Photo: Courtesy of Derecka Purnell
Gunshot wounds. Allergic reactions. Nosebleeds and asthma attacks from unsafe and polluted air. These are just a few of the reasons that Derecka Purnell, an organizer, journalist, and human-rights lawyer currently based in Washington, D.C., used to call the police. Growing up in an underfunded, predominantly Black neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri, Purnell and others in her community, not having access to other resources, called 911 for almost every issue; police accompanied paramedics or arrived alone. Cops were everywhere and police violence, unavoidable. As a young girl in St. Louis public schools, on-campus police or school resource officers lined the hallways. In high school, Purnell once witnessed an officer break up a fight between two students by punching one boy so hard in the ear that he fell to the floor in pain.
Still, as she entered college, Purnell wasnt ready to imagine a world without police. She had seen and experienced physical and sexual violence throughout much of her life, and the thought of erasing the entity that was purportedly meant to protect her and her loved ones filled her with fear, as it does for so many Americans. It wasnt until Purnell entered law school, when she was in community with other organizers, that police abolition became a more serious idea in her mind. Suddenly, Purnell was asking the probing, critical questions that are typical and often integral to an individuals abolitionist initiation: What would a world without police look like? Is that something we are able to imagine and willing to fight for?
These are the questions that Purnells debut book, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom (October 5), so artfully grapples with. Through deft historical research, political analysis, and gutting prose, the book uses a variety of approaches part autobiographical, part textbook, part personal musing to map Purnells complex and fulfilling political evolution. The more that I learned and continue to learn about abolition, the more questions I had, Purnell told the Cut. I realized I was part of a broader group of people, particularly activists, who were trying to figure out their own political leanings, and that I wasnt alone in this process of figuring out what it means to be an abolitionist. The tides were changing: Organizers who celebrated George Zimmermans arrest in 2012 were calling for abolishing police in 2020. And though many books had influenced Purnell greatly, she had yet to read one that captured the personal and emotional nuance involved in this massive political shift.I couldnt quite find a specific text that went through the process of embracing abolition, Purnell said. I wrote this one so people could see it was possible.
Statistically, a fair few Americans became police abolitionists or at least warmed up to the idea in the latter half of 2020. According to June 2020 data from FiveThirtyEight, about 31 percent of Americans support the defund the police slogan. Data from Reuters during this same time frame notes that 76 percent of respondents were in support of proposals that moved money from police budgets into local programs for homelessness, mental-health assistance, and domestic violence. Though the defund the police demand certainly gained traction during the Black Lives Matter uprisings in the wake of George Floyds murder, the strength of Purnells work is in her ability to place todays unrest in historical context. Becoming Abolitionists explains how the discipline originated during the 18th century, when enslaved people across the United States fought for their freedom. Slavery ended in 1865, when the 13th Amendment abolished slavery except as a punishment for crime,but we know that the reality is not so clear-cut: Slavery was and still is legal as it is practiced through incarceration (not to mention the other forms slavery takes today, including sex trafficking and the forced indentured servitude of illegal immigrants). As arrest and incarceration rates skyrocket year after year according to recent data from the Sentencing Project, there are currently over 2 million people incarcerated in the U.S., a 500 percent increase over the last 40 years abolitionist organizers continue to demand that we reimagine new methods of public safety. For Purnell, abolition is not just a matter of safety, but one of justice. In her book, she muses on what might have happened if George Floyd had lived.
I often wonder, What if the cop who killed George Floyd had kneeled on Floyds neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds instead of nine minutes? Floyd would have lived to be arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for allegedly attempting to use a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. Is that justice? I did not think so.
Purnell does not offer definitive answers to these questions, or set forth proposals for exactly what this sort of justice would look like, but she does boldly argue that abolition is the best road to reaching it.
Photo: Courtesy of Derecka Purnell
The idea of becoming is a through-line in many contemporary abolitionists work. Throughout much of 2019 and 2020, for example, we were able to watch rapper Nonames public journey from Black capitalism to an embrace of police abolition and other anti-capitalist frameworks. In her recent book, We Do This Til We Free Us, veteran abolitionist thinker and organizer Mariame Kaba also addressed this shift in thinking. Her essay, So Youre Thinking About Becoming an Abolitionist, debunks the common myth that abolition is only concerned with tearing down what exists, and instead posits that a key, overlooked component of police abolition is imagining what can be built. Lets begin our abolitionist journey not with the question, What do we have now and how can we make the world better? Kaba writes. Instead lets ask, What can we imagine for ourselves and the world?
Purnells writing similarly pushes readers to expand their conception of what a police-free world could look like. In 2020, she was part of the #8toabolition campaign, a response to Campaign Zeros #8cantwait campaign, which argued for various police reforms. The #8toabolition campaign was so successful that eventually Shaun King, then considering running for office in Brooklyn and a vocal supporter of #8cantwait, added abolition as one of the goals of his campaign as well. In her regular column for The Guardian, Purnell routinely challenges her readers to expand their views on the role of policing in public safety. In the aftermath of the January 6 riots at the Capitol, Purnell published an essay about how the justice system would have killed or punished protesters if they were Black, a notion that circulated widely on social media and in the press. After Congress passed the George Floyd Act in February, she penned a story insisting that reforms to a violently racist system would not have been enough to save Floyd or many other victims of police violence; instead, we must create an entirely new framework. Pushing her readers to think outside the limitations of our current justice system is important to Purnell, who herself went from skeptic to eventually championing abolition after being encouraged by her peers. I was able to take on more creative, imaginative, radical, and beautiful politics, all because I was pushed by the organizers I studied and shared space with, Purnell said. I was curious, I asked questions. I had heavily unexamined ideas about the world and the police, but those thoughts hadnt been brought to the surface yet; I think a lot of folks are in the same boat.
So how does one become an abolitionist? An open mind is the start, but its certainly not the end. Many texts, such as Angela Daviss Abolition Democracy, aided Purnell on her journey. But study, too, only takes one so far. What happens is theres an attraction to the ability to espouse abolitionist ideas without paying attention to political development, or the work it took for someone to get there, Purnell explains. But it took years for many organizers to move from reforms like we want body cameras and more diverse police to we shouldnt have capitalism or police; these systems are inextricably linked. So Im a bit nervous when people assume they can just read a book or some tweets and then call it a day. More than anything, abolitionists need to belong to a movement, to engage in political struggle.
Even now, Purnell says, her politics are still changing, guided by conversations shes had, struggles shes been in, and constant ideological trial and error. As she acknowledges, The abolitionist politics I have today are not the same as the ones I had ten years ago. Abolition is always a constant state of becoming.
This idea of political evolution a continual becoming can be both comforting and terrifying, particularly in an age where people are constantly and brutally shamed for their past beliefs online. The strength of Purnells writing is in her vulnerability, her refreshing openness about changing her mind.She feels no shame for her past political beliefs, as they shaped her into the empathetic and widely read thinker she is today. They were honest, said Purnell of her older essays, many of which lean more liberal or left of center as opposed to her current fully leftist takes. Everything Ive ever written is honest. I remember after Trayvon Martin was killed I published something on Facebook saying, I hope this doesnt cause more tension between Black people and the police, when I was maybe 21 years old. If people tried to say to me, Well, you werent an abolitionist when you were 21, Id say, Exactly.
Despite an impressive writing and organizing tenure, Purnell still considers herself fairly new to abolition, and writes for folks who feel the same. I write for the abolition-curious, she said, people who maybe arent full-fledged abolitionists but have questions, thoughts, or unexamined ideologies about policing or movements as a whole. I think we should ask those questions together.
What about the rapists?
Its a question Purnell has been faced with countless times, from both conservatives and the abolition-curious alike. If we abolish the police, who will punish the murderers, the rapists, and others committing harm? In her book, Purnell handles these questions with care. Rather than deal in hypotheticals, she sticks to the facts. Of women who have been married, she writes, 10 to 14 percent have been raped at least once by their partner. Of women and girls who report being raped, almost half were asleep or at home at the time, and an overwhelming majority were raped by people they know. Nearly 80 percent of sexual violence by boyfriends, husbands, and ex-husbands is not reported to the police. And when it is reported, the accused rarely face justice: A 2014 report found a minimum of 20,000 untested rape kits across police departments in five U.S. cities alone.
A survivor herself, Purnell understands firsthand that policing is not the way to repair harm and get justice in the aftermath of sexual violence. What about the rapists?, Purnell argues, is the wrong question to ask in the first place. Instead of holding onto a system that aims to punish people after violence has already taken place, we should invest in resources such as affordable housing, quality education, better access to food, and accessible mental-health care that are proven to help prevent criminal violence in the first place. Police abolition, and the redistribution of departments budgets to these essential social goods, is a crucial step in prevention. When people come across police abolition for the first time, they tend to dismiss abolitionists for not caring about neighborhood safety or the victims of violence, Purnell writes. They tend to forget that, often, we are those victims, those survivors of violence, too.
Purnell writes about abolition not as a possibility, but a certainty. It is not a question of if abolition will happen; abolitionism is being practiced every day. The question about total abolition is when. And shes right: As mutual aid proliferates during the pandemic and calls to defund the police or invest in alternative methods of policing crop up in cities across the country, the future Purnell envisions seems to be slowly forming. In her book, Purnell outlines other important steps she thinks we should take, such as universal child care and health care for all who need it measures that would both vastly improve quality of life and stop us from relying on police for things like health or community care.
As time passes, people eventually resist the oppressive conditions they live under because they realize that if they dont, the conditions only get worse, Purnell said. Thats what happened during the slave trade, during the creation of the eight-hour workday, and with many feminist causes. Theres going to be a breaking point. Theres only so much longer we as a society will tolerate police killing three people per day, or having millions of poor Black and brown people incarcerated. The next question we need to collectively ask ourselves is, if we are no longer tolerating what we have now, then what are we committed to building?
Read more:
Derecka Purnell Is Speaking to the Abolition Curious - The Cut
- Student-Led Working Group to Abolish GUPD Calls for Greater Community Involvement - Georgetown University The Hoya - April 10th, 2024 [April 10th, 2024]
- Nobel Peace Prize - Wikipedia - January 10th, 2023 [January 10th, 2023]
- Albanese government neuters ABCC ahead of abolition - The Australian Financial Review - October 28th, 2022 [October 28th, 2022]
- 3 Good Reasons You Should Learn More About Angela Davis - Because of Them We Can - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Eradication of forced labor -- striking example of political will - The Korea Herald - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Intrusion impending: what contractors need to know about proposed abolition of the ABCC - Lexology - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- What Does It Mean To 'Abolish the Family'? - ArtReview - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- UN experts call for complete abolition of death penalty as 'only viable path' - UN News - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Opinion | Social justice work must continue - UI The Daily Iowan - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Rank-and-file action committees independent of IG Metall union needed to defend all jobs at all sites - WSWS - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Japan plans to abolish health insurance cards in fall 2024 | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis - - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Are you buying the copaganda? - mlk50.com - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- 'Crown Jewel of Criminal Justice System': Voters In Five States Will Address Legal Loophole That Still Allows Slavery - Atlanta Black Star - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- TUPD aims to connect with Tufts community over coffee - Tufts Daily - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Ex-condemned prisoner relives 11-year wait for hangmans noose - The Herald - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- The Ongoing Fight Against Femicides and Violence Against Women in the Caribbean - Rolling Stone - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- At Tate Britain, Hew Locke Powerfully Reckons with Colonialist Histories and Their Lingering Aftereffects - ARTnews - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Presentation of the Annual Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - World - ReliefWeb - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Sanitation staff on strike over salary delay in Delhi - The New Indian Express - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Human Rights Watch Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of Burundi - Human Rights Watch - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- UN experts warn of associated torture and cruel punishment - OHCHR - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- How Lead Belly twice won freedom from prison through his music - Far Out Magazine - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Why don't Popes ever win the Nobel Peace Prize? - Crux Now - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Hunting: Where the end began - Reaction - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Greece is committed to reforming its mass media and protecting personal data - Hellenic News of America - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Standing against war and nuclear catastrophe: lessons from Port Kembla - Red Flag - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Liz Truss warned tax cuts like hers could lead to 'boom and bust' in unearthed 2018 clip - The Mirror - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Opinion | The Puppets and the Puppet Masters - Common Dreams - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Intersecting Drug Policy and Abolition: A Conversation - TalkingDrugs - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Rival parties to lock horns over Gender Ministry in government organization reform plan - The Korea Herald - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Reforms, roll-outs and freezes in the tax and benefit system | Institute for Fiscal Studies - ifs.org.uk - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Kwasi Kwarteng to bring forward planned fiscal statement in another U-turn as it happened - The Guardian - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- IR35 reforms repeal: How it stands to benefit the tech sectors SMEs and contractors - ComputerWeekly.com - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- The Future of Truth - Portsmouth Daily Times - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Governor Hochul Names Canal Corporation Vessel in Honor of the Inspirational Life and Legacy of Harriet Tubman - ny.gov - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Tory MPs hit back after threats issued to those opposing 45p tax rate abolition - The Guardian - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- John Hood: Don't That Just Beat All? Neuse News - Neuse News - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Scrapping inheritance tax is a terrible idea - The Spectator - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Reeves: Government instincts in mini-Budget were to cut taxes for wealthiest - LabourList - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- The Biggest Exhibitions To See In London And Beyond: Autumn 2022 - Londonist - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Actually, Black Mermaid Folklore Has Been Around Long Before Disneys The Little Mermaid - Yahoo Life - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Build solidarity with rail workers fight! Help strengthen, expand the labor movement! The Militant - The Militant - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- The Most Absolute Abolitionnew book explores abolition and lives of escaped slaves - Socialist Worker - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Democracy Cant Be Reduced to Voting in 2022 We Must Build the Future We Want - Truthout - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Christophe Ferrari denounces the announced abolition of the CVAE - US Sports - US Sports - - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Child labour: Nashik tribals struggle to survive, give kids to goatherds for Rs 10K - The New Indian Express - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Library Takeover Returns: Submit Your Application! | City of Madison - City of Madison, Wisconsin - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Do Britain and the world really need a king? - People's World - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Soka Gakkai International's Nuclear Abolition Work - Tricycle - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Clinton nonprofit funneled $75,000 to 'defund the police' group: report - New York Post - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Cops and Prosecutors Truly Work the Same Side: Ingrid Raphal and Melissa Gira Grant on their FOV Doc They Wont Call It Murder - Filmmaker Magazine - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- The Iran Man Behind the Nuclear Curtain Jewish Policy Center - Jewish Policy Center - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Dorothy Roberts Tried to Warn Us - New York Magazine - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Hear Me Now: The Black Potters Of Old Edgefield, South Carolina - Antiques And The Arts Weekly - Antiques and the Arts Online - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- The Spin | Zimbabwe's upset win should spur England to be good global citizens - The Guardian - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Letter of the week: The Proms deserve better - The New Statesman - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Why We Should Abolish the Family Current Affairs - Current Affairs - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- On the Need for Honest Abolitionists. | Jeff Hood - Patheos - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Chile rejects a progressive constitution with big changes - NPR - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Where Solidarity, Abolition, and Queer History Meet - The Nation - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Addressing the sugar crisis long term - Manila Bulletin - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Experts react: The United Kingdom has a new prime minister. What should the world expect from Liz Truss? - Atlantic Council - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Explained Books | An eminent cardiac surgeon's account of his work, and of Kashmir - The Indian Express - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Formerly incarcerated women of color face worse health in later life | OUPblog - OUPblog - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- The crime against humanity that is the modern OS desktop, and how to kill it - The Register - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Kenya: William Ruto's triumph, By Reuben Abati - Premium Times - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- What shall we do with the climate refugees? - Trinidad & Tobago Express Newspapers - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Digitisation of records, land reforms turn 'Naya J&K' hi-tech - Rising Kashmir - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- What year was slavery abolished in the US? - Fox News - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- The United Nations Human Rights Council met for its 50th Regular Session from June 13 to July 8, 2022. - WCADP - World Coalition Against the Death... - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Special Tax Regimes for Mobile Individuals and Their Impact on the EU's Single Market - Bloomberg Tax - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Undergraduate Summer Research Highlights - Newsroom | University of St. Thomas - University of St. Thomas Newsroom - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- A safe and healthy working environment is now a human right - Workplace Insight - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Haryana dismisses alleged abolition of teachers post as baseless - The Statesman - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- New book explores wicked problems facing peace studies scholars and practitioners // Department of Political Science // University of Notre Dame -... - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Universities Are Plundering Cities. How Can This Relationship Change? - Truthout - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Edinburgh should apologise for role in slavery and colonialism, says academic - STV News - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- The inside story of the CIA v Russia from cold war conspiracy to 'black' propaganda in Ukraine - The Conversation Indonesia - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Radical gender theory has now made its way into more than 4,000 US schools - Home - WSFX - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Infanticide: Excitement as 5-year-old reunites with family in FCT - Blueprint Newspapers Limited - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]