There’s high revolutionary energy now but their calls for pragmatism are informed by the limits imposed by the carceral state. Beginning to imagine here is the first step to embracing our freedom. The permutation simply stopping at abolishing the police fails because the alternative is an indict of all systems of enforcement punishment and carcerality

True abolition involves at least three necessary components: defunding of the police, the disarming of the police, and the abolition of policing as an institution. Of course, at the same time, and indeed well before the police are entirely abolished, we must work together to come up with new ways to respond to conflict, harms, and other behaviours that society collectively deems detrimental to living well together. It is for this reason that the abolition of policing and the entire criminal punishment system is often perceived as utopian, a fantasy. How can we deal with harm, whether it be to persons or property, whether it be through physical violence or other forms of injustice, without the police? I understand that this is difficult for many people to conceive. We have been told so often and for so long that there is a certain way of doing things, a certain way to get things done, to protect ourselves and our loved ones (and our property), that it is difficult even to imagine a different way. Which is why imagination is so central to the abolitionist project: the first foundational step to embracing a newfound freedom is embracing the freedom to imagine it.

For abolitionists, the increasing clamour and frequency of demands to defund the police across North America over the last few years mark a pivotal moment. The moment is one where abolition moved from utopian dreams and into actual policy and political discourse. At this moment in history, when the fascist impulses of Trumpism are one of the primary ways through which Black people experience the world, and not just Black people in the United States, highlighting how policing works as endowed state power is essential if we are to make sense of how the entire criminal punishment system works to oppress certain populations within a society, by keeping them in a proscribed place. Policing is many people’s first encounter with the state and the myriad ways it seeks to control all elements of our lives. Abolition is not just about ending current systems; it is also an engaged and creative approach to social organization meant to fully transform how we live together. It is important to understand that abolition is about much more than just policing: its focus is, rather, on the criminal punishment system as a whole.