IC Enters Chrysalis: A Year of Integration, Reflection, and Preparation
An important announcement from Interrupting Criminalization co-founders Andrea J. Ritchie and Mariame Kaba:
If the last five years — or the last five decades of our lives — have taught us anything, it’s that there are seasons of struggle. There are times of preparation, tilling the soil, sowing seeds, and nurturing communities of resilience and resistance. There are moments of crisis, flashpoints of struggle, and opportunities to push through portals into new possibilities. There are seasons of bountiful production, of harvest, of reflection, of learning, of composting what no longer serves us. And there are times to study, integrate, regroup, and regenerate.
Over the past 5 years, Interrupting Criminalization has stepped up to offer leadership, share information, analysis, expertise, and skills developed over decades to fill critical gaps in movement infrastructure, and to support organizers working to end criminalization, policing, and punishment in a period of immense crisis and unprecedented opportunities to advance Black feminist abolitionist visions for more liberatory futures.
Since IC was founded in 2018, we have:
produced over 84 reports, toolkits, ‘zines, workbooks, web resources, and podcast episodes downloaded and utilized by over 150,000 people around the world;
hosted over 400 convenings, cohorts, webinars, and trainings — at least 6000 people have attended at least one IC training since 2018;
fielded 386 calls to our help desks and office hours, and supported organizers in a dozen cities working towards divestment from the violence of criminalization, policing, prosecution, and punishment, and investment in transformative approaches to preventing, interrupting, and healing from harm while tackling the conditions that produced it;
been quoted or featured in media, podcasts, and articles once a week on average.
Overall, our work has reached hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. and over 14 countries, transforming the way people and groups think and act toward our collective liberation.
One consistent finding of the in-depth evaluation we conducted in 2023 of our impact over the past 5 years is that we are producing exactly the resources, tools, and practice spaces organizers need — and, that in an effort to meet the breadth and depth of need of groups on the ground, we are producing them at a pace that does not necessarily allow organizers to fully adapt them to their unique conditions and circumstances, integrate them into their programs and practices, experiment with them, and harvest and apply lessons from these experiments to their work going forward.
In 2024 we will be making space and creating containers for groups to dive more deeply into the content, resources, tools, and trainings we have created through “independent study” curricula rooted in the following four main pillars of our work:
Divestment from Policing and Criminalization and Investment in Building Safer, Thriving, and Liberatory Communities;
Transformative Justice;
Changing the Story: Movement Journalism and Narrative Shift;
Labor, Economic Justice, and Abolition
As organizers move through the independent study curricula, they will continue to be able to access our TJ Help Desk, Abolition Journalism, Labor and Abolition, and Beyond Do No Harm office hours for 1:1 consultation to talk through questions, conundrums, and applications to each organization’s work or campaigns. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter for quarterly curriculum updates in 2024!
As we make space and create containers for organizers, advocates, and journalists to engage with our vast library of existing resources, we will pause production of new publications and hosting of public events, trainings, and cohorts to allow for integration of our existing offerings. This will also create opportunities for our principals, staff, and fellows to continue to harvest reflections, questions, and feedback from organizers on the body of work we have produced so far to guide our work going forward, and to rest, reflect, research, regenerate, and reground to meet current conditions and evolving political terrain.
In order to do so, IC’s co-founders Andrea J. Ritchie and Mariame Kaba and our Creative Director Eva Nagao, who was IC’s first staff member, will be taking time away from speaking, media, and other public engagements in 2024. Additionally, some of our regular programming will shift to our partners in 2024 — for instance, going forward the monthly Building Coordinated Crisis Response Learning Space will be hosted by Just Practice, the Beyond Courts Praxis space will be hosted by Community Justice Exchange, and our Movement Broadcasting trainings and coaching will be hosted by Migrant Roots Media and Press On.
During this time IC will be:
building a Transformative Justice Hub to support individuals and organizations in moving from learning and skill-building to regular transformative justice practice;
building and supporting our Beyond Do No Harm pods and networks of health care providers committed to interrupting criminalization of people seeking care and researching legal and other resources responsive to their needs;
mapping abolitionist organizing across the U.S. and around the world;
continuing to develop tools and resources for abolitionist organizers to think through how we relate to the state, and the possibilities and pitfalls of community control of state institutions;
developing new resources and tools for organizers, funders, journalists, and health care providers to meet evolving conditions, including resources on building informational power, abolitionist labor and housing organizing;
maintaining our social media presence and continuing to provide information on current issues, including resistance to ongoing criminalization, incarceration, and state violence in Palestine and the struggle to #StopCopCity.
As people who been actively engaged in movements for racial, gender, reproductive, and economic justice for the past four decades, we understand the importance of seasons and cycles of organizing, of taking and making space, of moving up and moving back, of taking time to integrate, assess, reflect, and retool as conditions shift. As such, we have been intentionally planning for this time over the past several years. We believe that it is our responsibility to make time and space to sharpen our thinking, process, practice, and offerings to meet evolving conditions, and that this is even more true in this moment, as we face mounting white supremacist, Islamophobic, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, authoritarian, and genocidal violence in the U.S. and beyond.
We look forward to what this season of study, practice, reflection, integration, and regeneration in the midst of ongoing resistance will bring forth for the IC team individually and collectively — and to entering 2025 with robust analysis, resources, practice spaces, and strategic supports for liberatory movements working to interrupt criminalization on every front and advance transformative justice.
In struggle,
Andrea & Mariame
