Resources

A fact sheet about the recently enacted American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which provides $1.9 trillion in economic relief through direct payments, expanded child tax credits and unemployment benefits, small business loans, and aid to local and state governments. This fact sheet goes over details of the ARPA payments, gives recommendations for how this money should be used to support communities, and gives an example table of cities and amount of aid they are estimated to receive.

Internal NYPD documents shed new light on the Strategic Response Group, or SRG, the heavily militarized police unit behind the crackdown on George Floyd protesters. This detailed report explores the background and function of the SRG, shares the SRG guidebook, explains its role in the 2020 protests, and ends with a look at accountability efforts.

Explore snapshots of community-based safety strategies that expand our ideas about what keeps us safe. One Million Experiments is a place to browse community-based safety projects for inspiration, a newsletter featuring zines that highlight the nuts and bolts of particular projects, and an opportunity to share your projects. Tag projects using #1MExperiments.

A collection of common questions related to abolition, policing, and incarceration and links to find resources for further education and organizing.

In this episode, Angela Davis discusses her experience this summer during uprising, the remarkable popularization of abolition, the significance of addressing gender violence and inequality in the fight for liberation, and much much more.

In May, many of us were devastated and heartbroken when George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis. This marked yet another Black man’s life being taken too soon by the very people that are supposed to protect us. As Philadelphians took to the streets to express their First Amendment rights with justified anger at the institutions that enabled this to happen and to advocate for Black lives, the City of Philadelphia appeared unprepared to handle the resulting unrest. The investigation shows that the root cause of the lack of planning was a lack of leadership at the highest levels.

It is also important to spend time reflecting on the fact that teargas was deployed in our city during these events. Teargas is banned in warfare and has not been used in Philadelphia for civil unrest since the MOVE crisis in 1985. Despite this, teargas was deployed on our own people several times during the unrest. The negative and painful effects of teargas cannot be overstated, and it should not have been used the way it was. The report details how our own police department shot teargas canisters down residential streets in West Philadelphia, hurting children in their own homes and innocent bystanders.

This update to our June 2020 #DefundPolice toolkit reflects victories won across the country, key strategies deployed, some lessons learned – including, tricks, tensions, and roadblocks along the way – and key questions communities are contending with in campaigns to defund police as we look forward to 2021. It contains some excerpts from the original toolkit, but is not intended as a substitute. Our hope is that this report will be read in conjunction with the original #DefundPolice #FundthePeople #DefendBlack Lives toolkit, along with our What’s Next: Safer and More Just Communities Without Policing report and Domestic Violence Awareness Month & Defund Fact Sheet.

On November 20th, Triad Abolition Project, Hate Out Of Winston, and Drum Majors Alliance co-signed a letter to city council, which did not receive a response from any Council member nor the city’s Mayor. On November 29th, the Winston-Salem Journal published “Police-spending critics call on city to discuss their concerns.” The People’s Report is a community dialogue in response to the Journal’s story, and continued conversation on the topic of divesting from WSPD as our city approaches the FY2021-2022 budget cycle.

This report was written by Pascal Emmer, Woods Ervin, Derecka Purnell, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Tiffany Wang for the COVID19 Policing Project, hosted by the Community Resource Hub for Safety & Accountability. It gathers and expands on regular project updates, and is the first in a series on the impacts of policing and criminalization in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.