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Newark
For the past year, Prof. Vitale has been traveling to Newark, NJ to check out the community centered anti-violence efforts underway there. This has involved a combination of direct observations, formal interviews, and informal conversations. Two products related to this work are now moving forward. The first is a book project co-edited by Prof. Vitale and Aqeela Sherrills of The Community Based Public Safety Collective. Aqeela is one of the leading figures in the CVI movement nationally and architect of much of the new anti-violence ecosystem in Newark. . In addition, we will be releasing a series of in depth videos with key figures in Newark about the work going on there. These will be available on Prof. Vitale’s YouTube channel, which you can subscribe to for updates. Currently on that channel are a series of interviews with authors that Prof. Vitale recorded in 2020.
Cancel The Contract - Antelope Valley
We received a $60,000 grant last month from the California Endowment to support our work with the Cancel the Contract Campaign in LA County. The grant will allow us to write up a comprehensive report about alternatives to school policing in support of CTC’s police free schools effort. Prof. Vitale will be traveling there in mid February to meet with local organizers and community members to begin preparing the report.
Texas Border Policing
As border issues become increasingly important, it is important to remember that the only ethical way forward is to move towards open borders. While this is not a politically viable position currently, we need to work at the grassroots level to challenge the further militarization of the border and provide support for those fleeing horrible conditions, that the US itself has often directly contributed to. Along those lines, Prof. Vitale authored this op ed for Truthout opposing the expansion of border policing powers in Texas.
Mass Surveillance
This fall we co-sponsored a town hall at The People's Forum in Manhattan on the issue of mass surveillance. Our Technology Fellow Anna Sipeck was one of the event’s organizers. A video of the event is now available, featuring:
Naz Ahmed, Acting Director of CLEAR
Fabian Rogers, constituent advocate for NYS Senator Jabari Brisport
Elizabeth Vasquez, Director of the Science and Surveillance Project, Brooklyn Defender Services
Jordan Flowers and Gerald Bryson, co-founders of the Amazon Labor Union
Book Corner
We continue to update our Critical Police Studies Bibliography. We added a new section on Latin America this month.
Recommended
Fedderly, Eva. 2023. These Walls: The Battle for Rikers Island and the Future of America’s Jails. MIT Press.
“A critical intervention in the high stakes debate about the social value of jails and what we could do instead to create safety and justice." —Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing
Received
Cheng, Tony. 2024. The Policing Machine: Enforcement, Endorsements, and Illusion of Public Input. University of Chicago Press.
Huggins, Martha K. 1998. Political Policing: The United States and Latin America. Duke University Press.
Sierra-Arevalo, Michael. 2024. The Danger Imperative: Violence, Death, and the Soul of Policing. Columbia University Press.
Winston, Celeste. 2023. How to Lose the Hounds: Maroon Geographies and World Beyond Police. Duke University Press.