FAQ
Who is organizing this?
Choosing Real Safety: a Historic Declaration to Divest from Prisons and Policing and Build Safer Communities was collaboratively developed and authored by the Abolition Coalition and its allies. The Abolition Coalition is a network of prison abolition organizations spanning across Canada. We have come together in order to build a platform that advances our common goals, while also supporting the specific conditions and issues that arise in our respective communities. Broadly, we work together to realize a future based on meeting people's needs for real safety, without relying on the violence of policing and without holding people captive in jails, prisons and immigration detention. Hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals have committed to ending racism, and in particular anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism, and committed instead to building safety for all of our community members through divesting from policing and punishment and investing in life-affirming institutions, mutual aid, trust, and our collective capacities to care for each other.
How can you help?
If you would like to support this work, please sign on to the statement as an individual and as an organization. If your place of work, employment or other group affiliations have not signed on, please consider bringing this to the table. You can share our letter and work on your social media accounts, and we encourage people to write op-eds calling attention to this declaration and the impact that such changes could have on yourself and the communities you come from, represent, or collaborate with. If you publish an op-ed, please consider sharing on social media with the hashtag #HistoricDeclaration and send us a link to share on our website (abolition.coalition@gmail.com)
Why?
The summer of 2020 was one of mass reckoning with the disproportionate violence that police and prisons enact against our Black, Indigenous, and other racialized neighbours, our trans and queer neighbours, our neighbours with disabilities, and those in our community that are drug users, under- or unhoused, sex workers, or otherwise marginalized by structural inequalities. In the wake of the mass Black-led, multiracial protests against police violence that spread across the globe in 2020, we witnessed agencies, organizations, and corporations publicly declare their support for Black, Indigenous and other marginalized lives. However, many of these declarations failed to specify concrete actions that could be taken to put these declarations of support into action. This letter is a first step. We call on all of those who declared their support for Black Lives Matter and other allied movements over the summer of 2020 to sign on to this historic declaration which constitutes the beginning steps - a living roadmap - to realize a more just, equitable and safe future for all.
Endorsements
"Divesting from the police and prison's and reinvesting in communities is an essential step to end violence against Indigenous women, trans and 2 spirit folks. Indigenous women who are most at risk of violence, disappearance, murder, and preventable death are the same Indigenous women who are targeted by police and most at risk of being detained. Violence and racism are perpetuating tactics used by police. Therefore, police systems cannot be reformed to be made less violent and harmful, because they continue to thrive from these tactics. It's not just to take away the police and prison's , it's to replace it with something better, more efficient, allows for healing, restorative and transformative justice , and not so tragic where it ends in death and being denied basic human rights. "
— Native Women's Shelter of Montreal
“Policing and prisons do not make our communities safer or more secure. They are a legacy of white supremacy and must be defunded. We want the reinvestment of police funds (from their bloated budgets that largely go to salaries) into community supports and programs. We have enough resources to ensure we all have what we need to thrive in this world- if we reallocated funds to support the people, not the cops and their racist violence. We're calling for real change- for an abolitionist future."
— Black Lives Matter - Toronto
“Unifor supports the growing societal shift that prioritizes community safety without resorting to police and prisons. Just last year, Unifor’s National Executive Board sent a powerful message that investing in communities must be a priority. We acknowledge that this injustice is not only limited to the police, but to all institutions and structures in society. This is a redefining moment in time where it will take collective power to make meaningful systemic change.”
— Unifor
“Pivot has endorsed the #HistoricDeclaration with the recognition that the communities we have served continue to be targeted by police, prisons, and other systems of criminalization. This endorsement calls us to action: to defund and dismantle violent systems and build inclusive alternatives.”
— Pivot Legal Society
“As a signatory of the #HistoricDeclaration, we the Black Legal Action Centre (BLAC) stand in solidarity with the call for a three-prong strategy to defund, dismantle and build. Every day, we see the insidious and devastating impact of anti-Black racism in all areas of law, including the over-representation of Black people in both, provincial and federal correctional institutions, and other places of detention. We believe that this strategy prioritizes Black life and puts forward meaningful recommendations to build safer communities for all.”