Applied Police Abolition

• In Event: Critical Perspectives on Policing: Abolition and Alternatives

Abstract

Since the BLM movement in the United States presented police abolition as a central claim, many activists, scholars, and practitioners spent time designing, imagining, and implementing new forms of public safety that exclude law enforcement. This paper traces different approaches developed in various locations. The work starts categorically, theorizing how applied abolition might look like in the field. It then moves to outline several examples and attempts to rethink safety through the reallocation of resources away from law enforcement and toward other services. To that end, the paper documents and presents an analysis of current practices and responses to social movement demands for racial equality in policing. Finally, the paper concludes with a general classification of approaches to help us understand the types of actions cities can adopt.

Author

• Luis Alberto Fernandez, Northern Arizona University