Defunding police is a survivor-led anti-violence strategy that stops police from looting resources survivors need to prevent, avoid, escape and heal from violence - and puts more money into violence prevention and interruption.

The COVID19 Policing Project is a collaborative effort to track and challenge policing and criminalization in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, including the violent policing of protest which further jeopardizes public health.

We hope that this guide will empower you to begin building a police-free future in your community and provide you with some strategies for ensuring this.

A resource intended to inform policymakers, organizations, advocates, and philanthropy entering the field as a result of growing awareness of rising and disproportionate rates of incarceration of women, girls, trans and gender nonconforming people. People incarcerated in women’s prisons now represent the fastest growing prison populations, increasing by 700% over four decades, outpacing the rate of growth of people in men’s prisons by 50%.

In this moment of uprising in response to the multiple crises unfolding across the country and world—particularly police violence against black people—it is imperative that we continue to demand what keeps our communities safe. Trans women and femmes of color (TWOC) have been historically excluded from the formal 1 workforce and forced to rely on criminalized work for survival. Such economic violence leads to police targeting and incarceration. Organizing over the past five years has begun to open up economic opportunities for trans women and femmes of color. We won’t go back. This is the time to fight to maintain and surpass those gains.

Over the past 50 years, radical Black organizations have consistently demanded community control of the police. The idea behind this demand is that those most impacted by oppressive policing should have the power to decide how the system operates in their own communities, and that community control of police would transform the force from an occupier into a partner (or bring truth to idea that the police “protect and serve”)

Concrete Steps Toward Divestment from Policing & Investment in Community Safety

Many people now know that women are the fastest growing prison and jail populations. Here’s a helpful factsheet on how we can Interrupt the Criminalization of Women, Trans and Gender Nonconforming People.

This infographic created by Interrupting Criminalization and The Center for Advancing Innovative Policy shows how the criminalization of reproductive autonomy functions, and how it is all part of a larger web. There are many sites and mechanisms of criminalization of reproductive autonomy in this violent system—which also means there are many points and opportunities for intervention and resistance available to us.

In response to the expanding criminalization of reproductive autonomy through increasing restrictions on abortion and reproductive care, and the growing criminalization of pregnant people and parents, a group of reproductive justice and anti-criminalization organizers and advocates came together in May 2019 to develop a shared analysis and resistance strategies.

Despite the specific origins of “me too.” in conversations among Black women and girls, Black women and girls’ stories, narratives, and experiences remain largely at the margins of mainstream #MeToo conversations.

A Guide to Participatory Research Projects & Partnerships to Free Criminalized Survivors (Survived & Punished)

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.

This curriculum unit is intended to help activists, advocates, organizers and community members to learn more about the criminalization of domestic violence survivors.

This report is an urgent call for a comprehensive philanthropic response to the growing crisis of criminalization.