Abolition 2 Abundance is a Champaign Urbana community-based organization whose members are committed to engaging in the process of abolition. From our own experiences of activism and struggle we have chosen to root our work in a cycle of education, action, and change.
How we understand abolition
abolition is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.
Critical Reistance
Abolition seeks to tear down the oppressive structures that harm people, but more important, it seeks to build up a society we want to live in, one that does not require disposing of entire sectors of our society, but creates the conditions where all can thrive. It seeks to create a society where police, prisons, and other institutions of state violence no longer exist because they are no longer necessary.
Our process
- Education: In order to actions we must be transparent about how we view abolition and the different forms of systemic violence we are trying to challenge, we must also agree on what we are fighting for and trying to build. Survivor centered practice tells us we must continually work with and listen to those most targeted if we are to understand how to provide support. Transformative justice, requires acknowledging everyone’s experiences of harm.
- Action: From our understanding of contemporary abolitionist theory we can undertake collective action that we believe disrupts and dismantles harmful systems of power or provides support for those targeted by these same systems. For this we look to the examples of direct action, mutual-aid, and community education projects.
- Change: We wish to hold our own work up to the best practices learned from standards of transformative justice. We acknowledge our own ability to do harm and that the impact of our actions may not match our intents. This requires being dedicated to the process of critically analyzing outcomes of our actions and using feedback to change our own theory and practice.