Ten Demands for Justice

Ten Demands for Justice envisions a new society in which prisons and police are no longer necessary, and communities are equipped to provide for their own health and safety. Ten Demands for Justice offers a roadmap for the defunding and then full abolition of police and prisons, beginning with immediate actions to end police violence as well as racism and classism in policing, prosecution and sentencing.

TO SET THE STAGE FOR FULL ABOLITION:

1—DEFUND THE POLICE AND REALLOCATE RESOURCES TO IMPACTED COMMUNITIES

2—DEMILITARIZE THE POLICE

3—ELIMINATE DISCRIMINATORY POLICING, PROSECUTION, AND SENTENCING

4—INSTITUTE COMPLETE LAW ENFORCEMENT TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

5—INDEPENDENTLY INVESTIGATE ALL POLICE CRIMES AND ABUSES OF POWER

End qualified immunity. Establish an independent national review board, along with community-level oversight committees, to investigate all police officers or police department employees who have been involved in or witness to any police-related crimes. (All police officers, police department employees, police union officials/members and individuals with any relationship to any police department are prohibited from participation, and anyone with any conflict of interest must recuse themself or face civil penalties.) Implement immediate termination of any officer found guilty through independent investigation, and require that officer participate in a pre-established program of reparative justice. Mandate that any police-related crime against any member of a First Nation be addressed according to Indigenous Sovereign Nation laws. Require all costs of police-related lawsuits be covered by officer pensions and/or personal liability insurance. Create a legal fund for victims of police brutality. Immediately dismantle any police department that violates civil rights.

6—INSTALL COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION, OVERSIGHT, AND SAFETY MEASURES

Elect independent community councils for needs assessment, municipal decision making and oversight, prioritizing representation by marginalized groups. Invest in community-based public safety measures, including peacekeepers and wellness checks, intervention, violence prevention, skills-based education, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, mutual aid, mediation, and reparative justice. Mandate state-level monitoring for proper checks and balances.

7—END STRATEGIC COUNTER-PROTEST VIOLENCE

8—APOLOGIZE AND PROVIDE REPARATIONS

Apologize publicly and provide indemnification to victims of police violence and racial discrimination in policing, prosecution and sentencing. Pass the Commission to Study Reparation Act H.R.40 and S.1083. Mandate Congress implement and enact the recommended reparation proposals within 120 days of the submission of the Commission’s report, and immediately begin reparation disbursement to improve the lives of African descendants in the United States and to foster economic, social and political parity. Invest in equitable opportunities for Tribal Nations, and provide reparations to all descendants of Indigenous Peoples of America. Recognize all Tribal Nations and honor in perpetuity all treaties (including those not ratified), as well as obligations to support self-determination and return stolen land. Issue and read a formal apology to the Black Americans and Indigenous Peoples. Implement comprehensive, factual and unabridged social studies pertaining to Black Americans and Indigenous Peoples as part of the national curriculum, to combat their erasure, foster compassion and shift the paradigm of systemic racism and implicit bias.

9—END THE WAR ON DRUGS

End the criminalization of drug use and drug addiction. Pass the CARE Act of 2019. Expunge all nonviolent drug-related convictions, and in lieu of arrest provide mental health, behavioral health and addiction recovery services nationwide; on Indigenous lands, provide resources for those services to be overseen by Tribal Nations and implemented at the discretion of each Sovereign Indigenous Nation. Legalize marijuana at the federal and state levels, and respect the Sovereignty of Tribal Nations that jurisdictionally protects all 573 recognized Nations from any federal or state penalty for the cultivation of marijuana. Pass the Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act of 2015, and invest state and federal revenue from legal marijuana into communities most impacted by the War on Drugs.

10—END CARCERAL PUNISHMENT

Free everyone in jails, prisons, youth facilities and detention centers, beginning immediately with the elderly, disabled and immunocompromised, nonviolent “offenders,” undocumented immigrants, criminalized survivors, and those held on bail or for parole violations. Free all political prisoners, including Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal. Remove “except as a punishment for crime” from the 13th Amendment. Ban solitary confinement. Decriminalize misdemeanor offenses and probation/parole violations. Repeal all three-strikes and habitual offender laws. Ban the box. End the school-to-prison pipeline, repealing truancy laws, removing police, surveillance technologies and metal detectors from schools, and eliminating school zero-tolerance disciplinary policies, suspensions and expulsions. Close all local jails. Eliminate the prison industrial complex, closing all privately owned prisons, terminating all contracts with private companies that profit off prisons and banning all police foundations. End all new prison construction. End pre-trial detention. Cut funding to prosecutor’s offices. Abolish ICE, end immigration detention and mandate legal immigration status priority to ICE detainees and their families. Eliminate civil commitment. Eliminate all carceral ‘alternatives to incarceration,’ and implement measures for intervention, prevention and education. Abolish the death penalty. Implement a reparative, transformative justice model in place of the current system.