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When Cat Brooks was 19, her husband beat her so badly that she lay bleeding on the floor of her Las Vegas home. It was her husband had assaulted her. Two police officers showed up, but instead of detaining him, they arrested her. Brooks is Black. Her husband and both officers were white. Brooks went on to face an aggressive district attorney determined to prosecute her, putting her through 鈥渕onths of fear and terror.鈥�

鈥淚 never called for help again,鈥� she says. Today Brooks is a police abolitionist who leads the in Oakland, California. 鈥淲hat I know now, after being in this work for almost two decades, [is that] wide swaths of the Black and Brown community don鈥檛 call [911],鈥� she says. 鈥淏ecause we know that when we dial that number, it鈥檚 very rarely help that actually comes. What comes are agents of an institution who are trained to suppress, control, and subjugate.鈥�

Black Americans have long known that interactions with police often do more harm than good. The nation as a whole has repeatedly witnessed video evidence of racialized police brutality, from the 1991 in Southern California to the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the deadly assault in 2023 of in Memphis, Tennessee.

Police reformists often cast law enforcement as an inherently 鈥済ood鈥� institution that simply needs better , more sophisticated and , and greater to avoid aberrant incidents of violence. But others on the front lines of movements challenging police brutality, such as , have spent decades calling for policing and incarceration to be abolished altogether.

For abolitionists like Brooks, the Nichols killing was evidence that police reforms haven鈥檛 worked. It didn鈥檛 matter that the officers charged with assaulting Nichols were wearing body cameras (which they either removed or didn鈥檛 use), or that all five of those charged are Black. 鈥淎ll cops are blue,鈥� she says, because 鈥渙nce you put on that uniform, that badge, you have made a decision to join an institution [that] from its inception, its job has been to arrest, kidnap, [and] kill Black folks and Indigenous folks and Brown folks.鈥�

Building Up to Abolition 

To most Americans, the word 鈥渁bolition鈥� is most readily associated with the in the United States that . It鈥檚 no coincidence that the movement to end modern-day policing has adopted the same terminology. According to the NAACP, 鈥淭he origins of modern-day policing can be traced back to the 鈥楽lave Patrol.鈥欌�� The police鈥檚 of Black and Brown people confirms these parallels.

Police abolitionism today is centered on demands to 鈥渄efund the police,鈥� an idea sometimes referred to as a 鈥溾�� strategy of transitioning government funding away from policing and toward community resources. Others summarize the notion as 鈥�.鈥� But the basic idea is the same鈥攁 world in which human needs are adequately met is one where police are obsolete. 鈥淲hole, healthy people do not hurt people,鈥� explains Brooks. 鈥淭raumatized, wounded, desperate people do so.鈥�

Abolition, according to Brooks, is 鈥渢aking the money that we鈥檝e been putting into bloated police departments all across this country, redirecting that [into] the things that actually keep people safe, that actually keep violence from happening in the first place.鈥� When people are provided with the foundational elements of safety and happiness鈥攈igh-quality housing, stable employment, education, food, health care, etc.鈥攖here is less need for policing.

Brooks says that ultimately abolition isn鈥檛 only about tearing things down. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about building equitable, just, and humane systems that will work for everyone.鈥�

Still, fully funding people鈥檚 needs may not eradicate all violence. What recourse could there be for a 19-year-old Black woman experiencing abuse from an intimate partner鈥攁s Brooks did鈥攊n a world without police? In January 2020, APTP launched , a project offering police-free options for those seeking help in an emergency. In August of that year, APTP launched . 

Brooks frames these projects as mutual aid. When someone鈥檚 in distress, they can call a nonemergency number to speak with a 鈥渃aring, trained volunteer鈥� in order to create what Brooks calls 鈥渁 participant-determined pathway鈥� to safety. Volunteers can attend virtual community to learn crisis intervention and first aid in emergency situations. She sees such projects as models for a post-police future. 鈥淏adges and guns are not what we need to respond to community crisis,鈥� she emphasizes. 鈥淚t is trained, caring, compassionate community members.鈥�

There鈥檚 an App for That 

Like Brooks, is part of a growing movement of abolitionists who are putting their politics into practice. Ayele, who has worked with the since 2014, is the organizing director of , a Black-led team of software developers based in Oakland that 鈥渂uilds infrastructure for the future of community crisis response.鈥� At its outset, Raheem was a project designed in the vein of a virtual 鈥渃op watch,鈥� Ayele says. 

The project featured a chatbot that could receive and catalog complaints against police, and connect those who filed complaints with community members and services that could provide support, including organizers, lawyers, and therapists. But the team at Raheem soon realized that the platform didn鈥檛 directly reduce police brutality, and that, echoing Brooks鈥� experience, many people in the community were reluctant to resort to police.

鈥淲e know that communities have really been providing care for one another even prior to the existence of police,鈥� says Ayele. Raheem wanted to 鈥渃reate a way for people to access that care without having to rely on police and 鈥� be exposed to police violence.鈥� So the organization pivoted to creating a new digital tool called PATCH, an acronym for 鈥淧eople and Technology for Community Health,鈥� that helps people access care as an alternative to policing.

The app is an electronic dispatch system for 鈥渃ommunity-based crisis response teams,鈥� or CCRTs. Ayele explains these teams can use the app to connect the communities they serve with the care they need. For example, 鈥淧ATCH can be used to coordinate volunteers. It can be used to schedule shifts for crisis response teams. It can also be used to categorize different calls and also texts that 鈥� the organizations that we work with receive,鈥� says Ayele.

She calls PATCH 鈥渢he tech solution to the issue of police violence and community crisis response.鈥� Although the project is still being developed, Ayele says that organizations and small collectives of people wanting to create CCRTs in their neighborhoods, what she calls 鈥渃are pods,鈥� can sign up to receive training and a demonstration of how PATCH can help them coordinate community care.

鈥淎n organization uses PATCH to receive the calls that they get, and then [that organization] 鈥� respond[s] in their local area,鈥� says Ayele. 鈥淪o, it鈥檚 really based on people, and people power, and people getting involved, and also people trusting in themselves and in their own empathy to know that they can provide care to someone in need.鈥� Organizations using PATCH can also connect with a broader national network of mobile crisis teams, health and social service providers, and abolitionist organizers. 

Ayele cites a common critique of community-based crisis response: 鈥淭hese people aren鈥檛 trained. These people aren鈥檛 able to answer a crisis call.鈥� That鈥檚 why PATCH provides trainings that she says are 鈥渋n partnership with local community organizations that help any and everybody learn how to de-escalate a crisis, especially one where someone may be in danger,鈥� she says.

Although Raheem is based in Oakland, the PATCH app is intended for national use. That said, Ayele notes that they 鈥渞eally wanted to create PATCH in a way that only organizations and collectives of people that share our abolitionist do-no-harm values can use it.鈥� The Massachusetts-based (Holistic Emergency Alternative Response Team), a local group led by Black women, has been using PATCH since November 2021. Cambridge HEART鈥檚 core values include 鈥渘o police involvement.鈥� 

The , which provides nonpolice support for unhoused people in Colorado, has since 2021 as a way to access a nonemergency network of trained volunteers. They plan to launch their rapid-response program that uses the app in July 2023. According to DASHR鈥檚 website, the organization believes in 鈥渢ransforming safety to include meeting basic human needs like housing, hunger, and healthcare to be high priorities in ensuring public safety.鈥�

Abolition Goes Viral

Although practical alternatives to police are already in the works, the goal of achieving actual abolition remains elusive. Reina Sultan, one of the co-creators of the website , says that after George Floyd鈥檚 murder, 鈥渁 lot of people wanted 鈥� a taste of what abolition would look like, and very clear demands that they could make to government officials or when they were in the streets protesting.鈥� Sultan and a group of nine others scrambled to capture abolitionist demands that were already in circulation in a succinct and shareable format.

Within a few days the website #8toAbolition was live, and, in Sultan鈥檚 words, it ended up 鈥済oing viral.鈥� Sultan is careful to note that the is not comprehensive. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not incorporating every single element of what abolition could look like.鈥� Still, first on the list is the most well-known abolitionist demand: Defund the police. There鈥檚 no mystery behind this oft-debated idea, she notes. 鈥淲hat it means is taking money out of the police budget and diverting it to different things.鈥� 

The rest of the list flows naturally from that first step and articulates a reimagining of safety and freedom from state violence. For example, steps 2, 3, and 5鈥斺�渄emilitarize communities,鈥� 鈥渞emove police from schools,鈥� and 鈥渞epeal laws that criminalize survival鈥濃�攁llude to the overpolicing of neighborhoods, inner-city schools, and unhoused communities that low-income people of color are disproportionately impacted by. Step 4, 鈥渇ree people from prisons and jails,鈥� references the fact that those same communities are subject to . 鈥淲hy should people be punished for their desperation when governments could solve that issue by feeding and housing people?鈥� asks Sultan.

Sultan is quick to clarify that step 6, 鈥渋nvest in community self-governance,鈥� is not the same as 鈥渃ommunity policing,鈥� a reformist response to police violence. 鈥淐ommunity policing is just repackaged policing,鈥� says Sultan. 鈥淐ommunity self-governance is when people who live in the community are the ones making decisions about their own communities.鈥� In addition to efforts like organizing tenants鈥� unions, self-governance can take the form of non-emergency-police projects like Brooks鈥� Mental Health First in Oakland and Sacramento, and the community-based crisis response teams that the PATCH app鈥檚 founders support.

Transitioning away from police requires building up safety and care for all people. 鈥淥f course, people need food, and education, and a lot of other things to survive and thrive,鈥� says Sultan. 鈥淏ut it is extremely difficult to do anything if you do not have safe and secure housing.鈥� That鈥檚 why step 7 of the #8toAbolition plan is to 鈥減rovide safe housing for everyone.鈥�

The eighth and final step toward a world free of police is to 鈥渋nvest in care, not cops.鈥� 鈥淚t kind of brackets the whole thing,鈥� says Sultan. 鈥淪o, if the first part is to defund the police, then this is what we鈥檙e funding. And there are so many things that are underfunded in our communities that people really need.鈥� Those things include noncoercive mental health care, as well as public transportation, community fridges, free education, and more. 鈥淲e are just not funding any of these things because policing and prisons cost so much money,鈥� Sultan explains. 鈥淎nd if we weren鈥檛 putting so much money there, the taxes that we鈥檙e paying could go toward making people safe and secure in a way that鈥檚 actually meaningful.鈥�

Although meeting basic human needs as an antidote to policing sounds reasonable, 鈥渟elling鈥� the idea to the public remains a challenge. Brooks laments how 鈥渕ost of us can鈥檛 even imagine a world without law enforcement鈥� because of what she calls 鈥溾�濃�攖he pervasive media narrative that police are a force for good. Luckily, says Sultan, there鈥檚 a deep well of information about and work toward realizing abolition. 鈥淢ost of that does come from Black women, queer scholars, and people who have spent a lot of time ideating around abolition,鈥� she says. Sultan and the co-creators of #8toAbolition drew ideas from these sources to frame their pathway toward a police-free world.

Still, a website alone is not enough to manifest such a world. 鈥淭he amount of energy and effort it takes for an organizer to have those one-by-one conversations鈥攖hat, along with the creation of models that can be replicated,鈥� is what Brooks says it will take to end policing. But she鈥檚 heartened by the fact that these issues are being discussed more openly now. When it comes to the public embrace of abolition, Brooks says, 鈥淚 think we are seeing a sea change that, if we鈥檙e smart as organizers, we can exploit to create a watershed moment.鈥�