Creating More Just Societies: Derecka Purnell Advocates for Abolition not Reform

Derecka Purnell (’17), writer, lawyer, and abolitionist, contributed to LEVEL’s “Abolition for the People” series discussing how reforms serve to obscure violence more efficiently while failing to make the criminal legal system more just, and how abolition aims to dismantle oppressive systems while expanding and creating sources of support (“The System Is Built for Power, Not Justice,” Oct. 19). “What abolitionists dream and build is more promising than diversifying police departments or expanding probation. Abolition creates more just societies where we don’t need master’s houses, master’s tools, or masters at all.”
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