this “slogan” came out of nowhere and was opportunistic after the death of George Floyd; the activists haven’t thought “defund the police” through and it’s naïve at best and dangerous at worst, and it turns off the public (in fact, it put abolition into the mainstream for the first time); and perhaps the most common refrain any time police are violent is “what about crime in your community?” In Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie’s 2022 book, No More Police: A Case for Abolition, the two movement activists and Black feminist abolitionists fully flesh out the three things you can’t accurately say about abolitionists (in response to what people are always saying about those who protest police violence), and they make a compelling case for police and by extension, all forms of government policing, including imperialism and war adventurism abroad, border control, and the many ways policing permeates other facets of society, including at hospitals, schools, and through child protective services organizations, or what Kaba and Ritchie refer to as, “family control,” through “soft policing,” to be abolished, as well as our punishment apparatus known as the criminal justice system.
Something I ran into when I was in college was the folly of reform as it regarded rape and sexual assault on campus. That is, you can’t reform a system that, as Kaba and Ritchie would argue with respect to policing, is working as intended. In other words, after researching the issue of the university’s response to rape and sexual assault on campus, that going back for years, at least into the 1990s, the university had convened task force after task force after task force to address the issue, and yet, years later, nothing meaningful had changed (except perhaps more money going to administrators). Kaba and Ritchie convincingly outline how the same is true of American policing going back more than a century: task forces, both at the federal, state, and local level, supposedly independent civilian commissions, and of course, federal consent decrees, have all occurred at one point or another across the country and with varying degrees in police departments, as well as federal reports on policing with a slew of recommendations for reform. And yet.
Reforming the police is a tempting mindset, one Kaba and Ritchie admit to embracing at various points. I, myself, have embraced it. The idea being twofold, I think, at least for myself: 1.) We can make policing better if we just implement X, Y, and Z, including better technology via body cameras, which Kaba and Ritchie compellingly take to task the idea of technology saving us from bad policing; and 2.) To shift the Overton window, as it were, to at least get those who currently favor the status quo with policing to at least embrace some sort of reform efforts that move us to less violent outcomes. I used this tactic a lot, especially as it concerned race. My motive was, hey, I will take race completely off the table, so, will you now embrace these reform efforts? It wasn’t effective, though, because even with race off the table — the idea being, people were perhaps getting distracted by that aspect of the discourse — people, not surprisingly, still didn’t want to embrace police reforms. Because to them, policing is working as intended for them, and if it’s not, then, as Kaba and Ritchie point out, the mantra is always “more funding for more cops and more technology and more community policing.” That is government in a nutshell: If it’s not working, throw more money at it; if it is working (or seems to be), better throw more money at it to ensure it continues to work.
And naturally, Kaba and Ritchie talk about how there was an intense backlash to the “defund” movement in the wake of Floyd’s death, where fearmongering was abundant, including from the Democratic president, no less, to fund police because crime was supposedly going up (not really), and specifically going up in places where police budgets had been slashed (not really, since budgets weren’t slashed!).
On the criminal justice system front, or prisons, Kaba and Ritchie making a moving argument for our system, indeed, being one about meting out punishment rather than ensuring accountability for wrongdoing, and whether the former serves the interest of lessening violence in society (it doesn’t, they rightly argue). Prisons, including because of prison guards, are also rife with violence and sexual assault. Kaba and Ritchie don’t accept such punishment for killer cops, either. That is how ardent they are in their beliefs. It’s admirable because if you start making exceptions in your abolition, then you don’t actually believe in abolition. It’s like the people who argue against the death penalty except for the really bad crimes. Well, then you’re for the death penalty. It’s that simple. This accountability paradigm versus one of punishment is what Kaba and Ritchie call transformative justice, a nonpunitive response to harm and violence. It seems like such an obvious reframing: Instead of using more violence in response to violence, they … don’t. They quote Mia Mingus, founder of the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, who states, “TJ is not simply the absence of the state and violence, but the presence of the values, practices, relationships, and world that we want.” That’s Mingus’ emphasis. People hear abolition and automatically think, as Kaba and Ritchie rightly bemoan, “What will be the police alternative then?” and think of it as an absence to be filled. In many ways, its tantamount to what happened after the American Civil War: Abolition of chattel slavery won the day, but it would be sort of odd to be like, “And replace it with what?” Instead, it’s about, as Mingus said, the presence of the world we want where African Americans aren’t enslaved anymore. Where American failed is we didn’t build that world by seeing Reconstruction through. Instead, we did indeed find an alternative to slavery that was very similar to slavery. Kaba and Ritchie rightly do not want that to happen, which is also why they are skeptical of soft policing, counselors, diversion programs, drug treatment courts, and the like as “alternatives.” Because, in form or another, they still amount to “controlling and containing” the undesirables, shifting them with “someone else” to “somewhere else,” as Kaba and Ritchie aptly put it.
I should back up. Kaba and Ritchie’s work is largely already in my wheelhouse, which is to say, I’m already a believer in the premise, promise, and practice of abolishing the police and the criminal justice system. My ideology is rooted in free market libertarianism and anarchism. I’ve written extensively about policing and the criminal justice system, with a flashpoint being Michael Brown and Ferguson in 2014, but prior to then, too. I especially appreciate the areas in which I thought Kaba and Ritchie’s work from a Black feminist abolitionist lens overlaps with my understanding of free market libertarianism, primarily in a.) abolishing the police and the criminal justice system, which includes a strong anti-war stance and anti-border and migrant enforcement stance; b.) necessarily then, against areas of life that are criminalized currently, including occupational licensing (that is, criminalizing those for performing activities, like braiding hair, without a license), the sex trade, the allowance for street vendors, the mentally ill with force institutionalization, police in schools, hospitals, and so on; c.) even those who have criticized COVID-19 policing will find common ground with Kaba and Ritchie, who are against how it worked because of how it became yet another reason to disproportionately target marginalized communities; and d.) it is inevitable that when you dip your intellect into the pool of abolition of the state’s monopolization on the legitimate use of force (police) and punishment (the criminal justice system), that will lead to questions about the very existence of the state itself, which Kaba and Ritchie richly dive into. In other words, another criticism of movement activists, particularly abolitionists, is how can they say one arm of the state (the police and the criminal justice system) is irredeemably white supremacist, but then seek the very same state’s help in areas they deem worthwhile (public schooling, healthcare, housing, etc.)? As I was reading the book, I was thinking a similar thought: Reforming policing is rightly considered a futile effort by Kaba and Ritchie, but reforming the state itself is possible (which also has the same problem of “if only we can get the right people in place” as policing reform does)? Well, Kaba and Ritchie’s response, thankfully, is largely, we can provide public schooling, healthcare, housing, etc., outside of the state. And in the short-term, we should reallocate the $100 billion annually spent on policing in the United States to those endeavors. Which is another area where pragmatic free market libertarian anarchists overlap with Kaba and Ritchie: believing that on the way to abolition of the state writ large, we should do the best we can, indeed all we can, for the least among us, the most marginalized and the worst off. In fact, some libertarians and anarchists, including myself, have flirted with the idea of a universal basic income instead of the welfare state, which Kaba and Ritchie worry has too many conditional strings placed upon who is “deserving” of it.
Overall, it is worth emphasizing that Kaba and Ritchie think too much of society, particularly as it comes down upon Black, Indigenous, trans, LGBTQIA+, disabled, migrant, and low-income/no-income persons, criminalizes behavior precisely because policing is not about “serving and protecting,” but rather, as previously mentioned, “controlling and containing.” The less we criminalize in the intermediary, the less opportunities there are for police interactions. The less we criminalize in the intermediary, the more communities can look to solutions that don’t require calling the police to intervene and potentially make a nonviolent situation more violent. And indeed, Kaba and Ritchie rightly attack the notion of “criminality” at all, both what is considered criminal, but also what is considered violent. What flows from that is then how to accurately assess violence and nonviolent “crime” in America, which spoiler alert, is a fraught exercise, both overstated and understated in equal measure (overcriminalizing and underreporting, respectively). But as we see, more money, more personnel, and more resources is always the answer when it comes to policing’s repeated failures to prevent and solve the most serious crimes, and no matter what the fluctuations in the statistics state. Even something that seems readily acceptable, as far as that goes, like the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which I also believe Biden was a strong backer of, is criticized by Kaba and Ritchie for merely being another vehicle of police funding creep over the years, and which certainly doesn’t prevent violence against women (again, police rarely arrive on the scene of a violence crime to prevent or mitigate it, or to arrest the offending party or parties), and is actually damaging to survivors of violence, either by dismissing them (causing underreporting) or criminalizing survivors. The question for Kaba and Ritchie, and the rest of society, arises: Why do we continue turning to police as the one solution for violence and sexual assault? Indeed why, when often, police both in their profession and private lives, are just as guilty of violence and sexual assault, but also because it hasn’t worked for nearly 40 years. Kaba and Ritchie would rightly argue that the magical thinking is not abolition, but that we can make policing work despite decades of trying reforms, more funding, more personnel, more technology and resources without success in the stated aim to solve and/or reduce and/or prevent violence.
The one area I do disagree with Kaba and Ritchie’s thorough and considered analysis is their criticisms of what they call “racial capitalism” and their endeavor to also abolish that system, which they think the state props up. My issue with that analysis is first, much of what they are criticizing and trying to dismantle concerns the state and its monopolization on the legitimate use of violence and punishment. Yes, that intersects with capitalism inasmuch as crony capitalism manifest through firms (and people, including the fraternal order of police organizations throughout the country who are the ugliest in their abjection to any meaningful reform, or “police unions”) vying for the power of the state to wield it in a way that benefits them, including through profit. But the root problem is the state and its considerable monopolistic power, not profit itself. Relatedly then, and to my second point of contention with the analysis, is that I think what I prefer to call the free market, is a great benefactor, not a hinderance, to liberation from the state, its power, and indeed, its monopolistic violence disproportionately concentrated against marginalized and oppressed individuals. Far from being a centralizing force of exploitation and deleterious individualism, the free market is all about mutual cooperation and peaceful exchange, which is at the heart of abolition and the presence of mutual aid societies and other community-based organizations. Kaba and Ritchie rightly point out the problem with the misallocation of $100 billion to police agencies across the United States instead of to causes they deem worthy, but I would push the analysis further: That is precisely the problem with the state! It is a fight over the allocation pie, whereas the free market has no such pie, no zero-sum gamesmanship to it since humans are wealth-generators and we possess the greatest renewable resource known to Earth and mankind, our brains, enabling us to create an infinite number of diverse pies for everyone.
All of this is to say, when I marry my own precepts and ideology that brought me to abolition with the vision Kaba and Ritchie describe in No More Police sans the anti-capitalist take, I see a beautiful future of a better world with more peace, more abundance (something Kaba and Ritchie want), more cooperation, more community, and a better quality of life for everyone. But, and this is important, what I also love about Kaba and Ritchie’s treatment of abolition and paving the path forward, is that they lean into disagreements and dialogue with others. There is no hegemonic abolitionist vision, not among Black feminist abolitionists like them, and not among other abolitionist movement voices, and certainly, of course, not with abolition-friendly folks like libertarians/anarchists. However, as I’ve outlined, there are many areas of agreement in which to move to that better world. As I always like to say, we want the same thing, and in this case, we largely agree with the means on how to get there, but we do have a disagreement about what the fulfillment of abolition might look like (and fulfillment is for lack of a better word because Kaba and Ritchie rightly point out that abolition is an always-in-progress project, with mistakes and failures, fruits of experimentation, along the way to learn from), but that’s fine! My vision of a free market anarchistic society would certainly, obviously allow for those who don’t believe in capitalism to exist and build their own version of society. And I say that even though Kaba and Ritchie believe that abolition and racial capitalism are not able to coexist. Maybe they’re right with their analysis of capitalism, as they understand it, though. Maybe we agree more than we think since I skew more to the framing of the free market/free exchange of goods and services and ideas versus capitalism as typically understood.
Nonetheless, that potential disagreement aside, I found Kaba and Ritchie’s book well-reasoned, well-researched, and well-argued. Yes, I’m already a convert in many ways, but I couldn’t help but be moved, inspired, and captivated by the myriad ways movement activists like them have long-been doing the work and continue doing the work to build a future beyond, outside of, and after policing and the criminal justice system is abolished, and as I’ve said, often without any recognition or notice by those who think that work isn’t even happening (but I do think they overlook it in bad faith). After all, Kaba and Ritchie’s point is that abolition isn’t absence, but rather the presence of all the positive community-based solutions (and they are even hesitant to render “community” itself a panacea) to make a more peaceful, nonviolent, abundant society that respects all people and lets all people live their truest, best lives. Kaba and Ritchie put the onus, as it ought to be, on those who believe we need policing, and indeed, more policing, to explain why and how that is going to solve the root causes of violence and other interpersonal issues instead of non-policing solutions. They (the “police preservationists,” as Kaba calls them) don’t want that onus, which is why they strike back in paranoia any time policing is questioned in the United States.
If you’re even somewhat curious about this topic, I would highly encourage you to check out their book. If you’re already converted like me on the topic of abolition, you’ll still find this book useful for how to think through the issue in all its many facets. Kaba and Ritchie made me think and question myself, which I always appreciate.
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Something I ran into when I was in college was the folly of reform as it regarded rape and sexual assault on campus. That is, you can’t reform a system that, as Kaba and Ritchie would argue with respect to policing, is working as intended. In other words, after researching the issue of the university’s response to rape and sexual assault on campus, that going back for years, at least into the 1990s, the university had convened task force after task force after task force to address the issue, and yet, years later, nothing meaningful had changed (except perhaps more money going to administrators). Kaba and Ritchie convincingly outline how the same is true of American policing going back more than a century: task forces, both at the federal, state, and local level, supposedly independent civilian commissions, and of course, federal consent decrees, have all occurred at one point or another across the country and with varying degrees in police departments, as well as federal reports on policing with a slew of recommendations for reform. And yet.
Reforming the police is a tempting mindset, one Kaba and Ritchie admit to embracing at various points. I, myself, have embraced it. The idea being twofold, I think, at least for myself: 1.) We can make policing better if we just implement X, Y, and Z, including better technology via body cameras, which Kaba and Ritchie compellingly take to task the idea of technology saving us from bad policing; and 2.) To shift the Overton window, as it were, to at least get those who currently favor the status quo with policing to at least embrace some sort of reform efforts that move us to less violent outcomes. I used this tactic a lot, especially as it concerned race. My motive was, hey, I will take race completely off the table, so, will you now embrace these reform efforts? It wasn’t effective, though, because even with race off the table — the idea being, people were perhaps getting distracted by that aspect of the discourse — people, not surprisingly, still didn’t want to embrace police reforms. Because to them, policing is working as intended for them, and if it’s not, then, as Kaba and Ritchie point out, the mantra is always “more funding for more cops and more technology and more community policing.” That is government in a nutshell: If it’s not working, throw more money at it; if it is working (or seems to be), better throw more money at it to ensure it continues to work.
And naturally, Kaba and Ritchie talk about how there was an intense backlash to the “defund” movement in the wake of Floyd’s death, where fearmongering was abundant, including from the Democratic president, no less, to fund police because crime was supposedly going up (not really), and specifically going up in places where police budgets had been slashed (not really, since budgets weren’t slashed!).
On the criminal justice system front, or prisons, Kaba and Ritchie making a moving argument for our system, indeed, being one about meting out punishment rather than ensuring accountability for wrongdoing, and whether the former serves the interest of lessening violence in society (it doesn’t, they rightly argue). Prisons, including because of prison guards, are also rife with violence and sexual assault. Kaba and Ritchie don’t accept such punishment for killer cops, either. That is how ardent they are in their beliefs. It’s admirable because if you start making exceptions in your abolition, then you don’t actually believe in abolition. It’s like the people who argue against the death penalty except for the really bad crimes. Well, then you’re for the death penalty. It’s that simple. This accountability paradigm versus one of punishment is what Kaba and Ritchie call transformative justice, a nonpunitive response to harm and violence. It seems like such an obvious reframing: Instead of using more violence in response to violence, they … don’t. They quote Mia Mingus, founder of the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, who states, “TJ is not simply the absence of the state and violence, but the presence of the values, practices, relationships, and world that we want.” That’s Mingus’ emphasis. People hear abolition and automatically think, as Kaba and Ritchie rightly bemoan, “What will be the police alternative then?” and think of it as an absence to be filled. In many ways, its tantamount to what happened after the American Civil War: Abolition of chattel slavery won the day, but it would be sort of odd to be like, “And replace it with what?” Instead, it’s about, as Mingus said, the presence of the world we want where African Americans aren’t enslaved anymore. Where American failed is we didn’t build that world by seeing Reconstruction through. Instead, we did indeed find an alternative to slavery that was very similar to slavery. Kaba and Ritchie rightly do not want that to happen, which is also why they are skeptical of soft policing, counselors, diversion programs, drug treatment courts, and the like as “alternatives.” Because, in form or another, they still amount to “controlling and containing” the undesirables, shifting them with “someone else” to “somewhere else,” as Kaba and Ritchie aptly put it.
I should back up. Kaba and Ritchie’s work is largely already in my wheelhouse, which is to say, I’m already a believer in the premise, promise, and practice of abolishing the police and the criminal justice system. My ideology is rooted in free market libertarianism and anarchism. I’ve written extensively about policing and the criminal justice system, with a flashpoint being Michael Brown and Ferguson in 2014, but prior to then, too. I especially appreciate the areas in which I thought Kaba and Ritchie’s work from a Black feminist abolitionist lens overlaps with my understanding of free market libertarianism, primarily in a.) abolishing the police and the criminal justice system, which includes a strong anti-war stance and anti-border and migrant enforcement stance; b.) necessarily then, against areas of life that are criminalized currently, including occupational licensing (that is, criminalizing those for performing activities, like braiding hair, without a license), the sex trade, the allowance for street vendors, the mentally ill with force institutionalization, police in schools, hospitals, and so on; c.) even those who have criticized COVID-19 policing will find common ground with Kaba and Ritchie, who are against how it worked because of how it became yet another reason to disproportionately target marginalized communities; and d.) it is inevitable that when you dip your intellect into the pool of abolition of the state’s monopolization on the legitimate use of force (police) and punishment (the criminal justice system), that will lead to questions about the very existence of the state itself, which Kaba and Ritchie richly dive into. In other words, another criticism of movement activists, particularly abolitionists, is how can they say one arm of the state (the police and the criminal justice system) is irredeemably white supremacist, but then seek the very same state’s help in areas they deem worthwhile (public schooling, healthcare, housing, etc.)? As I was reading the book, I was thinking a similar thought: Reforming policing is rightly considered a futile effort by Kaba and Ritchie, but reforming the state itself is possible (which also has the same problem of “if only we can get the right people in place” as policing reform does)? Well, Kaba and Ritchie’s response, thankfully, is largely, we can provide public schooling, healthcare, housing, etc., outside of the state. And in the short-term, we should reallocate the $100 billion annually spent on policing in the United States to those endeavors. Which is another area where pragmatic free market libertarian anarchists overlap with Kaba and Ritchie: believing that on the way to abolition of the state writ large, we should do the best we can, indeed all we can, for the least among us, the most marginalized and the worst off. In fact, some libertarians and anarchists, including myself, have flirted with the idea of a universal basic income instead of the welfare state, which Kaba and Ritchie worry has too many conditional strings placed upon who is “deserving” of it.
Overall, it is worth emphasizing that Kaba and Ritchie think too much of society, particularly as it comes down upon Black, Indigenous, trans, LGBTQIA+, disabled, migrant, and low-income/no-income persons, criminalizes behavior precisely because policing is not about “serving and protecting,” but rather, as previously mentioned, “controlling and containing.” The less we criminalize in the intermediary, the less opportunities there are for police interactions. The less we criminalize in the intermediary, the more communities can look to solutions that don’t require calling the police to intervene and potentially make a nonviolent situation more violent. And indeed, Kaba and Ritchie rightly attack the notion of “criminality” at all, both what is considered criminal, but also what is considered violent. What flows from that is then how to accurately assess violence and nonviolent “crime” in America, which spoiler alert, is a fraught exercise, both overstated and understated in equal measure (overcriminalizing and underreporting, respectively). But as we see, more money, more personnel, and more resources is always the answer when it comes to policing’s repeated failures to prevent and solve the most serious crimes, and no matter what the fluctuations in the statistics state. Even something that seems readily acceptable, as far as that goes, like the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which I also believe Biden was a strong backer of, is criticized by Kaba and Ritchie for merely being another vehicle of police funding creep over the years, and which certainly doesn’t prevent violence against women (again, police rarely arrive on the scene of a violence crime to prevent or mitigate it, or to arrest the offending party or parties), and is actually damaging to survivors of violence, either by dismissing them (causing underreporting) or criminalizing survivors. The question for Kaba and Ritchie, and the rest of society, arises: Why do we continue turning to police as the one solution for violence and sexual assault? Indeed why, when often, police both in their profession and private lives, are just as guilty of violence and sexual assault, but also because it hasn’t worked for nearly 40 years. Kaba and Ritchie would rightly argue that the magical thinking is not abolition, but that we can make policing work despite decades of trying reforms, more funding, more personnel, more technology and resources without success in the stated aim to solve and/or reduce and/or prevent violence.
The one area I do disagree with Kaba and Ritchie’s thorough and considered analysis is their criticisms of what they call “racial capitalism” and their endeavor to also abolish that system, which they think the state props up. My issue with that analysis is first, much of what they are criticizing and trying to dismantle concerns the state and its monopolization on the legitimate use of violence and punishment. Yes, that intersects with capitalism inasmuch as crony capitalism manifest through firms (and people, including the fraternal order of police organizations throughout the country who are the ugliest in their abjection to any meaningful reform, or “police unions”) vying for the power of the state to wield it in a way that benefits them, including through profit. But the root problem is the state and its considerable monopolistic power, not profit itself. Relatedly then, and to my second point of contention with the analysis, is that I think what I prefer to call the free market, is a great benefactor, not a hinderance, to liberation from the state, its power, and indeed, its monopolistic violence disproportionately concentrated against marginalized and oppressed individuals. Far from being a centralizing force of exploitation and deleterious individualism, the free market is all about mutual cooperation and peaceful exchange, which is at the heart of abolition and the presence of mutual aid societies and other community-based organizations. Kaba and Ritchie rightly point out the problem with the misallocation of $100 billion to police agencies across the United States instead of to causes they deem worthy, but I would push the analysis further: That is precisely the problem with the state! It is a fight over the allocation pie, whereas the free market has no such pie, no zero-sum gamesmanship to it since humans are wealth-generators and we possess the greatest renewable resource known to Earth and mankind, our brains, enabling us to create an infinite number of diverse pies for everyone.
All of this is to say, when I marry my own precepts and ideology that brought me to abolition with the vision Kaba and Ritchie describe in No More Police sans the anti-capitalist take, I see a beautiful future of a better world with more peace, more abundance (something Kaba and Ritchie want), more cooperation, more community, and a better quality of life for everyone. But, and this is important, what I also love about Kaba and Ritchie’s treatment of abolition and paving the path forward, is that they lean into disagreements and dialogue with others. There is no hegemonic abolitionist vision, not among Black feminist abolitionists like them, and not among other abolitionist movement voices, and certainly, of course, not with abolition-friendly folks like libertarians/anarchists. However, as I’ve outlined, there are many areas of agreement in which to move to that better world. As I always like to say, we want the same thing, and in this case, we largely agree with the means on how to get there, but we do have a disagreement about what the fulfillment of abolition might look like (and fulfillment is for lack of a better word because Kaba and Ritchie rightly point out that abolition is an always-in-progress project, with mistakes and failures, fruits of experimentation, along the way to learn from), but that’s fine! My vision of a free market anarchistic society would certainly, obviously allow for those who don’t believe in capitalism to exist and build their own version of society. And I say that even though Kaba and Ritchie believe that abolition and racial capitalism are not able to coexist. Maybe they’re right with their analysis of capitalism, as they understand it, though. Maybe we agree more than we think since I skew more to the framing of the free market/free exchange of goods and services and ideas versus capitalism as typically understood.
Nonetheless, that potential disagreement aside, I found Kaba and Ritchie’s book well-reasoned, well-researched, and well-argued. Yes, I’m already a convert in many ways, but I couldn’t help but be moved, inspired, and captivated by the myriad ways movement activists like them have long-been doing the work and continue doing the work to build a future beyond, outside of, and after policing and the criminal justice system is abolished, and as I’ve said, often without any recognition or notice by those who think that work isn’t even happening (but I do think they overlook it in bad faith). After all, Kaba and Ritchie’s point is that abolition isn’t absence, but rather the presence of all the positive community-based solutions (and they are even hesitant to render “community” itself a panacea) to make a more peaceful, nonviolent, abundant society that respects all people and lets all people live their truest, best lives. Kaba and Ritchie put the onus, as it ought to be, on those who believe we need policing, and indeed, more policing, to explain why and how that is going to solve the root causes of violence and other interpersonal issues instead of non-policing solutions. They (the “police preservationists,” as Kaba calls them) don’t want that onus, which is why they strike back in paranoia any time policing is questioned in the United States.
If you’re even somewhat curious about this topic, I would highly encourage you to check out their book. If you’re already converted like me on the topic of abolition, you’ll still find this book useful for how to think through the issue in all its many facets. Kaba and Ritchie made me think and question myself, which I always appreciate.
Share this:
April 13, 2024
required reading. permission to dream
May 29, 2023
This is super comprehensive and accessible and I’m probably going to buy a print copy to highlight/take notes.
April 7, 2024
A ‘TRANSFORMATIVE’ VISION INFORMED BY BLACK FEMINIST EXPERIENCE, ETC.
Authors Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie wrote in the Foreword to this 2022 book, “We demand transformation. We’ve spent the past two years getting familiar with the legal roadblocks thrown up by bureaucrats afraid of change, and devising methods to thwart them. We know that what we’re doing in Minneapolis matters to other defund and abolition efforts… and we are committed to the continued organizing it will take to make real this collective vision… For us, the journey of political education that led to the demand to defund the police began in 2014, after police in Ferguson, Missouri, killed Michael Brown… After the death of Jamar Clark, who was shot by the MPD… we were part of the response that established a No Cop Zone and the subsequent eighteen-day occupation of the Fourth Precinct police station.” (Pg. xiii-xiv) Later, they add, “Now we are thinking about how to see abolition work for the long term. Every year, just in Minnesota, far more than $30 million is needed for all our movements. We need philanthropy to step up, and we need a transformation of public investment in the people, not the police.” (Pg. xvii)
They continue, “we want to be clear about one thing: abolition is the goal. ‘Defund the police’ is a clear rallying call based on an understanding that police and prisons do not keep us safe. It is an economic policy argument that recognizes the role of capital resources in fueling our oppression. And it is a call to budget and policymakers to invest in the care our communities need to create real safety… Defund… is not the destination but a step on the path to abolition. Taking away and reallocating capital resources opens the possibility of imagining what individual and community supports need to be in place to realize true and inclusive public safety.” (Pg. xviii)
They explain in the Introduction, “While the call to defund the police struck some as radical and new, this was hardly the first time that communities had made this demand… While calls to defund are not new, 2020 WAS the first time that local demands to cut police budgets morphed into a national call to action and became a mainstream topic of conversation. Organizers… engaged hundreds of thousands of community members in conversations about anti-Black violence, policing, public safety, and participatory budgeting to meet community needs… Our ongoing engagement in movements to defund and abolish police… are rooted in our own experiences and reckonings over the past three decades---as survivors of both police and interpersonal violence, as anti-violence advocates, as scholars, as organizers in movements for Black liberation… and as Black feminists.” (Pg. 8-9)
They add, “the demand to defund police is not just about cuts to police budgets. It is also about limiting police contact, functions, weapons, legitimacy, and power---and uprooting surveillance, policing, punishment, and criminalization from every aspect of our lives.” (Pg. 13) They continue, “Abolitionists are interested in doing away with the system rather than finding ways to make it work better, or to make it ‘kinder and gentler.’ We don’t see the PIC [Prison-Industrial Complex] as ‘broken’---we see it as working very, very well---at surveilling, policing, imprisoning, and killing exactly the people and communities it targets, in service of the power structures that produce and require it.” (Pg. 16)
They explain, “Far more than a budgetary exercise, defunding police means striking at the root of the forces that have created a society that extracts resources from Black, Indigenous, migrant, disabled, and low-income populations, deprives them of basic needs, infrastructure, and shared public goods, and then criminalizes them for struggling to survive… it means shrinking the size, scope, equipment, and power of police departments with a view to dismantling them---and the prison industrial complex they fuel… The goal is… to create safety and conditions under which all communities can thrive without the threat of violence, exile, or punishment. The goal is to strike at the heart of racial capitalism---and remake society anew…. [This book] is a book for people who are engaged in movements to defund police and abolish the PIC---and for those who want to learn more about them.” (Pg. 32)
They argue, “One of the inevitable responses is, ‘But what about the rapists and the batterers?’ Our answer… is simple: What about them, indeed. We know that policing and prisons don’t stop rape, domestic violence, or child abuse from happening---and in fact, they perpetuate them. They don’t offer what survivors say they need, and in many cases, they place survivors in danger of more violence.” (Pg. 36) Later, they add, “These questions… are also asked as if it is our sole responsibility to answer them---rather than a collective responsibility to reckon with the reality that policing and prisons have not provided satisfactory answers. They are asked as if billions we spend on policing each year haven’t consistently failed to prevent endemic rates of violence in our communities…” (Pg. 101)
They state, “None of this … stopped politicians and pundits from playing fast and loose with the facts, conflating homicides, ‘violent crime’ … and ‘crime’ in order to claim that all were skyrocketing and would continue to do so unless police budgets are once again increased… During the period that homicides have been on the rise… investments in meeting community needs and violence prevention have declined… In 2020, cities such as Houston, Nashville, Tulsa, and Fresno experienced a spike on homicides, even as their police budgets increased… What DID cause the increase in homicides? There are many factors at play and, according to some researchers, as much as 60 percent of variations in homicide rates can be attributed to random fluctuations… The year 2020 was one of devastating loss and grief; an unprecedented economic crisis; a looming eviction, foreclosure, and homelessness crisis… and a significant increase in the availability and purchase of guns in 2020 are more likely to be what’s driving increases in homicides.” (Pg. 60-62)
They suggest, “We can begin… by focusing on removing police from specific tasks, arenas, and spaces, such as mental health crisis response… We can eliminate the police units, weaponry, and individual cops who are doing the most harm… We can prioritize termination of cops with violent track records as we shrink the size, reach, and power of police departments… We can … invest in meeting individual and community needs like housing, health care, education, and youth programs, in community-based nonpolice violence prevention, interruption, and transformative justice programs…” (Pg. 177-178)
They note, “We are both regularly asked for ‘concrete’ examples of what safety without police looks like---as if producing a laundry list of fail-safe examples of where and how such a thing has succeeded before is a precondition to continuing conversation about police abolition. While both of us can point to numerous individual… examples… that is not the point. The point is that it is EVERYONE’s opportunity and responsibility to collectively imagine what creating safety for our communities would look like.” (Pg. 201)
They state, “While police preservationists cheered Derek Chauvin’s conviction for murder … as proof the system works to hold bad cops accountable, it represents neither justice nor change. It may offer a measure of solace, in comparison to the alternative…” (Pg. 235)
They summarize, “There is no … one-size-fits-all solution to the multiplicity of needs, conflicts, and harms that exist in our individual communities that can immediately be replicated across the country and scaled up to a national level…. The most effective approaches are often unique to the communities they arose in, because they are rooted in the particular conditions, relationships, and bonds of trust that exist in specific places or among specific groups of people. We can learn and perhaps draw from elements and experiences of other programs…” (Pg. 245-246)
They clarify, “We are Black feminist abolitionists. This means we are shaped by Black feminism and abolition feminism---and their intersections… Black feminism …is rooted in Black women’s lived experiences, in which the violence of the carceral state plays a central role…. We came to abolition guided, and deeply informed, by Black feminist theory and practice.” (Pg. 273-274)
This book would have benefited from fewer ‘theoretical’ principles, and more suggestions of practical STEPS communities can take toward defunding/abolition. Nevertheless, this book will be of great interest to anyone studying such issues.
Authors Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie wrote in the Foreword to this 2022 book, “We demand transformation. We’ve spent the past two years getting familiar with the legal roadblocks thrown up by bureaucrats afraid of change, and devising methods to thwart them. We know that what we’re doing in Minneapolis matters to other defund and abolition efforts… and we are committed to the continued organizing it will take to make real this collective vision… For us, the journey of political education that led to the demand to defund the police began in 2014, after police in Ferguson, Missouri, killed Michael Brown… After the death of Jamar Clark, who was shot by the MPD… we were part of the response that established a No Cop Zone and the subsequent eighteen-day occupation of the Fourth Precinct police station.” (Pg. xiii-xiv) Later, they add, “Now we are thinking about how to see abolition work for the long term. Every year, just in Minnesota, far more than $30 million is needed for all our movements. We need philanthropy to step up, and we need a transformation of public investment in the people, not the police.” (Pg. xvii)
They continue, “we want to be clear about one thing: abolition is the goal. ‘Defund the police’ is a clear rallying call based on an understanding that police and prisons do not keep us safe. It is an economic policy argument that recognizes the role of capital resources in fueling our oppression. And it is a call to budget and policymakers to invest in the care our communities need to create real safety… Defund… is not the destination but a step on the path to abolition. Taking away and reallocating capital resources opens the possibility of imagining what individual and community supports need to be in place to realize true and inclusive public safety.” (Pg. xviii)
They explain in the Introduction, “While the call to defund the police struck some as radical and new, this was hardly the first time that communities had made this demand… While calls to defund are not new, 2020 WAS the first time that local demands to cut police budgets morphed into a national call to action and became a mainstream topic of conversation. Organizers… engaged hundreds of thousands of community members in conversations about anti-Black violence, policing, public safety, and participatory budgeting to meet community needs… Our ongoing engagement in movements to defund and abolish police… are rooted in our own experiences and reckonings over the past three decades---as survivors of both police and interpersonal violence, as anti-violence advocates, as scholars, as organizers in movements for Black liberation… and as Black feminists.” (Pg. 8-9)
They add, “the demand to defund police is not just about cuts to police budgets. It is also about limiting police contact, functions, weapons, legitimacy, and power---and uprooting surveillance, policing, punishment, and criminalization from every aspect of our lives.” (Pg. 13) They continue, “Abolitionists are interested in doing away with the system rather than finding ways to make it work better, or to make it ‘kinder and gentler.’ We don’t see the PIC [Prison-Industrial Complex] as ‘broken’---we see it as working very, very well---at surveilling, policing, imprisoning, and killing exactly the people and communities it targets, in service of the power structures that produce and require it.” (Pg. 16)
They explain, “Far more than a budgetary exercise, defunding police means striking at the root of the forces that have created a society that extracts resources from Black, Indigenous, migrant, disabled, and low-income populations, deprives them of basic needs, infrastructure, and shared public goods, and then criminalizes them for struggling to survive… it means shrinking the size, scope, equipment, and power of police departments with a view to dismantling them---and the prison industrial complex they fuel… The goal is… to create safety and conditions under which all communities can thrive without the threat of violence, exile, or punishment. The goal is to strike at the heart of racial capitalism---and remake society anew…. [This book] is a book for people who are engaged in movements to defund police and abolish the PIC---and for those who want to learn more about them.” (Pg. 32)
They argue, “One of the inevitable responses is, ‘But what about the rapists and the batterers?’ Our answer… is simple: What about them, indeed. We know that policing and prisons don’t stop rape, domestic violence, or child abuse from happening---and in fact, they perpetuate them. They don’t offer what survivors say they need, and in many cases, they place survivors in danger of more violence.” (Pg. 36) Later, they add, “These questions… are also asked as if it is our sole responsibility to answer them---rather than a collective responsibility to reckon with the reality that policing and prisons have not provided satisfactory answers. They are asked as if billions we spend on policing each year haven’t consistently failed to prevent endemic rates of violence in our communities…” (Pg. 101)
They state, “None of this … stopped politicians and pundits from playing fast and loose with the facts, conflating homicides, ‘violent crime’ … and ‘crime’ in order to claim that all were skyrocketing and would continue to do so unless police budgets are once again increased… During the period that homicides have been on the rise… investments in meeting community needs and violence prevention have declined… In 2020, cities such as Houston, Nashville, Tulsa, and Fresno experienced a spike on homicides, even as their police budgets increased… What DID cause the increase in homicides? There are many factors at play and, according to some researchers, as much as 60 percent of variations in homicide rates can be attributed to random fluctuations… The year 2020 was one of devastating loss and grief; an unprecedented economic crisis; a looming eviction, foreclosure, and homelessness crisis… and a significant increase in the availability and purchase of guns in 2020 are more likely to be what’s driving increases in homicides.” (Pg. 60-62)
They suggest, “We can begin… by focusing on removing police from specific tasks, arenas, and spaces, such as mental health crisis response… We can eliminate the police units, weaponry, and individual cops who are doing the most harm… We can prioritize termination of cops with violent track records as we shrink the size, reach, and power of police departments… We can … invest in meeting individual and community needs like housing, health care, education, and youth programs, in community-based nonpolice violence prevention, interruption, and transformative justice programs…” (Pg. 177-178)
They note, “We are both regularly asked for ‘concrete’ examples of what safety without police looks like---as if producing a laundry list of fail-safe examples of where and how such a thing has succeeded before is a precondition to continuing conversation about police abolition. While both of us can point to numerous individual… examples… that is not the point. The point is that it is EVERYONE’s opportunity and responsibility to collectively imagine what creating safety for our communities would look like.” (Pg. 201)
They state, “While police preservationists cheered Derek Chauvin’s conviction for murder … as proof the system works to hold bad cops accountable, it represents neither justice nor change. It may offer a measure of solace, in comparison to the alternative…” (Pg. 235)
They summarize, “There is no … one-size-fits-all solution to the multiplicity of needs, conflicts, and harms that exist in our individual communities that can immediately be replicated across the country and scaled up to a national level…. The most effective approaches are often unique to the communities they arose in, because they are rooted in the particular conditions, relationships, and bonds of trust that exist in specific places or among specific groups of people. We can learn and perhaps draw from elements and experiences of other programs…” (Pg. 245-246)
They clarify, “We are Black feminist abolitionists. This means we are shaped by Black feminism and abolition feminism---and their intersections… Black feminism …is rooted in Black women’s lived experiences, in which the violence of the carceral state plays a central role…. We came to abolition guided, and deeply informed, by Black feminist theory and practice.” (Pg. 273-274)
This book would have benefited from fewer ‘theoretical’ principles, and more suggestions of practical STEPS communities can take toward defunding/abolition. Nevertheless, this book will be of great interest to anyone studying such issues.
April 24, 2023
Thought provoking. Somewhat repetitive. Feels unattainable to achieve within our society but it gave me new perspectives on policing.
August 26, 2023
Absolute eye-opener. Very well organized information, and easy to read.
December 8, 2022
I'm invested in learning more about abolition and mutual aid, interested in building community and reducing harm with alongside others. This book amplifies the work already being done by activists/abolitionists across the globe and highlights all the reasons why reforming police or prisons will not work.
May 16, 2023
As an anarchist, I'm of course someone who has strong feelings about police and law enforcement in general but I also come at the perspective from being a white guy so I have a lot less to fear than most minorities in America who (depending on the minority) have more to fear from the police than they ever do from organized crime. I understand the argument for abolition that this book essentially takes with the view that crime is entirely an invention of hierarchy.
The TLDR version of this book is that people aren't bad and that if you got rid of the pressures of poverty, idiotic drug laws, and stopped vilifying poor communities then crime as we know it would essentially not exist. That trillions of dollars are wasted on policing with minimal results and the victims of countless crimes like racial, sexual, and worse are ignored. It's not an argument that is absolutely silly like people tend to critique it as. It comes from a place where Americans have known us to be for a long time: The War on Drugs is a failure, a lot of laws are paid for by prisons, and the system is broken. Perhaps even scarier that the system is working as intended by individuals like Nixon and Reagan.
Unfortunately, the book struggles with dealing with what (ironically) being a privileged white guy does allow me to note: that violent entitled murderers and assholes would and do engage in behavior that should be criminalized. Less than a block away from my family's McMansion, the police had to shoot down a guy who was going to murder his wife and child because of a domestic dispute. He wasn't a social worker case, he was an abusive scumbag. There's a bunch of militias that hate the government in my area and long for the days of a race war/violent overthrow of society. We had an attempted insurrection by those people who were stopped by a minority-led community's police. It's hard to see the police as a bandaid on this problem because plenty of extremist cops exist and sympathize but they do theoretically exist.
The book points out endless realities that are correct: there's less social safety net than there needs to be, there's almost no mental help for people in America, the public doesn't TRUST the police so the police can't help with actual crimes, and the legal system is utterly boned with massive sentences for victimless crimes while actual victim-filled ones are afraid to report because they'd be victimized in turn. Unfortunately, the book shoots itself in the foot by using an example of, "School shooters are often identified before they go on rampages. What if we didn't have to stigmatize this and they could get help?"
It's essentially the "There's no true bad people, only victims of circumstance" argument. Having known people who did go on spree violence, they're identified because their classmates are afraid of them and they don't receive any real protection from adults from them. Which is the step too far because reality has proven that bullies aren't bullies because they're bullied at home. They're bullies because they get their rocks off from it. Believe me, I grew up among the country club set and plenty were just dirtbags because they liked their lordly privilege.
The question becomes in that respect, "What is the way to deal with the people who would do one worse than what we have now?" Or "Is there any way to get the police to do their damned job?" The latter is probably something similar to a police (Guardians) but much-much smaller, less powerful, and a wholesale change of how capitalism in America is handled. So I'd say the book is 90% good ideas but needs to probably admit that, in fact, there are some awful people.
The TLDR version of this book is that people aren't bad and that if you got rid of the pressures of poverty, idiotic drug laws, and stopped vilifying poor communities then crime as we know it would essentially not exist. That trillions of dollars are wasted on policing with minimal results and the victims of countless crimes like racial, sexual, and worse are ignored. It's not an argument that is absolutely silly like people tend to critique it as. It comes from a place where Americans have known us to be for a long time: The War on Drugs is a failure, a lot of laws are paid for by prisons, and the system is broken. Perhaps even scarier that the system is working as intended by individuals like Nixon and Reagan.
Unfortunately, the book struggles with dealing with what (ironically) being a privileged white guy does allow me to note: that violent entitled murderers and assholes would and do engage in behavior that should be criminalized. Less than a block away from my family's McMansion, the police had to shoot down a guy who was going to murder his wife and child because of a domestic dispute. He wasn't a social worker case, he was an abusive scumbag. There's a bunch of militias that hate the government in my area and long for the days of a race war/violent overthrow of society. We had an attempted insurrection by those people who were stopped by a minority-led community's police. It's hard to see the police as a bandaid on this problem because plenty of extremist cops exist and sympathize but they do theoretically exist.
The book points out endless realities that are correct: there's less social safety net than there needs to be, there's almost no mental help for people in America, the public doesn't TRUST the police so the police can't help with actual crimes, and the legal system is utterly boned with massive sentences for victimless crimes while actual victim-filled ones are afraid to report because they'd be victimized in turn. Unfortunately, the book shoots itself in the foot by using an example of, "School shooters are often identified before they go on rampages. What if we didn't have to stigmatize this and they could get help?"
It's essentially the "There's no true bad people, only victims of circumstance" argument. Having known people who did go on spree violence, they're identified because their classmates are afraid of them and they don't receive any real protection from adults from them. Which is the step too far because reality has proven that bullies aren't bullies because they're bullied at home. They're bullies because they get their rocks off from it. Believe me, I grew up among the country club set and plenty were just dirtbags because they liked their lordly privilege.
The question becomes in that respect, "What is the way to deal with the people who would do one worse than what we have now?" Or "Is there any way to get the police to do their damned job?" The latter is probably something similar to a police (Guardians) but much-much smaller, less powerful, and a wholesale change of how capitalism in America is handled. So I'd say the book is 90% good ideas but needs to probably admit that, in fact, there are some awful people.
April 9, 2023
Written in 2022, this book takes advantage of books written before. But there is much more than a survey of previous works. Various views are put in conversation with each other, their differences explored. And there is much that was new to me.
One thing that has been mentioned in other books I've read is presented more emphatically in this book: readers can't comprehend the possibility of a world without police unless they are able to re-imagine society. And much space is devoted to that re-imagining, including a discussion of nation-states, something I'd not seen before in a discussion of prison/police abolition. More familiar was the discussion challenging the view that police make us safe. Readers are asked to envision what real safety would look and feel like. Also the authors critique some alternatives that folks have proposed (such as house arrest, mandatory drug treatment) as policing/imprisoning in a different form--by someone other than police sent somewhere other than prison--which they call "soft policing." This type "solution" is further evidence of not re-imagining the whole of society, of not getting out of punishment mode.
I was surprised when the authors challenged the view that abolition was a new idea; not only did they claim it had been studied 20+ years, they cite many works and experiences. It occurred to me that the impression of newness may be a white thing; the concept was new to us white people with the George Floyd protests. Not new to Black people who have had a different relationship with police.
Discussions of different approaches to safety were more robust than I recall from earlier reading. There was acknowledgement that their evidence was anecdotal, but the authors claim that demanding a blueprint of the alternative society is premature for a concept in formation. They describe our tendency to be linear, to seek to have a full alternative in place before dismantling the police. Rather, they claim, the processes could be concurrent: proposed reforms that do not strengthen policing as a system can be tried alongside various smaller scale approaches to accountability that replace punishment with healing for both the victim and offender. And I appreciated their realism: everything tried may not work, but we can evaluate experiments and learn from what doesn't work as well as from what does.
Totally unique to this book--at least among those I've read--is the final chapter, "Black Feminist Musings." The chapter combines concluding summary of the book with quotations from feminist scholars, some familiar and some new to me.
If you're new to the subject it provides an overview. If you've done some reading, there is much here worth adding. It ends with a twofold call to action: for those not yet convinced, stay open and keep exploring; for those convinced, start acting.
One thing that has been mentioned in other books I've read is presented more emphatically in this book: readers can't comprehend the possibility of a world without police unless they are able to re-imagine society. And much space is devoted to that re-imagining, including a discussion of nation-states, something I'd not seen before in a discussion of prison/police abolition. More familiar was the discussion challenging the view that police make us safe. Readers are asked to envision what real safety would look and feel like. Also the authors critique some alternatives that folks have proposed (such as house arrest, mandatory drug treatment) as policing/imprisoning in a different form--by someone other than police sent somewhere other than prison--which they call "soft policing." This type "solution" is further evidence of not re-imagining the whole of society, of not getting out of punishment mode.
I was surprised when the authors challenged the view that abolition was a new idea; not only did they claim it had been studied 20+ years, they cite many works and experiences. It occurred to me that the impression of newness may be a white thing; the concept was new to us white people with the George Floyd protests. Not new to Black people who have had a different relationship with police.
Discussions of different approaches to safety were more robust than I recall from earlier reading. There was acknowledgement that their evidence was anecdotal, but the authors claim that demanding a blueprint of the alternative society is premature for a concept in formation. They describe our tendency to be linear, to seek to have a full alternative in place before dismantling the police. Rather, they claim, the processes could be concurrent: proposed reforms that do not strengthen policing as a system can be tried alongside various smaller scale approaches to accountability that replace punishment with healing for both the victim and offender. And I appreciated their realism: everything tried may not work, but we can evaluate experiments and learn from what doesn't work as well as from what does.
Totally unique to this book--at least among those I've read--is the final chapter, "Black Feminist Musings." The chapter combines concluding summary of the book with quotations from feminist scholars, some familiar and some new to me.
If you're new to the subject it provides an overview. If you've done some reading, there is much here worth adding. It ends with a twofold call to action: for those not yet convinced, stay open and keep exploring; for those convinced, start acting.
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