Abolitionists Are Focused on the Wrong Thing

My understanding of abolition has been shaped by the historical organizers I learn from and also the physical work I’m doing in Minnesota; supporting and building for the mothers and families most impacted by multiple barriers such as poverty, unstable housing, domestic violence, incarceration, disabling conditions, etc. Watching what it takes to hold a household together around such challenges built a specific belief and drive in me. Abolition, to me, meant to dismantle and rebuild. Tear down what’s broken. Build the alternative in its place. That belief carried me through years of this work, and I don’t think it was wrong but I think it was just incomplete.

Five days inside a youth detention facility in Cuyahoga County showed me the gap in my belief.

I went to Cleveland, Ohio invited by Campaign Zero, to teach the Community Welfare System to youth charged with felony-type offenses. I sat with them in small groups, listened to them and somewhere in those five days, the dismantle-and-rebuild framework I’d been carrying started to feel like it was missing a piece it needed all along.