Abolition Means Public Safety for All
In a post-abolition San Francisco, we are free of oppressive and racist systems that target and kill our people. We are free of norms and policies that create barriers for marginalized groups and prevent everyone from thriving.
We’ve filled the spaces left by those oppressive norms with structures that truly make us feel safe—structures that actually address our basic needs. And instead of relying on punishment as a tool for problems, we also have models of accountability that focus on addressing root issues, repairing harms, and growing.
All of which is to say: A post-abolition world is not a world of chaos. It is not a world that doesn’t hold people accountable for harm they cause to their communities. It is a world that seeks to meet people’s basic needs, provide life-affirming resources, and foster accountability through radical and community-led solutions that don’t further harm the communities they seek to help.
We still have a long way to go toward total abolition of the prison industrial complex, which has failed to keep us all safe and instead inflicted even more violence on our communities. We must move past the idea of punishment and move toward preventative and transformative measures that will enrich our communities. We must be willing to use our imagination to envision a world without these oppressive systems.
When you put all of these things together, yes, that’s a whole different world — a healthier, stronger, more supported, and more connected world. This is a world that is not to be feared but a world that we should strive to build.
Resources
An example of how the ideas above are more intuitive than they might seem at first glance!
What might a world where people have access to the resources and care they might need look like?
Some ways to build accountable communities
And more resources on abolition, policing, and the prison-industrial complex, and what work we need to do: