Abolition will not be a one-and-done event, it is going to be a process. This means that as we work toward abolition of cops, courts, and cages that we may need to pursue or accept incremental progress. It also means, and experience confirms this, that the implementation of new processes, procedures, and practices are not likely to lead to an immediate change or reduction to the harms experienced in our communities. Abolition is not a proposal of a lack of accountability, but rather much more accountability, however, it does shift the center and the focus of that accountability away back from the State and to the people. This level of cultural shift will take time to permeate our society. Meaningful and lasting changes take time. However, not all changes are good, nor are they equal. As such,, this does not mean that we will or should support an initiative, policy, proposal, or plan merely because it is something different, such as community control of the police, which we believe, and have witnessed, is not only a smoke screen, but further entrenches the institution. We must measure the value of incremental gains by how much the course of action reduces the resources, power, or ideology of cops, courts, and cages compared to how much it increases the power and liberty of our community members and how much we get to define and care for our own safety.

This points to two important corollaries.

The first is that it is not sufficient to merely stop cops, courts, and cages and replace them with nothing. This is in part one of the things Seattle attempted to do post the George Floyd Uprising of 2020. The police department was not nullified, but elected to curtail its presence without supplanting rational, accessible, and reasonable community-driven alternatives for addressing and preventing harm. The result, especially given the history and context of structural abandonment and manufactured impoverishment was an increase in harm experienced by community members. The result was then masqueraded as the cause and used as rationalization for increased police presence and surveillance. The cops got to assume the false, but ultimately perceivably moral high ground and tout, “see you need us because without us, look at what you are doing to yourselves.” The situation is not different from beginning an exercise regimen at the gym after an extended period of not being as active, or beginning a new discipline in school, they are hard, painful, and mistakes are made, and the end result is not immediate, but gradual. In fact, for quite some time, it appears as though no progress is being made at all. To remove even a false solution and not replace it with anything is a recipe for disaster especially, when we are confronting harm in our community. Potential solutions must be implemented as the false solutions are removed. This will likely be different in every community to some respect because every community is different, but there will be common themes, values, and practices that form the foundation and continuity between and among communities and community members. The last and perhaps the most important factor, is that the systems of enforcement and punishment took millennia to institute and as such, it is not fair to measure the success of their alternatives by merely a few weeks or months, let alone years. Meaningful change takes time.

The second is that for a cultural shift to occur we must deeply consider and challenge the spiritual element of punishment. Most of us, on an almost subconscious and autonomous level, punish ourselves all throughout every single day with our mental dialogue. However, while pervasive, this paradigm is not inherent to the human condition. Rather, it is a function of socialization and indoctrination, and it becomes what Don Miguel Ruiz calls, “auto-domestication,” that is we continue the social indoctrination, i.e., the punishment of ourselves, ourselves. I’m too this; I’m too that; I’m not this or that; I’m not good enough for x; I cannot do y because z will happen and that means w, and so forth. It is not a wonder that humanity has such a difficult time not parsing out punishment to others or believing that society can function without punishment, when most of us punish ourselves on a continual basis and find it difficult not to. Punishment is a socially and spiritually immature and unevolved practice and ritual. But this paradigm is fundamentally at the heart of the issue. Abolition is not merely a political challenge but a spiritual frontier upon which we will uncover our next cultural evolution.

We must all abolish the cops, judges, and jailers in our minds that are holding us captive and preventing our evolution and liberation.