today, the abolition of police and prisons is one of the
platform tenets
of the Democratic Socialists of America-the growing leftist group that
fiercely backed Ocasio-Cortez.
...
There’s also money behind the movement. Like most criminal justice advocacy organizations, Shehk says, the explicitly abolitionist Critical Resistance gets most of its funding from small grass-roots donations, but it also receives significant financial backing-he wouldn’t say how much-from several bigger philanthropic institutions such as the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, Craigslist Charitable Fund and the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation.
But Baldwin was right about the politics, according to Schenwar: “A really big obstacle to people even being open to the idea of abolition is this persistent idea that we need prisons to keep us safe.” Schenwar believes that a safe society can be achieved without locking anybody up.