Browse IC Event Recordings
The Work of Abolition: Health, Housing, and Jobs
This Interrupting Criminalization event considers the point, made by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, that “abolition isn’t just absence,” but is also “a fleshly and material presence of social life lived differently…It’s about making things.” We will explore the presence of abolition and what this means for our labor, political demands, budget priorities, mutual aid, and the scale of our efforts. In the process we will address the role of the state and the relevance of public money, public goods,and policy in abolition.
Tamara K. Nopper will present an overview of defund the police as a budget and labor demand,followed by short lectures on health from Kenyon Farrow, on housing from Akira Drake Rodriguez, and on jobs by Raul Carrillo. The event will conclude with a discussion and questions from the audience, hosted by Maurice B.P. Weeks.
Building Your Abolitionist Toolbox - Abolishing Policing and Militarism on Campuses
Join organizers from Critical Resistance’s Abolitionist Educators working group, Cops Off Campus / No Copy City, and Dissenters to talk about strategies and practices for abolishing policing and militarism on campuses. We’ll share a resource for imagining and engaging abolitionist steps in this work.
Recording and Resource
Building Your Abolitionist Toolbox - Dobbs Was Not the Beginning
Join us and Project NIA for a discussion with representatives from Community Justice Exchange, and If/When/How about their resource on abortion criminalization, Dobbs Was Not the Beginning. This guide is for anyone interested in understanding the ways criminalization of abortion has manifested and harmed people in the past as a way to understand what we might expect in the post-Dobbs era. The guide specifically focuses on the current and anticipated increase in the criminalization of individuals who self-manage their abortion or are suspected of self-managing their abortion.
Active Listening Ft. Stacy Rene Erenberg — This workshop explores the fundamentals of Active Listening as a tool to deepen Restorative Justice (RJ) and Transformative Justice (TJ) facilitation processes. Participants will get a chance to practice and share skills with each other and strategize ways to strengthen Active Listening in their own practice and life.
Abortion Access and the Fight Against Policing & Criminalization Presented by Interrupting Criminalization & The National Network of Abortion Funds — This webinar features a roundtable of Black feminist, trans, and queer organizers discussing why an abolitionist vision is necessary for the future of reproductive justice organizing, and how movements can support the other.
Mapping the Prison Industrial Complex Ft. Micah Herskind — This workshop will use a recent example of the PIC in Atlanta—whose actors promoted the construction of a massive police training facility despite overwhelming public opposition—to begin mapping the web of interests that make up the local PIC.
What’s Structural Harm Got To Do With It? Ft. Jasmyn Story, Honeycomb Justice — In this session, we will explore how to utilize the concept of "Inflamed Structural and Inflamed Historical Harm" in our healing-centered justice processes. We will define the concept, discuss how it can be used, practice with virtual case studies, and discuss micro ways of implementing the usage of the tool.
Whose Security Is It Anyway? Ft. Mariame Kaba & Lara Brooks — "Whose Security Is It Anyway?" explores a neglected area of focus in the marginalization and criminalization of young people: the non-profit industrial complex. Heightened racialized surveillance and increasing state violence, particularly against BIPOC individuals, has also led to increased collusion and reliance on law enforcement within these spaces.
Study & Struggle: Intersectionality Ft. Moni Cosby, April harris, Mariame Kaba, Amber Fayefox Kim, Vincent “Tank” Sherrill — The theme is Abolition, Intersectionality, and Care and will be a conversation about what it means for abolition to be intersectional and how abolition demands a reimagination of what it means to be in community and to care for one another.
Counting Crime Ft. Tamara K. Nopper — An urgent discussion of the politics, history, and methods of counting crime—and who benefits from crime data.
The Rape Intervention Toolkit Ft. The Hope Praxis Collective — The objectives of the curriculum are to provide people with an understanding of how rape culture maintains the status quo in the US (and abroad), identify what power we have to check and transform rape culture, and to provide people with skills on how to make amends for harm from an abolitionist perspective.
Loving Justice Ft. Kai Cheng Thom — How do we develop the skills to embody TJ in our day-to-day lives? Kai Cheng Thom's Loving Justice Framework is a somatic and spiritual lens that is intended to help people stay grounded and mindful in situations of interpersonal and systemic conflict. Kai Cheng will present the basics of Loving Justice and provide some practical, trauma-informed tools for participants to take home.
Cosmic Possibilities Ft. AYO, NYC! — We know that abolitionist futures are possible. In order to create them, we begin by dreaming ourselves into those futures. Cosmic Possibilities is a creative and reflective dreamspace made by and for young people to imagine these liberatory new worlds. What does it look like when our abolitionist visions for the world are realized? What did it take to get us there?
In Our Own Hands: Talking Transformative Justice & Abolition with Little Ones Ft. Rania El Mugammar - This session explores tools and strategies for co-learning about TJ & abolition with little ones. Focusing on every day and organized resistance, the session empowers families, communities, and children with some of the foundational questions and interventions that enable us to get closer to a just world. The workshop is grounded in imagination and possibility as core approaches to liberation.
No Soft Police!
Join Interrupting Criminalization for the final event in our series celebrating the launch of No More Police! This event explores the notion of “soft policing” —policing, coercion, and criminalization enacted by people other than cops, including counselors, health care providers, and public health officials.
Building Relationships with Journalists for Activists and Organizers
Interrupting Criminalization’s Abolition Journalism Fellow Lewis Raven Wallace invites activists and organizers to learn from journalists and ask what you’ve always wondered about how journalism works (and why it has failed our communities). We’ll talk about how to develop relationships that lead to better coverage and how to respond when you’ve been misquoted or misrepresented.
When We Fall Apart: A Movement Primer with Dragonfly Partners
“When We Fall Apart.” It is a workbook created to help individuals and groups collectively navigate a breakup from another individual or group. It offers up a collection of thoughts, insights, and lessons gathered from people in the social justice movement who have experienced an intragroup breakup and survived to tell the tale, learn lessons from it, and keep moving forward.
We Are Survivors
Join Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie, authors of No More Police: A Case for Abolition, Alisa Bierria, co-editor of Abolition Feminisms: Organizing, Survival and Transformative Practice, and contributors to this recently released anthology in conversation on 11/30 from 5 - 7 pm about the roots and future of abolitionist organizing in survivor-led movements.
Don’t Be A Copagandist
Interrupting Criminalization will hold a discussion between reporters, editors, and activists on how to avoid “copaganda,” or coverage that (often unintentionally) supports narratives of policing and militarization and repeats the talking points of powerful and profitable policing and surveillance organizations. We will release tips on how media outlets can reframe violence and “crime” to avoid reinforcing these harmful and racist messages.
Restorative Conversations Ft. nuri nusrat — What is a restorative conversation? How do we ground our conversations in seeing each other's humanity? Explore “A Restorative Conversation Toolkit” and learn about restorative justice values and principles, the goals and strategies of restorative conversations, and how to craft your own restorative questions.
The Missing Story of #MeToo Ft. Andre Ritchie — In the midst of a national conversation on sexual harassment and assault sparked by #MeToo and the me too movement, one form of sexual violence remains shrouded in silence: when police officers and other law enforcement agents are the perpetrators. What does sexual violence by police look like? Who do officers target? Most importantly, how can we put a stop to this systemic problem? How can sexual assault and anti-criminalization advocates join forces to create a comprehensive approach to this problem which places survivors at the center?
Criminalization Survival Ft. Mariame Kaba — Criminalizing Survival includes curriculum units and activities that can be used for political education focused on the intersections between racialized gender-based violence and criminalization. Some of the activities also address the problems of carceral feminisms and crimmigration. This resource is intended to help activists, advocates, organizers, and community members to learn more about the criminalization of domestic violence survivors.
Turning Towards Each Other Ft. Jovida Ross & Weyam Ghadbian — Conflict is a necessary and inevitable part of living in the world, especially when you’re someone trying to change it. Too often our change work gets stalled or shut down by poorly handled and/or avoided conflicts. Join us for a workshop to help orient you to some of the tools in the booklet and better harvest the gifts of conflict in your lives and work!