ABOLITIONIST RESOURCES

Practical tools

Amezcua, T., Dixon, E., & Long, C. J. R. (2016). Ten lessons for creating safety without police: https://transformharm.org/ten-lessons-for-creating-safety-without-police/ 

Alternatives to calling the police: https://artisttrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/What-To-Do-Instead-of-Calling-the-Police.pdf

Creative Intervention Toolkit (over 500 pages!) of how to stop interpersonal violence without relying on the prison industrial complex (including the use of policing, imprisonment, surveillance, criminalization or Child Protective Services): http://www.creative-interventions.org/tools/toolkit/

Critical Resistance – tons of practical resources for organizing, movement work, dealing with trauma exposure, etc: https://criticalresistance.org/

Crisis/de-escalation tool – You feel like shit. https://philome.la/jace_harr/you-feel-like-shit-an-interactive-self-care-guide/play/index.html

Dixon, E. (2020). Building community safety: Practical steps toward liberatory transformation. In E. Dixon & L. L. Piepzna-Samarasinha (Eds), Beyond survival: Strategies and stories from the transformative justice movement (pp. 14-24). AK Press.

Fireweed Collective – operates through a disability justice, mutual aid and harm reduction model – has a navigating crisis tool, a power and madness assessment tool, and other resources: https://fireweedcollective.org/fireweed-publications/

GenerationFive. (2017). Ending child sexual abuse: A transformative justice handbook. http://www.generationfive.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Transformative-Justice-Handbook.pdf 

Interrupting Criminalization - website full of practical examples and experimentations with abolitionist principles, political education, readings, and toolkits. https://www.interruptingcriminalization.com/

Kaba, M. & Hassa, S. (2019). Fumbling towards repair: A workbook for community accountability facilitators. Project Nia & Just Practice.

Oakland Power Project: Healthcare: Policing is a Healthcare issue! – full of practical tools re: consent for 911 calls, alternatives, opioid naloxone/Narcan administration, etc: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59ead8f9692ebee25b72f17f/t/5b6aab5e1ae6cfd4011275e2/1533717358865/OPP_booklet_Jun2018_v2-3.pdf

Pod Mapping with the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, written by Mia Mingus: https://batjc.wordpress.com/resources/pods-and-pod-mapping-worksheet/

Zine by Carly Boyce - Helping your friends who sometimes wanna die maybe not die. https://www.tinylantern.net/suicide-intervention-resources

Abolitionist Readings

****Check out the incredible reading list put together by Abolitionist Futures here: https://abolitionistfutures.com/full-reading-list

Abolition Journal (2020). If you’re new to abolition: Study group guide. https://www.anarchistagency.com/critical-voices/abolition-journal-if-youre-new-to-abolition-study-group-guide/

Ben-Moshe L. (2020). Decarcerating disability : deinstitutionalization and prison abolition. University of Minnesota Press.

Ben-Moshe, L., Chapman, C., & Carey, A. C. (2014). Disability incarcerated: Imprisonment and disability in the United States and Canada. Palgrave Macmillan.

brown, a. m. (2017). Emergent strategy: Shaping change, changing worlds. AK Press.

Chitseko, S. (2020). Abolition not reformation. 4Frontproject. Retrieved from: https://www.4frontproject.org/post/abolition-not-reformation

Cramer, M., & Hamja, A. (2023, June 4). What Happened When a Brooklyn Neighborhood Policed Itself for Five Days. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/04/nyregion/brooklyn-brownsville-no-police.html

Davis, A. (2003). Are prisons obsolete? Seven Stories Press.

Davis, A., Dent, G., Meiners, E. R., & Richie, B. E. (2022). Abolition. Feminist. Now. Haymarket Books.

Gilmore, R. W. (2022). Abolition geography: Essays towards liberation. Verso.

Hayes, K. & Kaba, M. (2023). Let this radicalize you: Organizing the revolution of reciprocal care. Haymarket Books.

Jacobs, L. A., Kim, M. E., Whitfield, D. L., Gartner, R. E., Panichelli, M., Kattari, S. K., ... & Mountz, S. E. (2021). Defund the police: Moving towards an anti-carceral social work. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 32(1), 37-62.

James-Townes, L. (2020, August 11). Why social workers cannot work with the police. Slate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/social-workers-police-collaborate.html

Jones, E. (2022). Abolitionist intimacies. Fernwood Publishing.

Kaba, M. (2021). We do this ‘til we free us: Abolitionist organizing and transforming justice. Haymarket Books.

Kaba, M. & Ritchie, A. J. (2022). No more police. A case for abolition. The New Press.

Kim, M. E. (2018). From carceral feminism to transformative justice: Women-of-color feminism and alternatives to incarceration. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 27(3), 219-233.

Maynard, R. (2017). Policing Black lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to present. Fernwood.

Pasternak, S., Walby, K. & Stadnyk, A. (2022). Disarm, defund, dismantle: Police abolition in Canada. Between the Lines.

Purnell, D. (2021). Becoming abolitionists: Police, protests, and the pursuit of freedom. Astra House.

Richie, B. E., & Martensen, K. M. (2020). Resisting carcerality, embracing abolition: Implications for feminist social work practice. Affilia, 35(1), 12-16.

Schenwar, M. & Law, V. (2020, July 30). The problem with ‘community policing.’ Slate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/prison-by-any-other-name-book-excerpt.html

Toronto Abolition Convergence. (2020, August 10). An Indigenous abolitionist study guide. Yellowhead Institute. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2020/08/10/an-indigenous-abolitionist-study-group-guide/

Vitale, A. S. (2018). The end of policing. Verso.

Ware, S., Ruzsa, J. & Dias, G. (2014). It can't be fixed because it’s not broken: Racism and disability in the Prison Industrial Complex. In L. Ben-Moshe, C. Chapman, & A.C. Carey (Eds.), Disability incarcerated: Imprisonment and disability in the United States and Canada (pp. 163-184). Palgrave Macmillan.

Abolitionist Videos

Hollow Water. Film directed by Bonnie Dickie about an Ojibway community who uses community healing, ceremony, and circle to deal with sexual abuse in the community. https://www.nfb.ca/film/hollow_water/

Abolition Geography. Talk by Ruth Wilson Gilmore. Ruth Wilson Gilmore on Abolition Geography

Farima Pour-Khorshid. (2022, March). Y(our) pain matters: Towards healing and abolition. Tedx Talk. Y(our) Pain Matters: Toward Healing and Abolition