prison/police Abolition
Abolition in Canada Syllabus: It is hoped that this syllabus will help abolition-minded instructors, students, community organizers, and advocates alike learn from and honour the vital organizing, research, resource development, and community building that both prisoners and their advocates have been doing since the inception of prisons.
Abolitionist Organizing Binder: So is this Actually an Abolitionist Proposal or Strategy? A collection of resources to aid in evaluation and reflection compiled by Interrupting Criminalization, Project Nia & Critical Resistance.
Access to Information Guide for Canadian Prisoners. Step-by-step guide about how to fill out information requests.
Applying a Gender Lens to Arrest: A Call for Change. By Martha Paynter, RN
The Beyond Do No Harm Principles: Health care providers, staff, public health workers, and researchers recommit to caring for people by refusing to participate in criminalization
Black Perspectives - Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0. “Even in prison, rebellions are contagious. In 2016, a national prison strike led us to compile the Prison Abolition Syllabus on this site as a way to bring together some of the urgent and informed writings on the history of prisons and prison rebellion.”
Building the World We Want: A Roadmap to Police Free Futures. Building the World We Want is the collective project of Robyn Maynard and Pascale Diverlus.
Building Your Abolitionist Toolbox: Everyday Resources for a Punishment-Free World
Caring for People Who Are Detained. An educational tool for frontline workers to engage with abolitionist practices in healthcare.
Canadian Coalition for Children with Incarcerated Parents comprises a network of organizations and individuals and advocates for children’s rights and seeks to create standard safeguards that ensure the best interests of the child are a primary consideration in all decisions and at every stage of the justice system in Canada.
Correctional Service Canada's "Structured Intervention Units": The Independent External Decision Makers. A new report by Dr. Jane Sprott (CrimSL PhD 1999; professor, Department of Criminology at Ryerson University), Professor Emeritus Anthony Doob, and Adelina Iftene (Assistant Professor, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University.
COVID-19, Human Rights and Public Health in Prisons: A Case Study of Nova Scotia’s Experience during the First Wave of the Pandemic. By Adelina Iftene.
The Criminalization of HIV in Canada: Experiences of People Living with HIV. “I’ve published this report for people living with HIV, people who work in HIV and criminal justice community-based organizations, lawyers, activists and advocates, and people interested in the criminalization of HIV and the role of punishment in Canadian society.”
Decarcerating Care: Care Not Cops: Care Not Cops is a grassroots community group of healthcare workers organizing to remove police from healthcare settings and advocate to end healthcare policies and practices that promotes the involvement of police in health-related matters.
East Coast Prison Justice Society is a collaboration of individuals and organizations working to advance social justice through advocacy focused on the rights and interests of criminalized and imprisoned people.
Feminist Abolitionist Nursing by Martha Paynter, MSc, RN; Keisha Jefferies, MN, RN; Leah Carrier, BScN, RN; Lorie Goshin, PhD, RN
FIRST VOICE: Formerly incarcerated women share their prison experiences for Prisoners Justice Day. CBC Information Morning - NS with Portia Clark. August 11, 2022. The Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia held a speaking circle to mark Prisoners Justice Day, which is recognized internationally each year. The formerly incarcerated women shared their experiences of being in prison, while advocates offered their own observations.
The Human Rights in Action Manual is designed to assist prisoners, peer advocates, and regional advocates in ensuring that those whose rights are interfered with have support to address the discriminatory treatment, in addition to identifying and addressing areas that require systemic advocacy.
IN OUR OWN HANDS: tools for talking abolition & transformative justice with little ones. This document provides tools for starting (and continuing) conversations about policing, prisons and transformative justice in the lives of children, families and the broader community. This resource includes prompts, questions, and exercises to help challenge carceral thinking, copaganda, and surveillance to develop a more robust and collective sense of justice.
Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists
Keeping Indigenous Families Together: Strengthening the network of trauma-informed prevention services for pregnant Indigenous women, new mothers, their families and caregivers. Summary report of Mi’kmaw Provincial Network meeting held October 16, 2021. See alternatives to birth alerts graphic here.
Manitoba’s Cross-Over Kids: Overlap between the Child Welfare and Youth Justice Systems. A summary of the report Youth Criminal Justice Systems: Documenting “Cross-Over Kids” in Manitoba.
Pink Larkin, Trans people in prison: Nova Scotia’s approach. “A panel on transgender people and prisons took place during Halifax Pride, intended to help lawyers better serve trans clients remanded or sentenced to provincial custody in Nova Scotia and promote understanding of some issues trans people face in the prison system.”
Practical prison abolition politics in health care contexts. An episode of the podcast Talking Radical featuring Claire Bodkin and Sara Alavian, physicians in Hamilton, Ontario, as well as members of an ad hoc group of health workers from different parts of Canada with an interest in prison abolitionist politics. We talk about what it means to think about prison abolition in the context of health care, and about the zine that the group will be releasing on February 1, *Caring for People Who Are Detained: A Handbook for Healthcare Workers + Trainees*.
Resource Guide: Prisons, Policing, and Punishment. This resource guide offers introductory sources on policing, prisons, and punishment that have been particularly helpful for me [Micah Herskind] over the past several years.
Towards Abolition: A Learning and Action Guide for Public Health. We hope that this resource helps to frame the importance of abolition for the public health field and supports public health professionals to identify ways they can support PIC abolition in their work.
Tracking the Politics of Criminalization and Punishment in Canada: Commentary that aims to make sense of recent developments in the politics of criminalization and punishment in the Canadian context.
TransformHarm.org is a resource hub about ending violence. It offers an introduction to transformative justice. Created by Mariame Kaba and designed by Lu Design Studio, the site includes selected articles, audio-visual resources, curricula, and more.