Read more here about what they mean by this. The Movement for Black Lives has made a direct call nationally to defund the police which we are fully aligned with. If more funding was allocated to social programs and the social safety net was strengthened, this would have a positive effect on public health and safety without the harmful consequences that police have in communities. What is meant by defunding the police is reducing the size of police budgets and re-allocating the funds toward social services. What do we mean by ‘defund the police’?Īcross the country, $100 billion is spent on law enforcement.
The choices policing requires about which people to target, what to target them for, and when to arrest and book them play a major role in who ultimately gets imprison ed. As social conditions change, how policing is used to target poor people, people of color, immigrants, and others who do not conform on the street or in their homes also shifts. Similarly, police forces have been used to keep new immigrants “in line” and to prevent the poor and working classes from making demands. Reinforcing the oppressive social and economic relationships that have been central to the US throughout its history, the roots of policing in the United States are closely linked the capture of people escaping slavery, and the enforcement of Black Codes. What is policing?Ī social relationship made up of a set of practices that are empowered by the state to enforce law and social control through the use of force. Those who actively oppose abolition, media and the Right will purposely obscure the calls for abolition and insight fear among people that abolition will lead to more violence and no mechanism for accountability for harm. In this section, you will find some definitions. We recognize that there are a lot of misconceptions about what it means to call for defunding or abolishing the police. Join us and deepen your commitment to fighting for a transformed world. SURJ is offering this for white folks who are newly politicized around abolition and defunding, those who are trying to understand or deepen their understanding of what it means, those who want to take action for Juneteenth, and those who want to join the ongoing organizing to defund the police. SURJ has attempted to compile some of the best of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) work on abolition which has been generations in the making. At Showing Up for Racial Justice, we refuse to accept the lie that our communities are safer with more police. We know that for decades the greedy few and the Right have used racist fear-mongering to divest from public health infrastructure, good housing and healthcare and instead pump money into police departments implementing social control and retributive - not restorative or transformative justice. As well as the demand that Trump must resign. This weekend of action will primarily center the demand of defunding the police and investing in Black communities. The people are speaking and Minneapolis is showing the world that transformation and abolition of the policing and prison system is possible in our lifetimes.Īs this toolkit is being released the Movement for Black Lives is planning a weekend of action over for the Juneteenth holiday. Nine Minneapolis City Council members have publicly committed to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and begin a community led process to re-imagine and reinvest in a transformative model of community safety. As the Movement for Black Lives explains, this is about investing in “Black communities, determined by Black communities, and divestment from exploitative forces including prisons, fossil fuels, police, surveillance and exploitative corporations.” Re-investing police budgets in education, healthcare, and community safety is possible and necessary. Minneapolis is showing us that defunding the police is possible. Living in a world without police is possible and is on its way.īlack, Indigenous, and people of color-led movements and organizations have been dreaming of, planning for, and working towards a world without police for generations. In the midst of the Black-led mass uprisings across the globe calling for and end to police murders, SURJ created this toolkit for white communities to learn and take action around calls to invest money in communities and divest from Police.