{"product_id":"becoming-abolitionists-police-protests-and-the-pursuit-of-freedom-9781662601668","title":"Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom","description":"\u003cb\u003eNow in paperback and with new material, a 2021 Kirkus Best Book of the year in both Nonfiction and Current Events, the book Naomi Klein called: \"a triumph of political imagination and a tremendous gift to all movements struggling towards liberation.\"\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor more than a century, activists in the United States have tried to reform the police. Millions of people continue to protest police violence because these solutions do not match the problem: the police cannot be reformed.\u003cbr\u003e In her critically acclaimed first book \u003ci\u003eBecoming Abolitionists, \u003c\/i\u003ePurnell draws from her experiences as a lawyer, writer, and organizer initially skeptical about police abolition. She saw too much sexual violence and buried too many friends to consider getting rid of police in her hometown of St. Louis, let alone the nation. But the police were a placebo. Calling them felt like \u003ci\u003esomething\u003c\/i\u003e, and something feels like everything when the other option seems like nothing.\u003cbr\u003e Purnell details how multi-racial social movements rooted in rebellion, risk-taking, and revolutionary love pushed her and a generation of activists toward abolition. The book travels across geography and time, and offers lessons that activists have learned from Ferguson to South Africa, from Reconstruction to contemporary protests against police shootings.\u003cbr\u003e Here, Purnell invites readers to envision new systems that work to address the root causes of violence. \u003ci\u003eBecoming Abolitionists \u003c\/i\u003eshows that abolition is not solely about getting rid of police, but a commitment to create and support different answers to the problem of harm in society, and, most excitingly, an opportunity to reduce and eliminate harm in the first place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Astra House\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/04\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781662601668\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 320","brand":"Derecka Purnell","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42325287993525,"sku":"9781662601668","price":15.3,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_20ac9eb8-6eb5-418a-9c55-6b2f949c71c8.jpg?v=1660018812","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/becoming-abolitionists-police-protests-and-the-pursuit-of-freedom-9781662601668","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}