Abolition Revolution: (7 FireWorks)

**Winner of the Bread and Roses Prize 2024**

**Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2023**

George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis triggered abolitionist shockwaves. Calls to defund the police found receptive ears around the world. Shortly after, Sarah Everard's murder by a serving police officer sparked a national abolitionist movement in Britain. But to abolish the police, prisons and borders, we must confront the legacy of Empire.

Abolition Revolution is a guide to abolitionist politics in Britain, drawing out rich histories of resistance from rebellion in the colonies to grassroots responses to carceral systems today. The authors argue that abolition is key to reconceptualising revolution for our times - linking it with materialist feminisms, anti-capitalist class struggle, internationalist solidarity and anti-colonialism.

Perfect for reading groups and activist meetings, this is an invaluable book for those new to abolitionist politics - whilst simultaneously telling a passionate and authoritative story about the need for abolition and revolution in Britain and globally.

Introduction
Thesis 1. A national abolitionist movement has erupted in Britain. Abolition is a tool to reimagine revolutionary politics.
Thesis 2. Our journey to abolition in Sisters Uncut was long and bumpy: abolition is a road, not a destination!

Part 1 - The Tools of Police Power
Thesis 3. Race is at the heart of policing; without race policing can’t function. Dismantling the police means dismantling race.
Thesis 4. The police need public consent in order to exist. Withdrawing our consent brings us closer to abolition.
Thesis 5. Coercion and control are the tactics of abusers, and coercing and controlling the working class is the job of the police. Abolition is class struggle!
Thesis 6. Women have always experienced the sharp end of state violence: if your feminism is carceral, it’s bullshit.

Part 2 - Roots In Empire: The History of Criminalisation and Resistance
Thesis 7. Class struggle in the 18th century sparked a prison abolitionist fire. Abolition is nothing new.
Thesis 8. The UK rehearsed its strategies of control and punishment in the colonies. Abolition continues anti-colonial and class struggle in Britain today.

Part 3 - Systems of Criminalisation Today
Thesis 9. From student revolt to urban rebellion, abolition must harness the radical energy of our youth!
Thesis 10. Bordering and policing protects colonial, imperialist and capitalist wealth. Open borders is abolition and abolition is open borders!
Thesis 11. From the streets to the cell block incarcerated people have organised to resist state violence.
Thesis 12. The 'War on Terror' expanded policing powers into everyday institutions. Fighting Islamophobic racism is central to abolitionist struggle.
Thesis 13. Capitalist crisis, neoliberalism and gentrification drive racist ‘gangs’ policing in Black communities. Abolition is a struggle against the whole system!

Part 4 - Abolitionist Futures
Thesis 14. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities have led fierce resistance to state violence. Abolition must unite different struggles.
Thesis 15. Crime is a social construct, but harm is real. Revolution is an essential ingredient to building transformative approaches to harm from the community level up.
Thesis 16. Revolution needs you…

Part 5 - Symposium: Abolition in the UK

‘A powerful analysis of the transformative potential of the abolitionist project. Day and McBean show why we must go beyond shifting a few dollars around to directly challenge the logics of capitalism, racism and patriarchy at the heart of the carceral state’

'Vibrantly chronicles the cultural and political landscape of abolitionist practices in the UK. Day and McBean weave a powerful array of analysis, histories and voices - from organisers, scholars, unionists and/or incarcerated people - to offer profoundly necessary historical lessons that formulate the pathways that shape our abolition feminist revolutions'

'Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean speak with such eloquence, conviction and passion that readers will want to join their struggle for abolition revolution. Their trenchant and concrete analysis of the criminalisation of the Black and Asian youth, of carceral white bourgeois feminism, gentrification, police and state violence make essential reading. Let's heed their call for an abolitionist future'

'Not only does this superlative book expertly dismantle the dogmas of liberal anti-racism and carceral feminism which reproduce the systems of power, it also points the way forward to a post-abolitionist future in a meticulous, clear-headed way. Highly recommended'

'A thorough, engaging and important read - that held me through new information whilst never sacrificing depth. I’m so glad this book exists!'

'An essential contribution to the debate on strategies for effective political action against systems of criminalisation. A must for read for activists and those who seek a deeper understanding of the development of international abolitionist movement and its relevance to radical and revolutionary politics today'

'An energising, and timely contribution to global debates about abolition and the growing interest in the UK in building on the organising and resistance to state violence and challenging the racism, misogyny and harms of policing and incarceration. A book to help us imagine and develop a world without carceral injustice but transformative social and racial justice.'

'This book adds to the excellent emerging literature about police, prison and border abolition in a UK specific context. Abolition Revolution is very special because McBean and Day combine deep theoretical and historical knowledge with practical organising experience, specifically in the context of violence against women and austerity. If you feel that there must be a better way to deal with harm and violence then this book is for you.'

'Amazing!'