On Monday September 6, 2021, six Palestinian political prisoners who were jailed by the settler-colonial Israeli occupation, liberated themselves from their unlawful detention. …

The following statement was issued in coordination with Philly Anti-Repression on June 1, 2021 by members of the Vaughn 17 and other incarcerated community members subjected to abuse, neglect, and solitary confinement at SCI-Phoenix.

For those who are new to the Vaughn 17’s struggle for self-liberation, here is some context…

This verdict is not about “justice.” This verdict is not about “accountability.”

This verdict is a testament to the political force of the masses, of colonized peoples, in the face of state-sanctioned terror.

It’s about making it known to all cops trembling in their boots, “You are not welcome here.”

…

This is a first in a series of articles by Abolitionist Law Center’s Executive Director Robert Saleem Holbrook on the day to day practices of Abolition and the influences of the Black Radical Tradition on Abolitionist practices within the Pennsylvania prison system.

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s…

The End of Cash Bail: Statement from ALC Court Watch

We seek the abolition of cash bail in Allegheny County — and everywhere else in the US colonial project.

We believe cash bail contributes to a violent system of apartheid policing and punishment, and exacerbates economic precarity and poverty by governance thru debt.

We recognize cash bail as a feature of racial capitalism that benefits white people, the ruling class, and state power thru parasitic exploitation and dispossession of Black people and poor community members — not as a legitimate pretrial condition for securing one’s appearance in court.

We observe the wild inconsistencies of how cash bail is imposed among magistrates, revealing a crisis of legitimacy in their courts; since there is no standard, the financial and carceral fates of community members are merely entropic.

We reject the use of surveillance, algorithmic violence, and predictive policing, which rely on risk assessment “formulas” that are inherently anti-Black; these practices are often offered up as “alternatives” to cash bail thus co-opting initial abolitionist demands.

We situate our objective of abolishing cash bail within our larger protracted goals of ending state violence and transitioning from a punitive paradigm to one that centers healing, accountability, and community power.

– ALC Court Watch, January 6, 2021

by Dolly Prabhu, Staff Attorney for The Abolitionist Law Center

A shortened version of this article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s op-ed section on January 3, 2021.

On Friday December 18, 2020, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Editorial Board published an article criticizing activists for calling to defund the Pittsburgh police. It…

by William Lukas for The Abolitionist Law Center

When we mourn for Aaliah Denise Johnson, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, Riah Milton, Dominique Rem’mie Fells, Mia Green, and every Black Trans life taken this year, we are reminded that prior to the Atlantic slave trade and New World organization of racial…

Today we are collectively mourning the life of Walter Wallace Jr.

Walter was murdered by the Philadelphia Police Department in West Philadelphia, yesterday October 26, 2020.

Walter was among our many vulnerable community members in need of help, but instead of being met by crisis intervention and support, Walter was struck by almost a dozen bullets by police.

In front of…