Truthout
The Road to Abolition
Exploring abolition — both in imagination and in practice — and the movement toward a more liberated future.
Series Introduction
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.
Dorothy Roberts Lays Out a Damning Exposé of Medical Racism and “Child Welfare”
Scholar Dorothy Roberts exposes effects of anti-Black mythmaking and calls for an end to the family policing system.
To Build an Abolitionist Future, We Must Look to Indigenous Pasts
Worlds without police and without prisons have already existed, predating colonization and slavery.
Atlanta’s Attack on Cop City Protesters Should Be a Warning to Us All
The fight against the militarized police training center dubbed “Cop City” is one of the great struggles of our time.
This Fight Is Global: Abolitionists From the US and France Join in Conversation
Prison abolitionists are talking across national lines about the connections and differences between their struggles.
Stabbings Near UC Davis Were Terrifying, But More Policing Won’t Make Us Safer
Student-led care and support work rather than criminalization and prosecution should be our model for safety.
The US Failed Jordan Neely and Banko Brown Long Before They Were Murdered
As housing-insecure Black youth, Banko Brown and Jordan Neely needed care. Instead, they were policed and criminalized.
Psychiatric Incarceration Isn’t Treatment — It’s Violence, Survivors Say
After the murder of Jordan Neely, NYC’s mayor doubled down on his plan to disappear those who “appear mentally ill.”
Ralph Yarl Deserves Justice Beyond What the Criminal Legal System Can Offer
While the man who shot Yarl was not a cop, his whiteness allowed him to bear an invisible badge of the police force.
NYPD’s “Autism Awareness” Squad Car Is Nothing But a Publicity Stunt
Don’t be fooled by the NYPD’s lip service to autism awareness: Policing isn’t “neurodiversity-friendly.”
Policing Does Not Have Problems — It Is the Problem
Policing is neither reformable nor redeemable.