Resources

A multi-part report series that explains this crisis of death and disappearance on the US-Mexico border and the policies that have created it. This serves to set the scene for reports which open a window to violent Border Patrol practices.

The Chinga la Polimigra Campaign is Puente’s campaign against the racial profiling of Phoenix residents by the Phoenix Police Department (PPD). Our campaign is fighting to end PPD’s immigration policy Operations Order 4.48, which functions as the implementation arm of Arizona’s anti-immigrant policy SB1070.

This report is a review of the community safety process in Brattleboro, Vermont. This community safety review process sought to understand the current state of the community safety systems in Brattleboro and their impact on community members’ actual experiences of safety, danger, or harm. The process was led by two core facilitators and informed and guided by a nine-member committee, who each brought their own identities, perspectives and lived experiences. From October through December, this team sought input from community members about their experiences with safety, danger, harm and safety response systems. All community members were welcomed to share their experiences and visions, and engagement efforts were focused on connecting with individuals who carry marginalized identities and who are most impacted by policing and police-like systems. We heard from over 200 community members and professionals working in over 25 organizations. We also performed a quality review of the Brattleboro Police Department policies, practices, and some areas of data collection. The Town of Brattleboro has embarked on a courageous and imperative process of evaluating community experiences with safety, danger, harm and policing/safety systems. This step must be followed next by action.

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.

Toolkit for the Movement is a collection of resources from the Center for Constitutional Rights to support and protect our communities. We’ve long known the authoritarian playbook; these resources are chapters in the People’s Playbook. The resource contains: the newly-updated If An Agent Knocks, offering information and advice for individuals targeted by the FBI or other federal agents; FOIA Basics for Activists, updated with a case study and annotated FOIA requests, which breaks down how to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a tool that anyone can use to expose government and corporate actions and equip themselves with the information they need to organize; and, together with Immigrant Defense Project, an updated version of our Defend Against ICE Raids and Community Arrests Toolkit to resist the criminalization, deportation, family separation and much more.

Situated at the present historical moment of resurgent white nationalism and xenophobia, Sanctuary Spaces: Reworlding Humanism undertakes comparative inquiry of imaginations and practices of sanctuary and refuge. Seeking to accompany movements that challenge detention and deportation, Sanctuary Spaces supports scholarship, art, and pedagogy that enact different humanisms and other worlds of political being. Organized around three themes, Abolition on Stolen Land, The End of Humanitarianism, and Freedom and Fugitivity, the year-long endeavor convenes public programs, virtual residencies, and conceptual conversations to generate frames and actions that unravel the logics of liberalism and its entanglements with imperialism.

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. This preliminary list of policies which can contribute to increased surveillance, policing, criminalization, and punishment of pregnant people, parents, and providers emerged from these conversations. This document is intended to inform policymakers and advocates concerned about reproductive justice, intimate partner and domestic violence, public health, and criminalization about the potential consequences of the policy approaches outlined below, and to offer alternative strategies that carry less risk of contributing to the criminalization of reproductive autonomy.

A report from Grassroots Leadership, Just Futures Law, and Mijente that documents the rise of surveillance technology use in Austin, Texas. This report looks at the relationship and links between tech companies, city projects, and increases in policing and surveillance of Austin residents. Authors analyze local policing initiatives like the Austin Regional Intelligence Center and note contracts held by local law enforcement agencies with tech companies. They also note the collaboration between local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and how tech companies bolster this collaboration, leading to deportations and further erosion of Austin’s Black, Latinx, and immigrant residents. The authors also present advocacy demands for this issue.

In this period of astonishing energy and public discussion about the state of policing, detention, imprisonment, sentencing, and surveillance, CR is excited to release this new video series, Breaking Down the Prison Industrial Complex, as part of our Profiles in Abolition initiative. The videos explore the current state of the prison industrial complex (PIC) and how people are fighting back to resist and abolish it. As always, we feature abolition as a strategy to dismantle systems of harm and punishment in favor of systems that increase health, stability, and self-determination.