Transforming Justice

01/28/2023

Lisa has been a dedicated activist (including against PIC) for the LGBTQ+ community for decades. She is being denied public housing in Milwaukee. Please help her stay housed while she fights her legal battles. Any amount will help. This fund is being organized and supported by Black and Pink: Milwaukee.

Lisa Mitchell is a Black trans activist in the Madison, WI area. She needs support to maintain her temporary housing while challenging a discriminatory legal decision that revoked the public housing unit that she had been approved for in Milwaukee.

02/13/2022

"The new documentary film Riotsville, USA enriches our understanding of technologically enhanced police militarism in the United States. But militarization itself is not a 20th-century evolution in policing — it’s been there all along."

The new documentary film Riotsville, USA enriches our understanding of technologically enhanced police militarism in the United States. But militarization itself is not a 20th-century evolution in policing — it’s been there all along.

10/03/2021

"In Wisconsin, public school staff called the police on students at twice the national rate from 2017 to 2018. ... Black and disabled students were actually referred to police at nearly twice the rate of the overall student population ...Native American children in Wisconsin were referred to police more often than in any other state. For indigenous children, the rate was more than three times higher than that of white students."

A new report finds that Wisconsin schools refer students to law enforcement more than most other states nationally.

07/23/2021

Pls join us in signing this petition to demand clemency and let Biden know that the real political fallout is ripping 4,500 people from their families.

Biden told us he would be the President to end mass incarceration. Instead, he’s sending thousands of our elders back to prison. These are mothers, fathers, grandparents, and children who were deemed high risk for COVID-19 and released from prison to finish their sentences on home confinement.

The Administration’s legal team just decided to uphold a Trump-era policy that will force these 4,500 people, many of whom are elders, to be re-incarcerated once the pandemic is declared over.

Biden can grant them clemency and commute their sentences. Demand he do so!

Biden said he'd be the President to end mass incarceration. Instead he’s sending thousands of our elders back to prison. Join me in demanding Biden grant them clemency today! https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/clemency_for_4000_elders/?source=pm_shareprogress

07/10/2021

Bloop

06/12/2021

"Police departments commonly use tear gas as a weapon against protesters. During the past year’s movement for Black lives, at least 100 departments gassed demonstrators — the most widespread use since the 1960s and ‘70s, as The New York Times reported. But tear gas is so noxious that it’s not even allowed to be used in war per United Nations agreements, as the lawmakers point out in their letter. Yet, the U.S. permits its use on domestic protesters."

Tear gas is disallowed in war, the lawmakers say, but police regularly use it on the people they’re supposed to protect.

06/10/2021

Please join Radical Public Health (RPH) for a panel titled "Child Welfare Justice: A Public Health Abolitionist Approach" on June 28th from 7-8:30 pm CST. Register at bit.ly/RPHchildwelfare

06/09/2021

Excellent piece by Dylan Rodriguez on University tactics to expand policing in the name of reforms.

"The UCR Task Force’s recommendations are attempting to solve a “legitimacy problem” for the UCPD in the context of unprecedented challenges to its institutional power and reach. “The legitimacy problem for police,” as Correia and Wall write, “is about the legitimacy to use violence. Community policing is not about making police friendlier, but about making police violence more acceptable."

"The history of modern police reforms indicates that such proposals expand the bureaucratic, ideological, cultural, and institutional capacity of policing and police violence in their various forms, from surveillance and harassment to crowd control, involuntary hospitalization, and bodily (sexual) assault. Regrettably, the Task Force Report proposes a reorganization and redistribution of police power that rests on an “[integration of] campus safety activities, including prevention and response, more deliberately with existing campus-based programs that address issues such as mental health, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and drug or alcohol abuse.”

By Dylan Rodríguez, Professor, Department of Media and Cultural Studies, UC Riverside Dear Chancellor Wilcox and UCR Administrative Collea...

05/29/2021

"On May 13, Congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri’s 1st District of St. Louis gave a speech on the House floor. In response to the rising violence in Israel-Palestine she stated,
“St. Louis and I today rise in solidarity with the Palestinian people […] The fight for Black lives and the fight for Palestinian liberation are interconnected. We oppose our money going to fund militarized policing, occupation, and systems of violent oppression and trauma. We are anti-war. We are anti-occupation. And we are anti-apartheid. Period.”"

Rep. Cori Bush’s statements in support of Palestinians during the most recent uprising reflect how the US discussion of Israel-Palestine is increasingly impacted by the anti-racism and anti-colonialism of the Black Lives Matter movement.

04/22/2021

h/t Alan Schultz

A six week study guide for newcomers to abolition with a wealth of resources for further collective study.

04/13/2021

Abolition conference starts THIS WED. Fantastic keynotes.
https://sites.google.com/view/imagining-abolition/

Imagining Abolition: Beyond Prisons, Wars, and Borders A Virtual Gathering April 14-17, 2021 Register for connection details! Meet the Organizers ~ Principles for Universal Presentation Design

04/09/2021

"A new survey of more than 600 middle and high school students across four states finds that 41 percent feel “very unsafe” or “unsafe” when they see police officers at their public schools. One-third said they feel targeted by police based on an aspect of their identity, such as race, primary language, sexual orientation or gender identity, and students reported bullying and sexual harassment by police at multiple public schools."

A new survey finds that 41 percent of students feel “unsafe” when they see police at school.

03/08/2021

More than 20 major cities have reduced police budgets in some form, and activists are fighting to ensure that is only the start

02/02/2021

In collaboration, Project Nia and Interrupting Criminalization have compiled the 2020 resources from Project Nia's "Building Your Abolitionist Toolbox: Everyday Resources for a Punishment-Free World" series.

"Building Your Abolitionist Toolbox" explores skills that help community members engage and expand in self-accountability, restorative and transformative justice — building blocks of many community-based safety strategies. Together we explore tools and strategies that we can use right now — at home, in classrooms, at work, and in our neighborhoods.

Check out the new site that includes resources from all 6 sessions that we hosted in 2020: https://abolitionist.tools

Everyday Resources for a Punishment-Free World

01/09/2021

All 25 deaths of incarcerated persons in WI could have been prevented if Gov Evers had substantially reduced the prison population, as he had promised to do when campaigning for office (before there was a pandemic).

"Wisconsin corrections officials say two additional inmates have died from coronavirus in the state’s prison system, bringing the total number of COVID-19 deaths to 25.

The additional deaths come as more than half of the state’s roughly 20,000 prisoners have been infected."

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin corrections officials say two additional inmates have died from coronavirus in the state’s prison system, bringing the total number of COVID-19 deaths to 25. The additiona

12/03/2020

Next week we will continue the necessary work and conversation for Abolition for the People!

Join us as we host special guest Taleavia Cole, sister of Alvin Cole who was murdered by now-former Wauwatosa Police Officer. We will talk to her about her family's journey since Alvin's murder

Here is the article we are asking folks to read to prep for the session: https://level.medium.com/losing-my-son-to-police-violence-a-conversation-with-gwendolyn-woods-5bc18b679305

We thank you all again.
Register Here: bit.ly/AARTDecPE

11/07/2020

"LA’s “Yes on J” campaign flipped the message from defunding cops to investing in everything else."

LA’s "Yes on J" campaign flipped the message from defunding cops to investing in everything else. It worked brilliantly.