If the system is functioning as it is designed to, then “reform” will almost always find ways to reinforce the norm.
The Road to Abolition
Amid this galvanizing moment of uprisings and calls to defund the police, Truthout has gathered together some of our most important work on the abolition of policing and prisons. For a decade, we’ve been documenting this work and the ideas behind it. In this feature, we’ve gathered together some recent and past pieces that can help us to envision abolition — both the imagination and the practice of it — and move together toward a more liberated future.
A “closure” sometimes means the use of prisons as training sites that perpetuate oppression elsewhere.
This Black August, incarcerated organizers are calling on supporters to step up in the spirit of abolition.
While conservatives promote more state violence, religious people of different faiths are doing radical liberatory work.
Abolition begins with dismantling the heterosexist, racial and imperial framework of the military and prison industries.
The rhetoric of “violent” vs. “nonviolent” is window dressing and doesn’t align with the ongoing realities of policing.
It’s time to acknowledge we can’t arrest our way out of the overdose crisis.
When candidates running for prosecutor claim to be on the side of survivors of violence, we need to take a closer look.
Ongoing police violence against LGBTQ people has led to a nationwide movement to limit or ban cops from Pride events.
Police and the military operate under the same principle — they move in, occupy and oppress communities.