Project 2025, created by the extremist right-wing Heritage Foundation, fortifies the racist impact of policing by empowering the Department of Justice to focus on violent crime, despite the fact that violent crime has fallen dramatically. Its authors denounce criminal-justice reform efforts and promote federal oversight of jurisdictions where police divestment efforts have had some success.
The “tough on crime” approach has champions both among Republicans and Democrats, in spite of the fact that in 2020, many elites claiming to support racial justice vowed changes to violent policing in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis.
What would a progressive vision of racial justice and policing look like? There has been for decades an active movement to divest from policing with an eye toward abolishing police and prisons altogether. Angélica Cházaro, professor of law at the University of Washington has been active in that movement, working with various groups and campaigns in Seattle including La Resistencia, No New Youth Jail, Decriminalize Seattle, and Solidarity Budget. She spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about what an abolitionist vision of racial justice looks like.