Resources

For decades, New Orleans has disinvested in social services, often leaving us ranked last in indicators of health, wealth, housing, and education. In the wake of national Black Lives Matter protests and the COVID-19 pandemic, OPPRC mobilized community members to defund the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) and reinvest in the community. This resource lists accomplishments and further resources related to this work.

For the past decade, Chicago has displaced and over-policed Black and Brown families, and starved the city’s working people of the resources they need to live and thrive. Black, Brown and working families overpay through a discriminatory use of fines, fees, and property taxes while corporate developers receive massive handouts for projects that displace residents. The city’s budget is an opportunity to continue on a path of growing inequality and austerity politics, or to chart a new path towards prosperity for all. A budget is a moral document, and we believe it must contain the funding for the resources that will make Chicago a safe, livable and thriving city for everyone.

Dare to Reimagine: A Vision for Transformative Change is a framework for building a just and equitable future from the ground up—created collectively by more than 300 local elected officials across the Local Progress network, movement allies, and community partners. Recognizing that our cities and municipalities are the epicenter of progressive evolution, this framework outlines the transformative change we aspire to and showcases the work of Local Progress members to move us towards this north star. Dare to Reimagine showcases more than 50 policy wins and organizing efforts across 22 states and DC that are moving us towards a more just and equitable future.

The Oakland Reimagining Public Safety Task Force was created in direct response to significant local demand to redirect monies from the Oakland Police Department to programs, support services and resources that take a holistic view of public safety and focus on addressing the root causes of so-called “crime” rather than relying on militarized policing and a violent, cyclical carceral state. The Defund Coalition is excited about the many recommendations presented that offer a real opportunity to shift, reimagine and evolve the way Oakland thinks about and implements public safety. This report responds to each of the 114 draft recommendations issued by the Task Force. We break down all the recommendations we support, the ones we don’t, and why.

The Investing in Safety We Can Feel survey was released in October 2020 to help answer the question: “what do our communities need to be safe?” Over 1300 Philadelphia residents responded to the online survey, and their responses show that Philadelphians know that directly investing in communities is how we make them strong, healthy, and safe – not investing in policing.

Police unions do more than bargain for wages and benefits. They perpetuate harm, protect violent police officers, and create barriers to officer accountability and policy change. This site exposes their playbook. From contributions to politicians, to contracts and copaganda, police unions use predictable and toxic tactics to skirt accountability for officers and block efforts towards reform. Together we can call them out on these tactics and take action to diminish the power of police unions.

NoMoreCopMoney is a national database that documents campaign funds current state and local politicians accepted from law enforcement-affiliated PACs since 2015. We provide contact information to make it easy to ask your representatives to donate these campaign funds and to pledge to refuse them in the future. Our goal is to decrease the influence of law enforcement in our government.

Elected officials have a responsibility to hold police accountable for the ongoing violence and abuses of power against Black people. In doing so, they must act independently from police unions and others determined to stand in the way of common sense solutions that keep communities safe. Use this website to take the pledge to not accept FOP money as a politician, or to call on your officials to sign the pledge to not accept FOP money.

This toolkit is an introduction to AJC’s vision and strategy for social change. From grassroots organizing to legislative policy work, here is a snapshot of how we take on the big problems.