Introduction
Thesis 1. A national abolitionist movement has erupted in Britain.
Abolition is a tool to reimagine revolutionary politics.
Thesis 2. Our journey to abolition in Sisters Uncut was long and
bumpy: abolition is a road, not a destination!
Part 1 - The Tools of Police Power
Thesis 3. Race is at the heart of policing; without race policing
can’t function. Dismantling the police means dismantling race.
Thesis 4. The police need public consent in order to exist.
Withdrawing our consent brings us closer to abolition.
Thesis 5. Coercion and control are the tactics of abusers, and
coercing and controlling the working class is the job of the
police. Abolition is class struggle!
Thesis 6. Women have always experienced the sharp end of state
violence: if your feminism is carceral, it’s bullshit.
Part 2 - Roots In Empire: The History of Criminalisation and
Resistance
Thesis 7. Class struggle in the 18th century sparked a prison
abolitionist fire. Abolition is nothing new.
Thesis 8. The UK rehearsed its strategies of control and punishment
in the colonies. Abolition continues anti-colonial and class
struggle in Britain today.
Part 3 - Systems of Criminalisation Today
Thesis 9. From student revolt to urban rebellion, abolition must
harness the radical energy of our youth!
Thesis 10. Bordering and policing protects colonial, imperialist
and capitalist wealth. Open borders is abolition and abolition is
open borders!
Thesis 11. From the streets to the cell block incarcerated people
have organised to resist state violence.
Thesis 12. The 'War on Terror' expanded policing powers into
everyday institutions. Fighting Islamophobic racism is central to
abolitionist struggle.
Thesis 13. Capitalist crisis, neoliberalism and gentrification
drive racist ‘gangs’ policing in Black communities. Abolition is a
struggle against the whole system!
Part 4 - Abolitionist Futures
Thesis 14. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities have led fierce
resistance to state violence. Abolition must unite different
struggles.
Thesis 15. Crime is a social construct, but harm is real.
Revolution is an essential ingredient to building transformative
approaches to harm from the community level up.
Thesis 16. Revolution needs you…
Part 5 - Symposium: Abolition in the UK
Aviah Sarah Day is a Black community organiser with Sisters Uncut
and Hackney Cop Watch. The rest of her time is spent lecturing in
Criminology at Birkbeck, University of London, organising in her
trade union branch, and reflecting on how to build workers' power
through anarcho-syndicalism.
Shanice Octavia McBean is a Black writer and activist in Sisters
Uncut. She grew up in Handsworth, Birmingham, before moving to
Tottenham. Describing herself as a revolutionary and Afro-Marxist,
she has also organised in anti-racist groups and trade unions.
‘A powerful analysis of the transformative potential of the
abolitionist project. Day and McBean show why we must go beyond
shifting a few dollars around to directly challenge the logics of
capitalism, racism and patriarchy at the heart of the carceral
state’
*Alex S. Vitale, author of ‘The End of Policing’*
'Vibrantly chronicles the cultural and political landscape of
abolitionist practices in the UK. Day and McBean weave a powerful
array of analysis, histories and voices - from organisers,
scholars, unionists and/or incarcerated people - to offer
profoundly necessary historical lessons that formulate the pathways
that shape our abolition feminist revolutions'
*Erica R. Meiners, co-author of ‘Abolition. Feminism. Now.’*
'Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean speak with such
eloquence, conviction and passion that readers will want to join
their struggle for abolition revolution. Their trenchant and
concrete analysis of the criminalisation of the Black and Asian
youth, of carceral white bourgeois feminism, gentrification, police
and state violence make essential reading. Let's heed their call
for an abolitionist future'
*Francoise Vergès, author of A Decolonial Feminism*
'Not only does this superlative book expertly dismantle the dogmas
of liberal anti-racism and carceral feminism which reproduce the
systems of power, it also points the way forward to a
post-abolitionist future in a meticulous, clear-headed way. Highly
recommended'
*Silvia Federici, author of ’Caliban and the Witch’*
'A thorough, engaging and important read - that held me through new
information whilst never sacrificing depth. I’m so glad this book
exists!'
*Travis Alabanza, award winning writer, performer and theatre
maker*
'An essential contribution to the debate on strategies for
effective political action against systems of criminalisation. A
must for read for activists and those who seek a deeper
understanding of the development of international abolitionist
movement and its relevance to radical and revolutionary politics
today'
*Leila Howe, founding member of the Race Today Collective*
'An energising, and timely contribution to global debates about
abolition and the growing interest in the UK in building on the
organising and resistance to state violence and challenging the
racism, misogyny and harms of policing and incarceration. A book to
help us imagine and develop a world without carceral injustice but
transformative social and racial justice.'
*Deborah Coles, Director of INQUEST*
'This book adds to the excellent emerging literature about police,
prison and border abolition in a UK specific context. Abolition
Revolution is very special because McBean and Day combine deep
theoretical and historical knowledge with practical organising
experience, specifically in the context of violence against women
and austerity. If you feel that there must be a better way to deal
with harm and violence then this book is for you.'
*Yara Rodrigues Fowler, ‘Guardian’*
'Amazing!'
*A reviewer*
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