Becoming Abolitionists

September 27, 2021
Human rights lawyer Purnell debuts with an idealistic and impassioned call for dismantling the police in order to address the root causes of violence and inequality. She tracks her own evolving attitudes toward the police from her childhood in a St. Louis neighborhood in the 1990s and early 2000s “where we called 911 for almost everything”; to college activism galvanized by the 2011 execution of Troy Davis for murdering a police officer, despite the case against him being “obviously flawed”; and her work as a public defender in a Harvard University legal clinic, where she realized “most of the ‘criminals’ were actually just poor people.” Purnell places abolition within a social justice framework that includes decolonization, environmental justice, and disability rights, and forcefully disputes the notion that more policing is necessary to stop “senseless violence,” arguing that drug decriminalization and programs to address health care, housing, and income disparities would “undermine the conditions that lead to violence and police contact.” Her vision of what abolition looks like features neighborhood councils, conflict mediation centers, and green teams to foster sustainability. Bold and utopian, yet grounded in Purnell’s experiences and copious evidence of how reform efforts have fallen short, this is an inspiring introduction to a hot-button topic.

October 1, 2021
In her debut book, human rights lawyer and activist Purnell weaves together memoir and sociology to track her journey towards supporting police abolition, the replacement of policing with alternative forms of public safety. From her upbringing in St. Louis to Harvard Law School, Purnell's first-hand experiences of racism and police violence are placed in context with the protests across the country over the killing of George Floyd and so many others. In an attempt to answer the common question, "What about the murderers?," Purnell traces the roots of abolition from the antislavery movement to modern calls for police abolition and looks at the ways that racism, poverty, sexual violence, and climate change shape advocacy for abolition. Citations abound in this well-documented memoir that ties Purnell's personal inquiry to the events that have ignited national interest in policing reform. While her narrative is densely fact-packed throughout, Purnell is able to deftly lead the reader through the ins and outs of the abolitionist mindset so that it is clear and comprehensible for all, including those who, like her, might be initially skeptical.

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December 3, 2021

Both a memoir and a political call to action, this work by activist and lawyer Purnell illustrates, through a myriad of examples, why policing and incarceration in the United States have not been effective at keeping people safe and advocates for a transformative, rather than reformative, approach to criminal justice. The vision in this book transcends any one particular social justice lens and imagines entirely redeveloped social and political structures and values, connecting climate justice, health justice, economic justice, decolonization, antiracism, opposing ableism, and an end to policing, all with the overarching goal of improving people's lives, especially in communities of color. Through excellent historical analysis and the lens of her own lived experience, Purnell challenges the efficacy of incremental change to the systems we already have and encourages the abolition of harmful systems to make way for healthier and stronger communities. With a blend of personal anecdotes and historical facts, this book will ask readers to confront their ideas about what makes for a fair and just world. VERDICT Purnell's writing is personal, moving, and offers a globally relevant perspective. It dramatically expands the scope of how Americans can think about policing and justice and will leave a lasting impact.--Sarah Schroeder, Univ. of Washington Bothell

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Starred review from September 15, 2021
How radically reimagining policing might benefit not only Black communities, but the broader social order. In this sociological treatise and intellectual autobiography, Purnell, a human rights lawyer and organizer, argues convincingly that police departments and prisons are irredeemably implicated in racist ideologies and the perpetuation of violence despite long-standing efforts at reform. These institutions, she writes, "don't solve harm, they simply react to it, arbitrarily, disproportionately, incoherently," and therefore ought to be dismantled and replaced by alternatives that promote social justice. Purnell offers persuasive accounts of how racial biases produce "daily injustice" not just in policing and the courts, but in housing, labor, and education, and she links systemic discrimination in the present day, as well as specific instances of police violence against African Americans, to the legacy of slavery and colonialism. She also skillfully relates strategies employed by contemporary reform movements to "a history of freedom and resistance," and this long-term view contextualizes her own conclusions about the need for a thorough reimagination of what might properly constitute law and order. One of the strengths of the book is the author's illuminating reflections on her own experiences with the failures of policing, her tactics as a civil rights lawyer, and her philosophical evolution as an activist. Another is Purnell's deft framing of the search for solutions to violence and various forms of exploitation as part of larger--in fact, global--attempts to advance "decolonization, disability justice, Earth justice, and socialism." Ultimately, she writes, "rather than thinking of abolition as just getting rid of police, I think about it as a way to create and support a multitude of approaches to the problem of harm in society, and, most excitingly, as an opportunity to reduce and eliminate harm in the first place." An informed, provocative, astute consideration of salvific alternatives to contemporary policing and imprisonment.

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