page_title: Police abolition movement
section_title: Support
hierarchical_section_title: Police abolition movement / Contemporary responses / Support
caption_attribution_description: English: Graffiti, George Floyd protest, Minneapolis, MN, June, 2020
context_page_description: The police abolition movement is a political movement, largely in the United States, that advocates replacing policing with other systems of public safety. Police abolitionists believe that policing, as a system, is inherently flawed and cannot be reformed—a view that rejects the ideology of police reformists. While reformists seek to address the ways in which policing occurs, abolitionists seek to transform policing altogether through a process of disbanding, disempowering, and disarming the police. Abolitionists argue that the institution of policing is deeply rooted in a history of white supremacy and settler colonialism, and that it is inseparable from the purported existing racial capitalist order. Therefore, they say, a reformist reform approach to policing will always fail.
  Police abolition is a process that requires communities to create alternatives to policing. This process involves the deconstruction of the preconceived understandings of policing and resisting co-option by reformists. It also involves engaging in and supporting practices that reduce police power and legitimacy, such as defunding the police.
context_section_description: The contemporary police abolition movement began at least as early as 2014 during the Ferguson riots but gained strength in 2020 during the aftermath of the death of George Floyd and the protests surrounding it. According to the New York Times, cities across the United States were considering defunding, downsizing, or abolishing their departments in the Floyd aftermath.
  In Minneapolis, activist groups Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective requested that the city's police budget be cut by $45 million. Advocacy group MPD150, which had previously published a report recommending the MPD be abolished in 2017, argued that "the people who respond to crises in our community should be the people who are best-equipped to deal with those crises" and that first responders should be social workers and mental health providers. Public schools, parks, multiple private businesses and venues, and the University of Minnesota have severed ties with the police department. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey was booed by a large crowd of protestors after refusing to defund and abolish the police. Nine members of the Minneapolis City Council—a veto-proof majority—pledged on June 7, 2020 to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department, despite opposition from Mayor Frey.
  Police reforms in Minneapolis after the 2015 police shooting of Jamar Clark added a "duty to intervene" when an officer saw a colleague doing something to endanger a member of the public; the new policy was "key to the swift firing and arrest of the four officers" in the Floyd case. However, according to council member Alondra Cano, "the fact that none of the officers took the initiative to follow the policy to intervene, it just became really clear to me that this system wasn't going to work, no matter how much we threw at it." City council member Steven Fletcher suggested the city "disband the MPD [Minneapolis Police Department] and start fresh with a community-oriented, non-violent public safety and outreach capacity." Council member Jeremiah Ellison said "We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department, and when we're done, we're not simply gonna glue it back together. We are going to dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response. Council president Lisa Bender also called for dismantling the department. U.S. representative Ilhan Omar stated, "the Minneapolis Police Department has proven themselves beyond reform. It's time to disband them and reimagine public safety in Minneapolis."
caption: "Abolish the police" graffiti in Minneapolis, MN (June 2020)
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