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.
Its illegitimacy goes far beyond the war on drugs.
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.
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.
Abolition is not only about eliminating the police, but imagining new systems that work to ensure a fair, equal society where there is no place for racism, ableism, or state violence.
Studying the social world requires more than deference to data—no matter the prestige or sophistication of the tools with which they are parsed.
