We Do This 'til We Free Us

1. Abolition is a Vision for Building, Not Just Destroying

PIC abolition is a positive project that focuses, in part, on building a society where it is possible to address harm without relying on structural forms of oppression or the violent systems that increase it.

Beyond dismantling. Prison-industrial complex (PIC) abolition is often misunderstood as merely tearing down existing systems. Instead, it is fundamentally a constructive vision for a restructured society where genuine safety and well-being are prioritized. This vision entails creating robust social structures that address root causes of harm.

Foundational needs. An abolitionist future envisions a world where everyone has their basic needs met, eliminating the desperation that often fuels harm. This includes:

• Food, shelter, education, health, art, beauty, clean water
• Systems that support personal and community safety
• Mechanisms to address harm without relying on violent state apparatuses

Creative solutions. Abolition challenges us to move beyond the limited options offered by the state and to creatively consider new avenues for reducing harm. It asks, "What can we imagine for ourselves and the world?" rather than just trying to improve existing, flawed systems.

2. The Carceral System Works as Designed, It's Not Broken

Importantly, we must reject all talk about policing and the overall criminal punishment system being “broken” or “not working.”

Designed for control. The criminal punishment system is not "broken"; it functions precisely as intended: to control marginalized populations, enforce anti-Blackness, and protect the status quo. This historical design is evident in its origins and ongoing operations.

Historical roots:

• Policing in the South emerged from slave patrols.
• Northern municipal police quashed labor strikes and riots against the rich.
• Post-emancipation, Black Codes and convict leasing systems continued the exploitation of Black labor.

Perpetuating violence. The system's inherent anti-Blackness and focus on punishment, rather than addressing root causes, means it often compounds violence rather than reducing it. Conflating Blackness with criminality has been a persistent feature of US society, justifying hyper-surveillance and brutalization.

3. True Accountability Requires Collective Care, Not Punishment

Punishment means inflicting cruelty and suffering on people. When you are expecting consequences, those can be unpleasant and uncomfortable. But they are not suffering and inflicting pain on people and you want them to suffer as a result.

Distinguishing concepts. Accountability is often conflated with punishment, but they are distinct. Punishment focuses on inflicting pain and suffering, while accountability involves taking responsibility for actions, making amends, and transforming behavior. The prevailing punitive mindset in society makes it difficult to imagine alternatives.

Transformative justice. This framework, developed by anti-violence activists of color, offers a community-led approach to harm. It prioritizes:

• Building support and safety for the harmed person
• Understanding the broader context that allowed harm to occur
• Creating conditions to prevent future harm
• Challenging punitive impulses in favor of healing and repair

Beyond retribution. True accountability acknowledges that "no one enters violence for the first time by committing it," recognizing the complex interplay of personal history, stress, scarcity, and oppression. It seeks to address these underlying factors rather than simply caging individuals, which rarely leads to genuine transformation or healing.

4. Police Reforms Often Entrench, Rather Than Dismantle, the System

We cannot reform police. We cannot reform prisons. We cannot.

Illusory improvements. Efforts to reform policing and prisons, such as increasing budgets, deploying new technologies, or promoting individual dialogues, often serve to legitimize and expand the carceral state rather than diminish its power. These "reformist reforms" can create a false sense of progress while entrenching oppressive structures.

Reforms to oppose:

• Allocating more money to police departments
• Advocating for more police or "community policing" run by police
• Primarily technology-focused solutions (e.g., body cameras)
• Individual dialogues with officers that reinforce the "bad apples" theory

Non-reformist reforms. Instead, focus on strategies that actively shrink the system and move towards abolition. These include:

• Decreasing police budgets and redirecting funds to social goods
• Offering reparations to victims of police violence
• Disarming the police and simplifying the dissolution of departments
• Building community-based interventions that address harm without police

5. There Are No Perfect Victims; Self-Defense is Criminalized

Their lives should not be flattened in the service of perfect-victim narratives.

Challenging narratives. The concept of a "perfect victim" (submissive, innocent, respectable, without prior criminal contact) is a harmful construct that often excludes Black women and gender nonconforming people. This narrative denies agency and complex realities, making it harder for survivors to be seen as deserving of justice or to claim self-defense.

Criminalization of survival. Black women and girls are disproportionately punished for self-defense, a legacy rooted in historical dehumanization. Cases like Marissa Alexander, Cyntoia Brown, and Bresha Meadows illustrate how the legal system often views their bodies as inherently criminal, denying them the right to protect themselves from violence.

Systemic bias. Courts historically mete out disproportionate punishment to Black women, femmes, and trans people who act in self-defense. This reflects a system that consistently legitimizes state violence while denying the legitimacy of self-preservation for marginalized communities, perpetuating the "abuse-to-prison pipeline."

6. Hope is a Discipline, Sustained by Collective Action

Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism.

A daily practice. Hope is not a passive feeling of optimism but an active, grounded discipline practiced daily. It involves believing in the potential for transformation and change, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This perspective allows organizers to persist through setbacks and maintain a long-term view of liberation struggles.

Collective resilience. While individual sadness and frustration are valid, hope is sustained through collective action and shared commitment. It means understanding that one's individual efforts are part of a larger, ongoing story of freedom, and that "everything worthwhile is done with other people."

Beyond personal feelings. The discipline of hope encourages moving beyond individual emotional responses to engage in sustained organizing. It acknowledges that movements operate on timelines far longer than individual lives, fostering a sense of purpose that transcends immediate outcomes and embraces the continuous process of building a better world.

7. Imagination and Experimentation are Essential for Liberation

It’s time for a jailbreak of the imagination in order to make the impossible possible.

Breaking mental chains. To achieve abolition, we must first liberate our imaginations from the ingrained belief that prisons, policing, and surveillance are inevitable or the only solutions to harm. This requires envisioning entirely new ways of organizing society and addressing conflict.

"Million different experiments." Progress towards abolition will not come from a single blueprint but from countless small-scale, community-led initiatives. Embracing experimentation and accepting failure as a learning opportunity is crucial for discovering what truly works to create safety and justice.

Existing alternatives. Many communities are already practicing forms of abolition, often in hyper-local, unfunded ways. Examples include:

• Community-based mental health response projects
• Initiatives for alternatives to calling 911
• Restorative justice practices in schools and neighborhoods

These efforts demonstrate that a world without reliance on carceral systems is not a distant fantasy but a tangible reality being built today.

8. Interconnected Struggles Demand Intersectional Organizing

There are not single-issue struggles because we do not live single-issue lives.

Holistic analysis. The carceral state is deeply intertwined with other systems of oppression, including racial capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and ableism. Effective organizing requires an intersectional approach that recognizes these connections and addresses them simultaneously.

Systemic linkages:

• The school-to-prison pipeline connects education, race, and incarceration.
• Attacks on workplace rights and de-unionization impact teachers' ability to resist criminalization in schools.
• Immigration detention and "child welfare protection" systems function as forms of policing and surveillance.

Broadening the lens. Understanding these interconnections means expanding our definition of violence beyond lethal force to include harassment, sexual assault, wrongful convictions, and the organized abandonment of marginalized communities. This holistic view allows for more comprehensive and effective strategies for social transformation.

9. Documenting Our Work is Crucial for Movement History

Mariame encourages organizers to do so, despite any attention given to them by journalists, pundits, and academics, as many from the outside might not get it right.

Writing ourselves in. Organizers have a responsibility to document their work and ideas, ensuring that their contributions are accurately recorded and accessible for future generations. Relying solely on external narratives risks misrepresentation or erasure of crucial movement histories.

Tracing lineage. Documenting work allows for the tracing of intellectual and organizing lineages, showing how ideas evolve and are passed down through collective struggle. This helps to counter the notion that groundbreaking ideas emerge in a vacuum, emphasizing the collaborative nature of social change.

Beyond individual recognition. While personal recognition can be a struggle, the act of documenting is ultimately for the benefit of the movement. It provides resources, inspiration, and a historical record for others to learn from, build upon, and challenge, fostering transparency and collective growth.

10. Community and Relationships are the Foundation of Safety

You cannot have safety without strong, empathic relationships with others.

Redefining safety. True safety is not achieved through armed state agents or carceral institutions, but through robust, empathic relationships and collective care within communities. The idea that "cops equal security" is a mindset that must be transformed by building trust and mutual responsibility among neighbors.

Mutual aid in practice. Many communities, particularly those historically denied state protection, have long relied on mutual aid and informal networks to address harm and ensure well-being. These practices demonstrate that people can and do take care of each other outside of formal systems.

Cultivating connection. Building a society where violence is unthinkable requires actively cultivating strong relationships, fostering intervention when harm occurs, and collectively making violence unacceptable. This involves:

• Getting to know neighbors and building trust
• Developing skills to hold harm and transform it
• Creating spaces for dialogue, mourning, and celebration

Last updated: October 1, 2025