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Projects

Here you will find a collection of current and past Hub projects.

Police & Organized Labor

Over the past few years, there has been growing attention to the violence of policing and obstacles to police accountability and community safety that does not rely on police. With this heightened attention, the role and influence of police unions/fraternal organizations/associations has entered the spotlight, sparking discussions and debate over how to challenge obstacles posed by police union power. As calls grow to address police union power, so too does apprehension around targeting what many assume functions as a typical labor union. Some caution that critiques of police unions is a slippery slope that can only lead to negative consequences for all public sector unions, not just those for police unions.

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Defund the Police

The Hub houses and staffs defundpolice.org in partnership with a number of national movement organizations. The site is intended to serve as a one-stop shop for information, tools, resources, and trainings for defund organizers, legislators, and members of the public. Members of the Hub team monitor legislation, search for and solicit new information and materials, update the site daily, and staff an interactive chatbot to answer questions and connect people and campaigns.

The Hub hosts weekly 2-hour Invest/Divest learning communities attended by 40-60 organizers across the country focused on Budget Advocacy, Community-Based Safety Strategies, Police Fraternal Association Contracts, and Reparations for police violence. Learning Communities are spaces of skill and information sharing, strategizing, and resource creation in support of organizing to divest from policing and punishment and invest in community-based safety strategies toward genuine and lasting safety for all community members.

The Hub hosts a Defund Fellowship Program supporting 16 fellows in 13 cities with funds to support organizing staff, and offers monthly trainings and skill building sessions, weekly office hours with budget, campaign strategy, and communications experts, and a peer mentor program.

The Hub created a series of publications to support organizers working on campaigns to divest from policing and increase community safety including How to Take Back Your Budget, Defund Sheriffs, Revenue Generation playbook, Navigating Consent Decrees, Cops Don't Stop Violence, and Ensuring Federal Stimulus Funds Support Communities Not Cops.

The Hub also hosted the COVID19 Policing Project, co-founded by Andrea Ritchie and Derecka Purnell which recently sunsetted. The Project published two reports: Unmasked: Impacts of Pandemic Policing and Divesting from Pandemic Policing and Investing in a Just Recovery available at covid19policing.com.

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How To Take Back the Budget: A Guide To Reviewing and Changing the Police Budget In Your Community

This comprehensive guide to reviewing your city or county budget will explain how to argue for changes in police staffing and funding to your local policymakers. Whether you are in a major city, a smaller town, or a rural county – this guide was written to help you take action over how public funds are raised and spent in your community. The advice in this guide is based on Jared Knowles’ experience doing in-depth budget reviews of police departments in cities and counties across the country as well as working as a budget analyst in state government.

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Cops Don’t Stop Violence: Combating Narratives Used to Defend Police Instead of Defunding Them

Police are facing one of the greatest crises of legitimacy in a generation. In the wake of the largest uprisings in U.S. history, sparked by police violence, bloated police budgets, and the deadly impacts of a failure to invest in community health and safety laid bare by the pandemic, pro-police forces are on the defensive. So they are reaching for one of their most reliable weapons — fear.

This is nothing new — cops and policymakers have always used fearmongering to push “law and order” agendas and pour more and more money into police departments. Now, with police budgets under scrutiny by campaigns to defund the police and refund our communities all across the country, lawmakers and the media are once again recycling old talking points about increasing violence and crime, claiming that campaigns to defund police are responsible.

Read our new report to explore data, talking points, and narratives that highlight the fact that COPS DON’T STOP VIOLENCE.

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COVID19 and Policing

In the midst of a pandemic, politicians have expanded police power to enforce public health orders, diverting resources from life saving programs and increasing the risk of police violence, infection, and harm.

We are working to change that.

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21st Century Policing: The Rise and Reach of Surveillance Technology

A collaborative report and webinar from the Action Center on Race & the Economy (ACRE) and the Community Resource Hub for Safety & Accountability (CRH).

Technology is now integral to our everyday lives, but it does not have to be harmful. No matter how it’s framed, surveillance technology is a threat to the safety and security of all people, but especially to communities of color. All forms of capitalism must go, including the surveillance capitalism that feeds racial capitalism.

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Defund Sheriffs Toolkit

A collaboration between the Community Resource Hub for Safety & Accountability (CRH), Working Families, Sheriffs for Trusting Communities, and the Faith in Action Fund.

Defund Sheriffs is designed to support organizers in launching their own campaigns to defund their local sheriff. The toolkit brings into focus how sheriffs fit into the broader law enforcement landscape and why defunding them is an essential step towards building more safe and just communities across the country.

It also provides a step-by-step guide, applicable to any locale, on how to restructure public safety to prevent jail deaths and put a stop to the over-policing of Black and brown communities. This includes guidance for understanding budgets, identifying leverage points, and creating an alternative vision that prioritizes safety and community needs.

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Navigating DOJ Consent Decrees in the Context of Campaigns to Defund Police

A fact sheet on federal consent decrees, including how they work and who the key players are, and how consent decrees related to the defund the police movement. This fact sheet also contains information on how to continue your defund campaign if your city already has a consent decree.

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Alternatives to Policing

This memo assesses the current landscape of work surrounding police abolition and reviews alternatives to policing in the context of police abolitionist frameworks, offering insight and sharing successful strategies for advocates in the field. This memo also offers several recommendations for advocates, activists, and organizers working on alternatives to policing as well as a list of resources.

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Police Unions and the Obstacles They Pose

This memo provides brief background information on the history of police unions in the United States and their role in relation to the policing profession. It also highlights the obstacles that police unions and their contracts create for accountability, reform efforts, and campaigns that challenge police union power in order to overcome those obstacles. The relatively successful case study of Austin, TX is detailed as an example for challenging police union power at the local level. Finally, this memo provides specific recommendations for research, organizing, and policy developments when challenging police union power.

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A Revenue Generation Playbook: How to Fully Fund Our Communities

This playbook outlines revenue generating options for fully funding our communities, including strategies to reduce and eliminate the bite Wall street takes out of our city budgets, that we can use to supplement our demands to defund the police (and prosecutors, jails, prisons and all carceral systems) to ensure full investment in safe, sustainable, and thriving communities: Tax the Rich and Use Progressive Revenue to Fund our Communities & Cancel Wall Street and Choose Progressive Finance.

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