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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.

Emily Berman

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.

Stuart Schrader

Its illegitimacy goes far beyond the war on drugs.

Nia T. Evans
We need to reckon with police lies not only as a form of individual misconduct but as a matter of political speech.
Celina Su
Cities must empower historically marginalized communities to shape how public funds are spent.
Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, Beth E. Richie, & Nia T. Evans
The authors of Abolition. Feminism. Now. discuss why racialized state violence and gender-based violence have to be fought together.
Derecka Purnell, 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.

Amanda Alexander, Danielle Sered

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.

Derecka Purnell

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.

Lily Hu

Studying the social world requires more than deference to data—no matter the prestige or sophistication of the tools with which they are parsed.

Robin D. G. Kelley
As a culture of protest took hold in 1960s LA, communities of color also prioritized a radical tradition of care, emphasizing mutual aid, community control, and the transformative power of art and politics.

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