Policing is an institution that exists to protect and further entrench anti-Blackness, white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, ableism, and racial capitalism. It is operating as designed and, therefore, cannot be fixed through reforms.

Acknowledging this truth and its implications—both present-day and in the context of how policing catalyzed the United States’ accumulation of wealth and power built on genocide, land theft, and enslavement—is a foundational prerequisite towards the racial reparations needed for a safe and thriving society.

Any superficial tweaks to policing or redistribution of police functions to other agencies that continue management and control of people with marginalized communities must end. We are opposed to surveillance, policing, and punishment in any form.

We commit to supporting interventions that shrink the reliance on and power and scope of policing in ways that make its continuation impossible and that support thriving and resourced individuals, families, and communities.

We seek to respond to and prevent violence without creating more violence. We strive to create conditions where people are encouraged to take accountability for causing harm, rather than avoiding it.

We recognize that community accountability strategies must be tailored to local contexts and priorities. We must experiment and innovate by creating and supporting small scale embodiments that align with our whole, shared vision. Instead of standardized replication, we will use these shared principles to build, while recognizing that interventions will look different from place to place and evolve at different paces.

We must invest in creating the infrastructure and conditions to support safe and thriving communities. Any work to increase community safety must be rooted in organizing for the well-being, self-determination, and power of people, families, and communities.

This work must proactively invest in strengthening an ecosystem of care and assess, acknowledge, and seek to repair harms for people, families, and communities who have been most impacted by existing and historical policies.

Everyone has a specific experience of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, gender, age, ability, religious background, geographical location, immigration status, and more that shape the perspectives and solutions we offer. Depending on context, we recognize that we all have areas where we experience power, as well as areas of oppression.

We all function differently depending on context and environment and therefore honor the specific needs of individuals. All experience and insight is important to inform this work; the unique history of anti-Blackness in America and in policing necessitate an explicit prioritization and centering of Black people.

We are committed to addressing the ways in which our movement spaces have not been and continue not to be inclusive of everyone. We share responsibility for our access needs, we create space where individuals can ask that her/their/his needs be met without compromising her/their/his integrity. We create and explore ways of doing things that go beyond able-bodied and neurotypical norms.

We will rely on our collective imagination to conceptualize what is necessary to heal and redress harm for individuals, families, and communities. Our analysis, policy solutions, and narrative interventions will aim to meet people’s needs while not re-entrenching systems of harm, alienation, and punishment.

We will not fund nor accept funding for work that further entrenches or expands the scope of policing and the carceral state. We commit to operating from a movement building framework that values transparency and an open exchange of resources, tools, and strategies. We recognize that innovation and growth cannot happen without trying and failing.

Understanding that organizations have different levels of resources and access, we will work to ensure that our individual/organizational decision making considers the whole ecosystem and addresses disparities and grows capacity.

We recognize that the decisions we make may impact the entire ecosystem. We respond to our unique contexts and operate within them knowing that at any given time any decision/action by an individual or group within the movement can transform the entire ecosystem. We commit to developing ways to support each other’s work.