Abolition Revolution

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.

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