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Title: Alternatives to Police Author: Rose City CopWatch Date: 2008 Language: en Topics: police, justice, restorative justice Source: Retrieved on 2020-05-27 from https://rosecitycopwatch.wordpress.com/alternatives-to-police/ Notes: As we work to eliminate or radically change police institutions we must also work to support and build liberatory alternatives to the police. Since 2003, Rose City Copwatch has promoted discussion about alternatives to the police. In 2007 we spent time learning about historical and ongoing alternatives to the police. In 2008 we drafted the Alternatives to Police booklet based on what we learned. This zine is a compilation of case-studies on alternatives to cops. The booklet focuses on projects that don’t collaborate with the state or court system in any way. A long bibliography for further reading is also included.
Rose City Copwatch would like to give thanks to folks from all walks of
life who have participated in alternatives to police projects. This
project is the beginning of an ongoing dialogue about living in a world
without police.
Thanks to Missy Rohs and Emily-Jane Dawson for helping to edit this
booklet.
Thanks to you for reading.
Whether we call them because of a dispute between neighbors or a
robbery, a shooting or sexual violence, the police rarely meet our
needs. They don’t help us heal. And they don’t prevent future harm.
Rather than serve as advocates for true justice, they use their
incredible power to reinforce the oppressive status quo. They threaten
us with violence and incarceration and target the most oppressed and
vulnerable people in our society. This is the current state of policing,
and it will be the future unless we work to change it.
For Rose City Copwatch, our long-term vision is a world without police,
a world in which communities function and thrive without the
intervention of the heavy and often deadly hand of the State. But it can
be difficult to imagine a cop-free world. Who would respond to
emergencies? What would we do about crime? The existing police, prison
and court systems have presented themselves to the public as the only
possible answers. As police abolitionists, we need to find other
solutions. If we can create and support liberatory alternatives to the
police, we can meet the community’s basic needs for dealing with harm,
disrupt the idea that the work of the police is legitimate, and help
people imagine a world without police.
Since its inception in 2003, Rose City Copwatch has promoted discussion
about alternatives to the police. In 2007, we decided to take a step
back and learn about alternatives-to-cops projects in action, both
historical and ongoing. We began by looking in books, magazines and
on-line for descriptions of these alternatives and how they work.
It wasn’t our aim to find or create a perfect model. Instead, we looked
for projects that would help us in our thinking about the strengths and
challenges of different approaches. We prioritized groups working
towards some sort of collective liberation and de-emphasized
professionally-based groups such as social service agencies. We did not
consider projects administered by the police, the prison system, or the
courts; but we did look at some groups that might function as
auxiliaries to the police. As an organization working in the United
States we chose to focus on other work done in the U.S, but we did
include a couple examples from other countries that indicate the
importance of such projects in broader liberation struggles.
Over the course of six months, we read articles and met to discuss them
together. We took notes on what we found inspiring and documented our
questions and concerns about the different projects. We learned a lot
and decided to make this booklet to share our research with other people
and hopefully hear about their ideas and experiences as well.
The booklet can be read from beginning to end, or it can serve as a
reference to be skimmed in search of what most interests you. We begin
with a brief discussion about useful criteria for evaluating
alternatives to the police. Then we get into the bulk of the booklet:
summaries of about fifteen different projects along with our thoughts
about them and suggestions for where to go for more information. Given
the brevity of this pamphlet, our descriptions can only be basic
introductions. We’ve included an annotated bibliography showing what we
read in producing this booklet. And we end with an opportunity for you
to share your stories about alternatives to the police, and to give us
feedback about this project.
Let’s remember, at the outset, why we want to do away with the police:
we seek a more just, free, equitable, and peaceful world. This larger
vision must inform the alternatives we advocate and the institutions we
develop.
Not all alternatives to the police are liberatory. Consider, for
example, the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps: a group of volunteers who
act as vigilante immigration cops, mainly along the U.S. border with
Mexico. The Minutemen’s ideology and practice both encourage greater
oppression against people of color. They are an example of how an
organization that formed as an (adjunct) alternative to the police can
be just as frightening as the police, if not more so.
How can we create alternatives to the police that both empower us to
keep one another safe, and encourage us to live lives that are free of
violence and oppression? We have to hold these alternatives to the same
standards we demand of existing institutions: they must be democratic,
accountable, transparent, and reflective of real community control. We
found a helpful set of criteria in the work of Harry Mika and Kieran
McEvoy, who wrote about restorative justice in Northern Ireland. They
outline seven principles of legitimacy, which they identified as being
necessary for the success of community-based alternatives to the police.
determined through local consultation and research into the community’s
needs.
members the power to act on its behalf in instituting a program.
other community groups, builds skills and power within the community,
and addresses the needs of members of the community--both victims and
offenders.
effectively carry out the work of the program. Examples might include
training in human rights or conflict resolution.
principles (like fairness, flexibility, confidentiality), its terms of
participation (like voluntary participation, and making room for both
victims and offenders), and its relationship to the community (like
access, representation and evaluation.)
scrutiny, local control and community input.
it is following its standards and actually being effective in meeting
its goals.
More info: Mika and McEvoy, “Restorative Justice in Conflict”
There are a lot of situations that we are not equipped to face alone. We
need someone’s help, but that someone does not have to be the police! So
call a friend instead of the cops!
We should choose someone who can arrive quickly, help de-escalate the
situation, and figure out “a comfortable ending.” This will work best if
we set up support networks in advance. Designing our support network can
be as simple as checking in with people we know to see who we can call
when we need help or support, and letting folks know that they can call
us.
The real beauty of this idea that it encourages people to do something
free and easy: build better communities by having an advance networking
plan for who/when to call instead of the cops when stuff goes down.
More Info: Critical Resistance, A World Without Walls (pp 32–33)
Rape Crisis Centers began the early 1970s as community-organized
responses to rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence. They were
started by feminists who saw that the justice system did not take
violence against women seriously. As such they served as a standing
critique of the criminal justice system and provided a real service
addressing needs that the state was neglecting. Women were taking care
of women instead of depending on the patriarchal state.
It’s easy to forget this grassroots history, because Rape Crisis Centers
have largely been institutionalized as non-profits, often funded by (and
thus to a certain degree controlled by) city, county, or state
governments. While the centers are still doing very important work, the
transition to state funding and professionalism has changed the role of
these organizations and obscured their origins in community struggle.
Nonetheless, many of these original Rape Crisis Centers are still
operating today, though their tactics and structures may have changed.
empowering survivors, posted “street sheets” with rapists’ identifying
information, and counseled cops and hospital workers to better
understand the needs of rape survivors.
http://www.bapd.org/gbanpe-1.html
community education and rape prevention, and organized speakers and
self-defense classes in junior high schools, high schools, community
colleges and workplaces. http://www.dcrcc.org/home.htm
concentrated on reaching poor women and women of color, and provided
individual counselors to support survivors who were entered into the
hospital or whose cases made it to trial.
http://www.woar.org/history.asp
To find a Rape Crisis Center where you live: http://centers.rainn.org/
More info: Prison research Education Project, Instead of Prisons (pp
146–149)
Sista’s Liberated Ground is a project of Sista II Sista (SIIS), a
collective of young and adult working class Black and Latina women in
Brooklyn. SLG is “a space where violence against sistas is not
tolerated, and where women turn to each other instead of the police to
address the violence in their lives.” They reach out to the community
with flyers, T-shirts, posters and stickers; have an “action line” that
women can call to get involved with the project; and use murals to mark
their territory. At the time the Sista II Sista article was written,
they were planning workshops to educate the community about “sexism,
conflict resolution, [and] collective self-defense” and to build
relationships with more women in the neighborhood. They were also
organizing Sista Circles to support and intervene in cases of gender
violence.
SLG is clearly working to build direct alternatives to the police, and
it is doing so from a radical feminist perspective based in the
experiences of working class women of color. Their neighborhood approach
helps make their work very concrete, and they are able to build support
through community organizing with a variety of tactics including street
theater and door-knocking. It is refreshing that they see skill-building
as crisis prevention. And it is particularly inspiring that SLG has
taken a stance against being co-opted by the state, seeking community
rather than foundation support.
We’re interested in thinking about how this type of project, which is so
rooted in its community, could happen in other neighborhoods and
contexts. And we want to learn more about how the skills SIIS is
building within their community are put into practice during a crisis.
More info: www.sistaiisista.org : Sista II Sista, “Sistas Makin’ Moves”;
and Grumbs, “Just Us.”
The SOS Collective is based in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in
Brooklyn, New York, where it works to end violence against queer people
of color without involving the police. They formed out of the Audre
Lorde project in 1997, and have worked to respond to police violence by
participating in the founding of the Coalition Against Police Brutality,
advocating for community members who have been brutalized by the police,
and organizing against broader issues of state violence such as the War
on Terror.
More recently, they have focused on responses to queer-bashing and other
hate violence, which brings the added challenge of holding individual
strangers accountable. They have responded by creating “safer spaces.”
But rather than create new, isolated safer spaces, they want to see
every institution in the neighborhood — from churches to schools and
stores to laundromats — participate as a place for queer people to go to
if threatened or attacked.
We’re excited by this effort to connect to the larger community and make
violence against queer people of color everyone’s concern. We’d like to
better understand what a “safer space” consists of: what steps are taken
and what are the specific responsibilities of folks in the neighborhood
when someone comes for help?
More info: http://www.alp.org/whatwedo/organizing/sos/andGrumbs, “Just
Us.”
In 1971, a former exhibitionist and his wife began to meet with other
sex offenders in Los Angeles and founded Sex Offenders Anonymous. The
group was aimed at male sex offenders and their female partners. They
had weekly meetings and followed the model of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
The Los Angeles group does not appear to exist anymore but there is a
group in Denver, Colorado.
SOANON is unusual, in part, because the group consists of offenders who
have taken the initiative to change their own behavior. The adaptation
of the AA model to address interpersonal crime was really very smart,
since AA-type groups require few resources but deliver substantial
successes, while genuinely addressing the causes of misbehavior without
violence or government action. The potential here seems great, and we’d
be interested to learn of any similarly structured programs tackling
problems like domestic violence or abusive parenting.
(Ironically, since such self-help recovery programs stop problems from
reaching the crisis point, they are not typically recognized as
addressing crime as such. But consider, for example, which has kept more
drunk drivers off the roads: Alcoholics Anonymous or police
checkpoints?)
While we’re intrigued by the idea of SOANON, we mostly have questions:
How exactly does the group work? How do new members find out about it?
Do they accept referrals from social workers or the courts, and does
this run the risk of making the group an extension of the punishment
system? How do they define “sex offender”? What’s their political
understanding of sexual violence? How appropriate is the “addiction”
model? And what constitutes “recovery”?
More Info: http://www.coloradoservicegroup.org/rsoa.htmand Prison
Research Education Action Project, Instead of Prisons (page 153)
In 1972, residents of a multi-racial, mixed-class area in West
Philadelphia came together and organized to prevent crime in their
neighborhood. They started as the Block Association of West Philadelphia
and later joined with CLASP, Citizen’s Local Alliance for a Safer
Philadelphia, who adopted the Block Association’s community action
model. CLASP worked to prevent burglaries with locks, lights, homemade
burglar alarms, engraving machines, improved community ties, and an
awareness of strangers. They also worked to address street crime through
the use of neighborhood walks. Walks were conducted by a group of at
least two unarmed and unmarked neighborhood residents. When they saw a
crime happening, they used flashlights and freon horns to signal other
neighbors to come out with their horns. By 1976, there were 600
organized autonomous blocks throughout the city. People were more
comfortable spending time outside, and a CLASP survey showed an average
of 75% less crime on organized blocks compared to their respective
police districts.
We are excited by the scope of this project, and the creativity and
accessibility of the crime prevention tactics. Also, bringing people
outside to participate in their neighborhood encourages healthy
communities in a way that demonstrates the possibility of shifting power
back to people. (Imagine a world where every time there’s a police stop
in the neighborhood, people step out on their porch and watch it!) We
are curious if CLASP, as it grew across the city, was able to avoid the
problems that plague many neighborhood watches: pressure to partner with
the police, and a tendency to reinforce discrimination based on class
and race as people define who is and is not a part of their
neighborhood.
More info: Prison Research Education Action Project, Instead of Prisons
(p 164)
In the wake of federal anti-immigrant policy and law enforcement,
several cities and municipalities have declared themselves to be
“Sanctuary Cities.” The term, which has no legal meaning, generally
refers to a city’s refusal to allow public funds or resources to be used
to enforce federal immigration laws. This prevents local cops from
asking about a person’s immigration status or assisting federal police
in immigration raids. Sanctuary cities include several of the largest
cities in the U.S., including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York,
many small towns and counties, plus two states, Oregon and Alaska.
Recently, sanctuary cities have been a favorite target of anti-immigrant
groups and right-wing lawmakers, and several bills currently making
their way through Congress would cut off federal funds to these
jurisdictions.
A city that refuses to cooperate with the federal government presents a
unique version of community control. However, our questions and concerns
are abundant. A lot of the support for sanctuary city policies actually
comes from the police themselves, since they want to win the trust and
cooperation of immigrant communities, and also maintain their own
jurisdictional authority. How might such policies actually reinforce
state power? Also, none of the sanctuary cities we studied attempt to
prevent federal agents from conducting immigration raids or otherwise
harassing these communities. How effective are these laws at actually
protecting the rights of immigrants?
More info: Koppelman, “Congress to New York.”
Restorative justice seeks to heal communities rather than punish
individuals. (It is sometimes described as “transformative” rather than
“restorative,” because many communities where it is applied never saw
justice to begin with.) The process generally begins with the people
affected by the conflict voluntarily meeting with one or more mediators.
They seek to understand what happened and why, share how they feel, and
develop a contract that everyone supports, addresses all concerns, and
can prevent the problem from recurring.
One of the things we found inspiring about restorative justice programs
is that problems can be addressed before the cops get involved. This
helps build stronger communities by enabling people to hold discussions
around the issues that directly affect them and to come up with their
own decisions. Through restorative justice models, all people have a
chance to be involved and have their voice heard. This dialog also
allows people to understand how one’s actions affect the larger
community and therefore create a solution that addresses the actual harm
done and the real needs of the people involved.
One concern about restorative justice is that it may maintain existing
power dynamics within the community, such as those based on age, race,
gender, and class. And we’re interested in learning more about what
restorative justice can and can’t offer in terms of abolishing the
police. It seems that some restorative justice programs, particularly
when they involve formal relationships with the legal system, function
more as auxiliaries to the police than actual alternatives. While many
of the examples we studied involved situations where people came
together to address conflicts that might have otherwise been handled by
the police--and were also able to address disputes that would have
otherwise gone unreported, unnoticed, unattended, or ignored--many other
examples established relationships with the legal system, including the
police, and got many of their referrals from these systems.
The Community Conferencing Center was started by Dr. Lauren Abramson in
2000, and addresses conflict primarily in inner-city neighborhoods in
Baltimore, Maryland. It is a non-profit organization focused on juvenile
offenders in and out of the court system, and on conflicts in schools
and neighborhoods. It uses “community conferences” based on indigenous
practices of “hearing what happened, letting everybody say how they’ve
been affected by the situation, and then having the group come up with
ways to repair the harm and prevent it from happening again.” By 2004,
the Community Conferencing Center had facilitated over 500 conferences
and reached compliance with 90% of its agreements.
We appreciated CCC’s philosophy that all people can learn the skills to
work out conflict, and that the legal system alienates individuals and
community from these skills, providing little real justice. We were
impressed with the examples where all parties involved, notably
including youth, worked together to define the problems and take steps
to solve them. More info: www.communityconferencing.org; Haddad, “Team
Spirit”; and Mirsky, “The Community Conferencing Center.”
The Community Assistance Project began in 1970 in Chester, Pennsylvania.
CAP worked with poor folks and people of color to provide mediation in
family and neighborhood disputes, and programs for those on bail and
parole. People involved in a dispute first met individually with a
mediator drawn from the community, then were brought together to craft a
formal agreement.
CAP’s strengths included using lay mediators who lived in the
neighborhood, encouraging folks involved in the dispute to work out
solutions themselves with minimal intervention, and periodically
checking up on the agreements afterwards. Our main criticism is that,
while serving as a less punitive option than prison, programs that work
as referrals from the courts often function as an adjunct to the system
rather than as an alternative to it. More info: Prison Research
Education Action Project, Instead of Prisons (p 118)
Restorative Justice In Action (RJIA) is a quarterly newsletter published
by the Colorado Forum on Community and Restorative Justice. In a special
school edition from 2001, RJIA reviews practical aspects of school-based
restorative justice programs operating in the US. This short publication
gives brief accounts of several programs and discusses the creativity
and political work needed to implement restorative justice in schools.
The newsletter includes anecdotes and statistics showing success in
reducing expulsion and increasing positive behaviors, and provides
contact information for staff and students doing the work. However, it
lacks comprehensive examples of power analysis in youth/school settings
and how that might affect restorative justice. We include this example
because we’re excited by youth-led and youth-focused examples of
alternatives to the system.
More info: Colorado Forum on Community and Restorative Justice,
Restorative Justice In Action newsletter.
CARA is a Seattle, Washington based anti-rape organizing project that
works with survivors of sexual violence and their communities “to
identify their own unique goals, values, and actions that add flesh to
their distinct safety/accountability models.”
The group’s basic organizing tenet is to recognize the humanity of
everyone involved — the survivor, aggressor and community. CARA’s method
includes many clear principles for accomplishing this:
community
violence
aggressor
CARA has been involved with several organizing efforts--from holding a
popular anti-cop organizer accountable for ongoing sexual harassment to
addressing rape in the punk music scene—that applied these principles.
While the results vary, all the efforts lead to positive outcomes and
incorporated the survivors’ needs in the process.
CARA’s principles are clear but flexible in different situations. We
appreciate their efforts to distinguish one’s “actions” from one’s
“person,” and their acknowledgment that many outcomes of recovery and
healing are possible. It is exciting that CARA’s focus is on building
the society we want to create.
We like the organization’s willingness to improvise solutions based on
the actual situation involved, and we are inspired by the possibilities
of adapting CARA’s principles to other examples of social crime. Even
though many of the people involved in CARA’s projects wouldn’t have
called the police, we think this is a good example of delegitimizing the
cops. The more people do to take care of themselves, the less the state
is relevant.
More info: Communities Against Rape and Abuse, “Taking Risks”;
www.cara-seattle.org
Fed up with the fighting and deaths, rival gangs sometimes agree to a
truce. An important example of this happened in Los Angeles California
in 1992. The Bloods and Crips had been in the process of negotiating a
truce when the verdict in the Rodney King case was announced and the
rebellion in LA began. The Bloods/Crips truce began after the rebellion
and held throughout the summer. The government and media were hostile,
and the police responded with violent efforts at disruption. Local
residents reported significant improvements in their lives but citywide
violence did not appear to decrease.
Details of the organizing behind the truces are sketchy in part because
established institutions were only marginally involved (if at all). It
is clear, though, that the truce process involved serious political
study, a formal negotiated agreement, regular social events including
members of both gangs, and efforts to initiate discussion with local
merchants.
Gang truces are negotiated between some of the people most involved with
gang conflict, and they happen in the face of incredible risk. It seems
that they have the potential to save lives and improve life in some of
the most oppressed communities, but what actually happens? Do other gang
truces tell a similar story? How do they hold up over time? And how can
oppressive police responses be avoided or challenged?
More info: Myers, “Looking for Justice.”
The Portland Bad Date Line (PBDL) was started in 1999 by women working
in the sex industry. One of the women told her friends about a violent
date she’d had with a trick in a pickup truck. The crew faxed his
description to agencies that served prostitutes. Shortly afterwards, a
woman was hurt during an in-call private show. A group of women created
a phone tree and called escorts who had ads in local magazines. For
several years, the PBDL was operated by Danzine, a nonprofit started by
and for sex workers. After Danzine closed its doors in 2005, the PBDL
was taken on by the county government and a local social service agency.
In its current incarnation, the Portland Bad Date Line produces a
double-sided sheet that includes descriptions of violent and abusive
customers in the sex industry. People who are working/trading/tricking
or people who hear a description of a dangerous customer can report the
physical description of the person, the car and/or location and the
event by phone, email, fax or in person at a number of social service
agencies.
The PBDL is a clear example of people stepping up to take care of
themselves and their friends withoutthe intervention of law enforcement.
It is, however, an example of an intervention that started out as an
action by a group of affected people who were taking care of their
peers, and is now funded by the local public health department and a
social service organization. The fact that a government agency and a
publicly-funded nonprofit host the project has its pros and cons; on the
one hand, its institutional support provides a steady source of money,
staff and volunteers to administer the project. On the other hand, local
health departments and nonprofits have funding and reporting
requirements that leave any radical project with some risk of
co-optation or termination.
More info: http://www.myspace.com/portland_bad_date_line
In the late 1960s, the British colonial state abandoned its efforts to
police militant neighborhoods in Northern Ireland, leaving crime control
in the hands of paramilitary groups (e.g., the Irish Republican Army
[IRA]). By the mid-1990’s, nearly everyone was eager to find some
alternative to the punishment violence that characterized crime control
for the previous 30 years. After an extensive study by criminologists
and conflict resolution experts and thorough consultation with the
residents of the affected areas, a series of “community restorative
justice” (CRJ) projects were initiated with the endorsement and support
of the IRA.
The mechanics of addressing disputes and social crime are similar to
many other restorative justice models around the world, and include
investigation, formal mediation, and referral to community resources. In
its first two years, CRJ projects opened about 700 cases, and closed
more than 90 percent of them.
We were particularly impressed with the level of community involvement
in the projects. The projects have an extraordinary degree of buy-in
from perpetrators and survivors of crime, local paramilitary powers,
community organizations, and the neighborhood residents. In a pilot
project in Derry, for example, 98 percent of the residents signed onto
the project’s charter, which outlined the program’s commitment to
collective rights and responsibilities, anti-oppression and
non-violence. It was also notable that the paramilitaries were willing
to turn over the job of crime control to the CRJ projects while working
to support the projects’ success. A lot of this support can be credited
to the amount of effort that was invested in identifying and addressing
the needs and resources of the neighborhoods, to articulating respect
for human rights, and to creating a culture of ownership within
communities. The articles we read documented the early stages of these
inspiring projects, but more recent information is harder to find. What
were the outcomes, and were they able to replicate and sustain
themselves over time? Also, in 2007, Sinn Fein (the main Republican
political party) agreed to start cooperating with the police. Will the
state manage to co-opt these restorative justice programs?
More info: Mika and McEvoy , “Restorative Justice in Conflict”;
Williams, Our Enemies in Blue (pp231-33).
During Apartheid, the police were an almost entirely repressive force,
offering almost no protection to the Black population. To address the
real need for public safety, in the 1970s Black communities adapted
traditional structures to form a kind of community court, called
“makgotla.” The makgotla tended to perpetuate hierarchies within the
community, especially those based on age and gender; they were almost
wholly dominated by older men. In the 1980s, however, as the
anti-Apartheid movement was increasingly youth-based, the makgotla were
replaced by more inclusive and democratic organizations — first
“People’s Courts,” and later “Street Committees.” Young people and women
slowly gained more of a role.
The Street Committees were elected in public meeting and charged with
keeping peace within their area. While sometimes utilizing violence and
other punishments (especially against those collaborating with the
Apartheid government), Street Committees focused primarily on healing
and restorative justice. In addition to addressing normal street crime,
the Street Committees also addressed disputes between neighbors, family
conflicts, employee or tenant grievances, and the like.
By the end of the Apartheid period, there were an estimated 400 Street
Committees operating throughout South Africa. Many have continued their
work, though their role is different in the new political context. They
are, in principle, no longer at odds with the police, and in some places
the cops refer minor cases to the Street Committees rather than the
courts. But the Street Committees remain incredibly popular in the areas
where they exist, and it is this popularity — not state approval — that
guaranteed their continuance after the fall of the Apartheid regime.
More info: Williams, Our Enemies in Blue, (pp229-31); and Lee and
Seeking, “Vigilantism and Popular Justice.”
Abel, Richard. “Introduction” in The Politics of Informal Justice,
Volume 2. New York: Academic Press, 1982.
This essay contrasts informal justice and formal (especially state)
justice systems. It identifies key characteristics of informal justice
systems, such as their non-coercive emphasis and decentralized
structures. And it considers how such informal arrangements have
functioned under very different types of social systems, including
socialism, fascism, and welfare states.
Colorado Forum on Community and Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice
in Action. Spring 2001.
http://www.coloradorestorativejustice.org/publications/schools2001.pdf
A special issue reviews practical aspects of school-based restorative
justice programs operating in the United States. Communities Against
Rape and Abuse (CARA). “Taking Risks: Implementing Grassroots Community
Accountability Strategies” in The Color of Violence: The INCITE!
Anthology, edited by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence. Cambridge,
MA: South End Press, 2006. This piece describes an anti-rape organizing
project that works with survivors of sexual violence and their
communities, calling for “intentional engagement” with the people and
contexts involved.
Critical Resistance, Shana Agid, Berndt Brooks, Rachel Herzing, and Ari
Wohlfeiler. A World Without Walls: The Critical Resistance Abolition
Organizing Toolkit. Oakland, CA, 2004.
This workbook provides different starting points for understanding how
our communities understand crime and safety, and how activists can
re-frame the discussion surrounding prisons and prison abolition. It
offers specific ideas of alternatives to punishment.
www.criticalresistance.org
Grumbs, Alexis Pauline. “Just Us: Transforming Justice by Building
Communities.” Left Turn. April-May 2008.
Grumbs explains how co-optation has hindered the potential for
developing authentic, community structures to address harm. She then
goes on to describe several groups doing work to build alternatives to
the prison system: SOS Collective, UBUNTU, Sista’s Liberated Ground, and
Freedom Inc. (www.myspace.com/freedomincorporated).
Haddad, Ann. “Team Spirit: A Local Program Turns Conflict Into
Cooperation.” Urbanite: For Baltimore’s Curious. October 2005.
http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=33§ionID=4&articleID=340
This human interest article profiles the Community Conferencing Center
in Baltimore. It describes how a neighborhood dispute involving young
people playing in the street was resolved through the facilitated
conferencing process. There is also information about the history and
philosophy of the program.
Koppelman, Alex. “Congress to New York (and Chicago and L.A.): Drop
dead.” Salon.com. 2007
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/04/sanctuary/
Koppelman considers different ways of defining “sanctuary cities” and
discusses how right-wing activists and politicians are on the attack.
Lee, Rebekah and Jeremy Seekings. “Vigilantism and Popular Justice After
Apartheid” in Informal Criminal Justice, ed. Dermot Feenan. Aldershot,
England: Ashgate/Dartmouth, 2002.
While focusing on the period since 1994, this essay provides a brief
history of the development of the Street Committees and compares their
operations during Apartheid and after.
Mika, Harry and Keiran McEvoy. “Restorative Justice in Conflict:
Paramilitarism, Community and the Construction of Legitimacy in Northern
Ireland.” Comparative Justice Review 4:3–4 (2001).
Mika and McEvoy detail some of the innovative restorative justice
programs that evolved in Northern Ireland as a response to crime and
antisocial behavior. The article briefly recounts the punishment
violence that preceded nonviolent alternatives, and explains how the
community-based alternatives operate in Northern Ireland and could
become a model for alternatives elsewhere.
Mirsky, Laura. “The Community Conferencing Center: Restorative Practices
in Baltimore, Maryland.” Real Justice. March 9, 2004.
www.realjustice.org/library/cccbaltimore.html
This article details the history, philosophy, and structure of the
community conferencing program, relates success stories, and considers
the relationship of the CCC to the criminal justice system.
Myers, Ched. “Looking for Justice, Holding the Peace After the LA
Rebellion, a Gang Truce Breaks New Ground.” Network News, Nov-Dec 1992.
This article describes the Blood/Crips gang truce negotiated after the
1992 rebellion in LA following the Rodney King verdict. It also
discusses the police’s vindictive response and media misrepresentation.
Prison Research Education Action Project. Instead of Prisons. Syracuse:
PREAP, 1976; Oakland: Critical Resistance, 2005.
This book provides a detailed analysis of the futility of the prison
system and makes the practical and moral case for abolition. It includes
inspiring and extensive examples of alternatives to prison, from
decriminalization and decarceration to community-based crime prevention
strategies. Among the groups profiled are CLASP, CAP, rape crisis
centers, and Sex Offenders Anonymous.
Sista II Sista. “Sistas Makin’ Moves: Collective Leadership for Personal
Transformation and Social Justice” in The Color of Violence: The INCITE!
Anthology, edited by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence. Cambridge,
MA: South End Press, 2006.
Sista II Sista is a collective of young and adult working-class Black
and Latina women in Brooklyn. Throughout their existence they have
engaged in political education work as well as community organizing
against imperialist war and police violence. This article includes a
history of their organization and information about their projects,
including Sista’s Liberated Ground.
Williams, Kristian. Our Enemies in Blue. Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press,
2004; Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007.
This book provides a detailed history of police violence in the United
States. The final chapter discusses why alternatives to the police must
be part of the strategy of cop abolition work, and summarizes several
examples of popular and restorative justice programs around the world
(in particular, South Africa and Northern Ireland).