This article describes how the seemingly impossible task of prison & police abolition is actually much more possible than many people might think. What Abolitionists Do ~ article by Dan Berger, Mariame Kaba and David Stein, Jacobin magazine, 2017, United States, English.A Harvard abolitionist student’s response to a letter calling for police reform. What Does Police Abolition Mean? ~ article by Derecka Purnell, Boston Review, 2017, United States, English.Cómo abolir la policía: lecciones de las mujeres revolucionarias de Rojava (en Español) ~ podcast, TerceraVia, 2020, Mexico, Español.Places the fight for police defunding & abolition in historical context, showing that it is not as “new” or “radical” as some might think. The Struggle to Abolish the Police Is Not New ~ Boston Review, 2020, United States, English.Soffiyah Elijah, “State Sanctioned Repression ~ video, Critical Resistance, 2017, United States, English.Lara Kiswani, “Developing New Practices to Advance Migrant Justice” ~ video, Critical Resistance, 2018, United States, English.What’s Wrong With Community Control of Police? ~ video, Critical Resistance, 2017, United States, English.“I was astounded that after all of these prison sentences, there was such a more humane way to address everything that was going on with me.” My main concern with this resource is that people who don’t support abolition can see this and think, “we should keep prisons people just need to grow so they don’t do criminal things that get them into prison.” Shows how housing, education, mental health services, and job support are what people need, rather than prisons, and that it costs less than the prison system. Susan Burton, a formerly-incarcerated black abolition activist started a program for formerly-incarcerated black women caught in the criminal injustice system. Susan Burton (A New Way of Life) ~ video,, 2013, United States, English.It’s much more effective than any prison, any jail, any cage.” Unfortunately features a LAPD cop, but he says the holistic approach does prevent crime. “I figured out that I wasn’t a bad person, I was a hurt person. Susan Burton New Way of Life ~ video, The James Irvine Foundation, 2014, United States, English.How would investing in community services like housing, education, jobs and mental health services really prevent “crime?”.Short video of Angela Davis explaining how invisible the prison system has become to anyone who doesn’t interact with it. Angela Davis Prisons and Crime ~ video, Shut Youth Prisons, 2017, United States, English.Reina Gosset breaks down the mindset behind abolition, of looking at each person as valuable and capable of growth, and imagining a world where communities heal through by building relationships that use restorative practices to address harm. Prison Abolition + Prefiguring the World You Want to Live In (start at 1:12) ~ video, Barnard Center for Research on Women, 2014, United States, English.Here you can learn more about how abolitionists see things. Abolition of police and prisons seems like a really different way of doing things.In this 2 minute video, Black Lives Matter activist Janaya Khan explains how we can abolish the whole broken criminal justice system. The Criminal Justice System is Broken: Should the Police be Abolished? ~ video, Fusion, 2017, United States, English.Here’s a Black Lives Matter activist’s explanation of what that would mean.I can understand defunding, but abolishing the police?.The show ends with Kimberly Jones’ wake-up-call in defense of property destruction during protests, saying black people owe nothing to an anti-black state and society. Police: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), youtube video, June 2020, United States, English In this 30 min intro to defunding the police, John Oliver reviews the racist history of policing, barriers to reform such as police unions and qualified immunity, and makes the case for defunding the police to fund public services.John Oliver gives a good introduction (some explicit language).I’m new to this and wondering, why would we defund the police?.