Pursuit of meaningful change both in the wake of george floyd step and in the midst of a larger legacy of Racial Injustice in this country. I want to thank you all for joining and i want to thank jean henning for her organizing the series. Let me introduce the moderator of todays roundtable repressor Christy Lopez. Professor lopez joined our faculty in january 2017 right after completing a federal investigation of the Chicago Police department will goodwill serving of the Department Just a Civil Rights Division she led that investigation and many others to examine patterns and practices of unconstitutional policing across the country including in new orleans, los angeles and ferguson. Since joining our faculty professor lopez has cofounded our Innovative Policing Program which is now launching a Prevention Program called abler active bystander ship for recently professor lopez has written up that somehow the Police Culture could have saved George Floyds life and what the funding of police really to funding of the police really means. Professor lopez i will turn it over to you. Thank you so much and i really appreciate the support you in georgetown has shown on this issue and agreement should appreciate the work of jean henning in making this happen. I want to thank all the viewers who have joined today. We have all been talking about the need to educate ourselves more on the issues and you are taking out the time to do that so i really appreciate that. And i speak to the panels when i say that as well. My name is Christy Lopez member for western practice of georgetown a coat direct the policing project and id like to invite the rest of our panelists to turn their cameras on now as i introduce the purpose of the panel and look at the roadmap for what we are going to talk about today. Since George Floyds death at the hands of Minneapolis Police on may 25 and the protests that followed it seems that there might need key change underway and how america views policing. We seen evidence of this and protests across United States and just yesterday the Associated Press released a poll that found that 95 of americans believe that Police Reform in some capacity is necessary. That is unprecedented and a striking change from polls conducted just five years ago. One of the things that many people find interesting about the changes in the National Conversation about policing is the growing recognition that to receive the kind of Public Safety we want we have to look the own policing. We have to question our assumptions by what we have been mean by Public Safety and how we achieve it and thats why this series is called we have to confront the fact that criminalizing poverty and making 10 million arrests at a year and mask incarceration has caused tremendous harm and black amenities. Theres no question that in the longterm for the country to have this important conversation to elevate the longstanding call for defunding the police but as many of you know this has led to confusion about these terms and slogans that are counterproductive and will alienate Police Reform allies. What we will discuss today is how Police Abolition is not a mere slogan. Has its roots primarily, its an ideological framework that has occurred in mostly feminine thinking that is brilliant positive and redemptive. Yes the framework has a plan for what to do about Sexual Violence and murder in a World Without police. If you learn nothing else i hope you gain an appreciation of the thoughtfulness for the mostly black females to develop it. Would a look at how the idea of Police Evolution in this abolitionist framework that has been around far longer then today and we will ask our panelists to address questions that we submitted prior to this panels starting. You asked questions about what sorts of changes to policing could change more broadly and an abolitionist framework is compared to reform approach. Ill introduce the three panelists at first we have Tahir Duckett a 2017 graduate of georgetown law and is now a civil rights attorney at loman colfax where he practices law in housing and policing. Executive Committee Member and is the founder of a communitybased organization dedicated to addressing Sexual Violence. For the past several months hes been writing up look on Police Abolition and long before it became a topic of National Conversation because we talked about it last summer weve been speaking of these issues for quite some time. Justin hansford a graduate of georgetown law and professor law at Howard Law School and the Civil Rights Center there. He is a Brilliant Police activist. He created the group ferguson which traveled the numbers with young activists to deliver the message to the u. N. Commission against torture in geneva and 2017. Allegra mcleod is one of the nations promise scholars teaching and writing about the criminal legal system and legal theory. Allegra work as a criminal defense lawyer and is involved in work on a pro bono racist. The referee said many questions and we have incorporated them into the questions ill be asking the panelists and feel free to submit extra questions. Just in and of i cry want to start with the title of this program what does Police Abolition mean . Is described differently by the people and if you look closely there is an element about iteration so can you tell us what Police Abolition means to you and is it the same as others ascribe to the term . For me Police Abolition is not just a destination but a project. It starts with the recognition that police and prisons have failed to do what they claim to do that they dont actually keep us safe and in fact have been a source of immeasurable harm to individuals and communities particularly lack individuals and committees and more importantly that we can do better. If you looked around at the past few weeks at the indiscriminate and arbitrary use of worst against protesters and individuals, the arrest of Police Officers across the nation, the acrosstheboard rejection of accountability and indeed the solidarity with officers who have committed horrific acts of violence like in buffalo where they applauded the officers who pushed down the 75yearold man and left him bleeding on the sidewalk and that man is still in the hospital by the way or in atlanta where there are reports of work slowdowns in solidarity with the officer who shot Rayshard Brooks in the back and as he fled. I dont know how the institution appears to be so far gone. If there were another way to keep herself safe without relying on it ideal for those are things that you have thought over the past few weeks i think thats the first step in being an abolitionist. Yes there is more. Its a project and they think the other panels will talk more about what it means to be an active abolitionist but at its core abolition is about having the imagination and the courage not to settle for cages and violence is the only way in which we tend to each others fate and hold each other accountable. Thank so much. A lot of people are actually asking themselves that question right now. Am i an abolitionist and how do i look at myself . Justin lets turn to you. You talk about a turning point you had and how it deepened your understanding of abolition. Can you tell us about that . Sure. My experiences with the question of Police Violence as you describe beyond the incident with mr. Floyd goes back to early in my life but most dramatically in ferguson when i lived in st. Louis i had the opportunity to be a protester as well as practicing attorney and a law professor at the same time when i was helping the ferguson activist there. The most significant part of my experience of ferguson was taking part in the representation of my family and having the opportunity to merck to to work closely with mike rounds wife when she sought to take it to the United Nations and was the turning point of my career. I got to work with her and help her produce a testimony and i saw up close the type of anguish that she had to experience. She has talked about the ptsd and the trauma of seeing her son lying on the ground for over four hours in the hot sun in august of 2014. You know she continues to have effects to this day and will have those effects for the rest of her life. At the time there was nothing i wanted more than to see the conviction of Darren Wilson who killed mike brown and the punishment of the killer in my honest assessment would have been something which was fitting to create some sort of sense of justice for myself, for many of us throughout the country but most importantly for leslie and her experience even today she still lives tonight community, has seen the killing of her son in that community. We have many situations, George Zimmerman, not just Police Officers that those in similar situations who have not only seemed to not face consequences but in some way shape or form are supported in their continued feeling of being justified for the killing. For me its a big turning point or a big challenge to move towards an abolitionist framework which would demand that if we are going to abolish Something Like policing or even abolish imprisonment we would have to move away from this conception of justice as revenge or retribution and think of another way to create justice for the families, for the communities that have been broken apart by the violence of the state which the state initiated. They brought the violence to us in so the decision to not think that the fair responses to wearing violence to them in return is an ethical decision more so than a decision based solely on any other principle and its a hard decision to make but if i think hard about what i would like to see for leslie, we have been working recently to try to create an opportunity for there to be a fund for victims of Police Violence and their families so things Like Mental Health services can be provided for families. Funding in case a person were killed was the primary breadwinner for the family like george floyd and eric garner, funds to support those families. Its perhaps the case that justice looks like reparations more so than justice looks like it should be the justice or if we are going to take the perspective that is not justice that its not justice in another self we would use the term revenge to conceptualize what it is i wanted when it came to Darren WilsonGeorge Zimmerman or others. For many people thats an important principle to understand when folks are arguing for abolition. Its a very generous argument. Saberi benevolent argument. Its not an argument that is a crazy wild argument from the left from radicals produced an argument from people who have done some interior work, since virtual work which allows them to move past the desire for revenge and this is not just a situation when it comes to individual Police Killings. When you talk about race as a principle people around the country and around the world should be very happy that people are not interested in revenge as much as they are interested in abolition which is again a legitimate principle saying we think justice goes beyond revenge. For me i admire all the people who call for revolution as opposed to retribution and i think they are leaders that we should be trying to emulate them continue to admire. Thank you so much justin. Im so glad that you emphasized that because its one of the things people dont recognize about the abolitionist framework. The word that comes to my mind is how generous it is the moral clarity of that in the interior work the people at them and i want to underscore that this was done by people who have been victims for literally their entire history in this country from one small example the class versus cocaine individual sentencing the overwhelmingly harsh sentences that have been premised on people and the same committees are looking to get away from that. We all need to get away from that and we can all learn from that we can all recognize how truly profound that is so thank you so much for telling us about your own journey to get to that point. Lets turn to you allegra to talk about what abolition means to you and just a bit about how it fits into the larger structure but how is Police Abolition fitting into that framework for you . Thank you so much, Christy Lopez and doctors Justin Hansford and Tahir Duckett for being open to these ideas but i wanted to begin by recognizing the moment of great possibility in states in historic uprising against Racial Injustice around the world and at the same time there are forces gathering to redirect an abolition to make this moment less transformative than it could be protracted signed an executive disorder reducing the legislative Congress Related to police or form in their proposals to moderately reduce Police Jurisdictions around the country but these proposals in my view largely veiled to grass the radical demand for Abolition Movements that justin and tahir have begun to elucidate and for the most part bringing about change for the call for abolitionist today is a call for radical change and is connected to earlier radical abolitionist with mens and legacies in and the criminal legal system against imperialism and militarize violence around the home and around the world. Exploitation of black people and of other marginalized people. Abolition is not only about tearing things down but its a positive radical movement for egalitarian political and economic order. What i mean by radical in contrast to reform its . Is angela davis reminds us radicalism gets to the root. To get at the root of injustice will inspire us to make radical changes not window dressing reform. You also in numerous other domestic and foreignpolicy to uphold deepseated racial and the moment will fail to bring the changes that captured by limited reform committed to preserving the status quo. Its more than retraining police and the reforms that the Trump Administration and by congress by critical resistance in more like abolition two underscore. Trump legislation proposed for example the band chokehold. Eric garner was killed by a chokehold and the jurisdiction that prohibited choke holds. Moreover it doesnt prohibit other legal ways of killing people more than it prohibits other experiences perpetrated by police. It fails to bring about meaningful change over decades. Of course demilitarizing the police and qualified immunity would be steps in the right action but abolition is a call for Something Else not reflected in these measures but to call for a way to align our police and prosecution and prison and for justice in the domestic and political economy. My view is the call for abolition does mean what they seem to suggest that they are calling for radical change because we need radical change to defeat Structural Racism but its also important to emphasize abolition is as much a positive process is a negative process along the lines of being developed that abolition is eliminating racialized violence in the criminal system but is also crucially about doling a more just and equitable world in developing new more honest understanding of our current world. I wanted to offer more from chicago or abolitionist organizers have explored last couple of years and this has a way of addressing the inequalities in chicago abolitionists as pastor reparations order in 2015. In this reparations ordinance provided type financial compensation and provided Mental Health and medical care educational scholarships public memorialization of prince changed the School Curriculum so children would learn history. Abolitionist organizer marian explained the aim to offer the beginnings of positive justice beyond criminal prosecution and punishment but a few years later in 2017 abolitionist youth activist in chicago began to push the campaign and more broadly for more budgeting repurchase of the tory budgeting is another positive abolitionist project which allows the people of the city whether chicago d. C. Corporate seller one of the origin points of purchase of the tory funding on a more purchased the tory Democratic Base is to shape public decisions and direct public spending toward equally distributed Public EducationPublic HealthAffordable Housing