Examples from other cities

• Peoples Budget LA
  • Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles led a coalition of community and advocacy groups to develop a counter-proposal for the City of Los Angeles.
• Decriminalize Seattle
  • A broad coalition initiated around demands from COVID-19 Mutual Aid Seattle.
  • Powerpoint Presentation to Seattle City Council on Defunding the Police
• Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Street (CAHOOTS)
  • Summary of the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, OR that offers an alternative to police interaction for homeless and mental health crises.  The program is run through a 911 dispatcher, that dispatches a mental health crisis worker and EMT to provide services.  As a service responder, this organization aids in decriminalizing the homeless and mentally ill.
• “How One California City Began Bringing Its Murder Rate Down– Without Cops”
  • Summary: article and evaluation of Richmond Office of Neighborhood Safety Program that focuses on identifying individuals involved with gun violence and providing mentorship, mediation, and wrap around services in order to prevent gun violence.
  • Evaluation for Office of Neighborhood Safety

Participatory Budgeting

• Participatory Budgeting Project
  • The Participatory Budgeting Project empowers people to decide together how to spend public money. They create and support participatory budgeting processes that deepen democracy, build stronger communities, and make public budgets more equitable and effective.

“Abolition – Political Education”

• Reformist Reforms v. Abolitionist Steps
  • Practical guide for understanding what kinds of reforms we should support, and what kinds further expand the system under the guise of “reform”
• Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0
  • Compilation of readings, book recommendations
• If You’re New to Abolition: Study Group Guide (very user-friendly)
  • Week one: Prisons and Policing in the U.S. as a History of anti-Blackness
  • Week two: The Prison Industrial Complex
  • Week three: Policing and Imprisonment as Racial Violence
  • Week four: Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps
  • Week five: Feminist, Queer and Trans Abolitionism
  • Week six: Abolitionist Alternatives
• Envisioning Abolition Democracy
  • Essay detailing the concept of abolition democracy, a conception of justice that doesn’t rely on prisons, and police, and case studies from Chicago abolition movements.