In the United States, police arrest someone every three seconds and kill an average of three people every year.
Policing has encroached into every aspect of civic and social life, from schools, and hospitals to transit systems and public parks. Policing is the frontline of the criminal legal system. In order to prevent entry into the criminal legal system and repair the consequences of its existence, we must address policing.
Achieving the level of influence necessary to address policing requires a diverse and strong ecosystem of organizations working independently and collectively to advance long-term strategies that radically reconstruct society.
Building Beyond Policing (BBP) is a network whose purpose is to build and sustain the power of organizations working to create a just society.
The depth and complexity of the challenges that we face call for deep, long-term power building that creates changes in material conditions for people and challenges the foundation and logic of policing and the criminal legal system.
What is required is a political vision connected to long-term strategies that both dismantle surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems and build models for alternative solutions.
BBP network members are developing and implementing the programs and policy solutions needed to ensure everyone in our community can flourish and lead self-determined lives.
Together, BBP members:
Create safe and thriving communities
by creating non-carceral community-based projects that expand our ideas about what keeps us safe
Win policy solutions
that dismantle imprisonment and policing
Build power
by working together to build practices, skills, relationships and resources that address the needs of our communities.
Deepen our impact
and catalyze more wins by learning from and supporting each other building toward liberation for everyone, most especially Black people, people of color, poor people, LGBTQIA people, immigrants, youth, and disabled people who are targeted by policing and criminalization.