★ 2022-05-14
Two seasoned activists make a convincing case for defunding the police.
As Kaba and Ritchie note, defunding “means investing the billions currently poured into policing and the prison-industrial complex into community-based safety strategies: meeting basic needs that include housing, health care, access to care for disabled people, childcare, elder care, a basic guaranteed income, and accessible, sustainable living-wage jobs.” The authors use three main arguments. First, they show how policing endangers, rather than protects, America’s most vulnerable communities. Second, they claim that calls for reforming the police—rather than abolition—are futile because the inherent violence of policing makes it impossible to reform. Finally, they argue that there are more effective ways to promote safety. “We call for abolition of police because, despite all of the power, resources and legitimacy we pour into them, they cannot and will not deliver safety,” they write. Kaba and Ritchie begin by showing how police manufacture crimes by focusing on making most of their arrests in certain “hot spots”—which, they argue, is code for brown and Black neighborhoods—while ignoring others. This perpetuates a culture of “fearmongering” that politicians use to divert funds to police and away from social services programs that have been proven to prevent violence. The authors urge a shift to an “abundance mindset,” in which the government stops using resources to punish marginalized populations and instead uses them to meet every American’s needs. Furthermore, they urge us to listen to survivors, who often encounter violence in the very systems that are allegedly set up to protect them. Kaba and Ritchie are knowledgeable, passionate, and skilled at elucidating complex concepts clearly, without sacrificing nuance. The book is deeply researched and flawlessly argued, and the plan they lay out is practical, compassionate, and circumspect.
A brilliantly articulated plan to abolish the police.
Praise for No More Police:
“Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie’s No More Police: A Case for Abolition is equal parts imaginative and practical. . . . It’s a book equally perfect for the skeptics, the curious, and the committed abolitionists in your life.”
—Inquest
“At this point, I hope you know to just read anything and everything Mariame Kaba or Andrea Ritchie write. They are making the most compelling and practical arguments for abolition out there.”
—Ms. magazine
“[No More Police] gives readers a unique insight into the mindset of veteran organizers who have long remained diligent and optimistic in this work.”
—Vulture
“Kaba and Ritchie are knowledgeable, passionate, and skilled at elucidating complex concepts clearly, without sacrificing nuance. The book is deeply researched and flawlessly argued, and the plan they lay out is practical, compassionate, and circumspect. . . . A brilliantly articulated plan to abolish the police.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“No More Police is a passionate, eloquent condemnation of the carceral policies and mindsets that have long governed America.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“An impassioned and bold call to abolish police forces.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Exploring movements to defund and abolish police through the lens of long legacies of Black feminist abolitionist organizing, No More Police offers an unflinching look at the traps that lie along the path to abolitionist futures, and critical guidance for readers who want to be part of bringing them into being. Add this timely and engaging book to the top of your must-read list.”
—Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz
“No More Police makes a sharp and compelling Black feminist case for a world without police, and without policing. Kaba and Ritchie are movement veterans, and their writing is as meticulously researched as it is grounded in practical knowledge gleaned over decades of abolitionist movement work. At once theoretically nuanced, analytically insightful and highly accessible, No More Police is an essential, must-read book for this moment.”
—Robyn Maynard, author of Policing Black Lives and co-author of Rehearsals for Living
“This book pushes those of us who have been fighting police and sexual violence for decades to think past prosecutions and prisons toward a future where we stop violence before it starts and transform harm when it happens.”
—dream hampton, filmmaker and writer
“In the powerful and generative tradition of Black feminist freedom-making, No More Police not only presents a compelling case for the abolition of police, but points us in the direction of building a safer and more just future. Ritchie and Kaba have worked for decades in transformative justice and abolitionist movements. The richness of that experience, the love that fuels it, and the brilliant insights that flow from it, shine brightly in this book.”
—Barbara Ransby, activist, author, and historian
“Kaba and Ritchie are such trusted souls in Black Liberation movements, and No More Police passionately synthesizes the experiences and expertise necessary for building a new world with less violence on all fronts.”
—Raquel Willis, author and activist
“Kaba and Ritchie provide a much-needed primer on the demand to defund the police and how that demand can be leveraged toward an even more fundamental transformation of the violence of policing. The authors root their analysis in the reality of today’s movements and offer practical, concrete recommendations that activists and organizers can put to work right now.”
—Rachel Herzing, co-author of How to Abolish Prison
“An absolutely brilliant contribution. Black feminist abolitionists Kaba and Ritchie’s passionate mandate is that we never give up on the vision of a world where justice and safety live alongside each other.”
—Beth Richie, author of Arrested Justice
“More than a synthesis and summation of the conditions of our movements’ work over the last two years, and more than just an abolitionist movement timeline going back decades, Kaba and Ritchie weave together our collective stories, contradictions, tensions, and all, and gift us with a road map to a future free of cops and cages. This is a must-read in the abolitionist lexicon.”
—Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Movement for Black Lives and co-director of the Highlander Center
“With No More Police, Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie have written the definitive text on police abolition. The magic of this book is its ability to address the practical concerns of the present while strengthening our ability to craft ambitious and transformative freedom dreams for the future. Carefully researched, passionately written, and persuasively argued, No More Police is a must-read text for policymakers, activists, educators, and anyone else committed to imagining and building beyond the carceral world.”
—Marc Lamont Hill, author of We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest, and Possibility
