World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete

The Black Lives Matter movement brought about a new idea of public safety, common security, and the delivery of justice. A World without Police transcribes these ideas into a manifesto for police abolition, offering concrete strategies for confronting and breaking police power. It argues that abolition is an attainable reality and that we are beginning to glimpse a real, lasting justice in which we keep us safe.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 24 August 2021
Publisher: Verso Books

Tens of millions of people flooded the streets in support of Black Lives Matter, bringing with them a revolutionary concept of public safety, communal security, and justice delivery. This vision was expressed through the fiery language of riot, rebellion, and protest, conveying a powerful message. A World without Police transcribes these new ideas, written in slogans and chants, onto occupied bridges and hastily assembled barricades, transforming them into a compelling manifesto for police abolition.

The book compellingly argues and lyrically charges, offering concrete strategies for confronting and dismantling police power. It surveys the post-protest landscape in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Oakland, as well as the people who have experimented with policing alternatives on a mass scale in Latin America. Maher details the institutions that can provide security without the disorganizing interventions of cops: neighborhood response networks, community-based restorative justice practices, democratically organized self-defense projects, and well-resourced social services.

A World without Police argues that abolition is not a distant dream or an unreachable horizon but an attainable reality. In communities around the world, we are beginning to glimpse a genuine and lasting justice in which we keep ourselves safe.

Weight: 382g
Dimension: 149 x 218 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781839760051