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Special Project

Power over Policing

In the wake of the 2020 uprisings in the United States following the murder of George Floyd, demands for democratic power over policing—including police and prison abolition—have entered public consciousness with full force and considerable support. Alongside select archival essays, this special project imagines what a just future for policing looks like and how to get there, featuring activists, lawyers and legal scholars, historians, social scientists, and more.

The United States has long supported the repression of Latin American land defenders. The tactics it exported are coming to the Atlanta forest.

Azadeh Shahshahani

Family policing is deeply unjust. The nuclear family is too.

Will Holub-Moorman

Yawning gaps in the law empower police to collect and store massive amounts of data, all on the grounds that it might one day turn out useful.

Emily Berman

Its illegitimacy goes far beyond the war on drugs.

Stuart Schrader
We need to reckon with police lies not only as a form of individual misconduct but as a matter of political speech.
Nia T. Evans
Cities must empower historically marginalized communities to shape how public funds are spent.
Celina Su

The authors of Abolition. Feminism. Now. discuss why racialized state violence and gender-based violence have to be fought together.

Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, Beth E. Richie, & Nia T. Evans

Derecka Purnell discusses her new book Becoming Abolitionists, how she came to join the movement against policing and prisons, and what a just world looks like.

Derecka Purnell, Nia T. Evans

Effective responses to violence—preventing it, interrupting it, holding people accountable, and helping people heal—already exist. We need to learn from and invest in them.

Amanda Alexander, Danielle Sered

Imagining a more just society.

Derecka Purnell

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