If police are the problem, what's the solution?
Tens of millions of people poured onto the streets for Black Lives
Matter, bringing with them a wholly new idea of public safety, common
security, and the delivery of justice, communicating that vision in the
fiery vernacular of riot, rebellion, and protest. A World Without
Police transcribes these new ideas--written in slogans and chants, over
occupied bridges and hastily assembled barricades--into a compelling,
must-read manifesto for police abolition.
Compellingly argued and lyrically charged, A World Without Police
offers concrete strategies for confronting and breaking police power, as
a first step toward building community alternatives that make the police
obsolete. Surveying the post-protest landscape in Minneapolis,
Philadelphia, Chicago, and Oakland, as well as the people who have
experimented with policing alternatives at a mass scale in Latin
America, Maher details the institutions we can count on to deliver
security without the disorganizing interventions of cops: neighborhood
response networks, community-based restorative justice practices,
democratically organized self-defense projects, and well-resourced
social services.
A World Without Police argues that abolition is not a distant dream or
an unreachable horizon but an attainable reality. In communities around
the world, we are beginning to glimpse a real, lasting justice in which
we keep us safe.
