Abolitionist Futures Digest: Feb 26
Events
✨Reading and Practising Abolition✨
Join us for this pilot project on creative methods and abolitionist scholarship in collaboration with the Centre for Communities and Social Justice (University of Greenwich).
The project consists of three in-person reading group sessions at the University of Greenwich. You are welcome to attend either one, two, or all three sessions. In each session, we will discuss short abolitionist texts and engage with creative activities such as mapping, drawing and collage making. No prior knowledge of abolitionist theory or artistic skills is required.
WHAT TO DO INSTEAD OF CALLING THE POLICE
Copwatch Network is back with another What To Do Instead of Calling the Police workshop in Lewisham on Wednesday 18th Feb at Orchard Garden Community Centre, SE 13 7LQ
FREE EVENT
Registration required
All Welcome (except cops)
No More Exclusions
Community Action Meeting - Whose Schools? Taking Back Our Power!
This community action meeting on school exclusions is taking place in Hackney next week, Wednesday. It's aimed at people living, working and/or organising in Hackney, Islington and Haringey, NME are involved in organising it.
This is How can we fight fascist feelings?
A Workshop For Organizers And Interventionists
In this one-day Sense & Solidarity workshop (10am-6pm) we will explore:
How can we identify and name fascism in our times? How does it feed on racist imperialism and capitalist misery?
How does reactionary ideology work and what changes minds? Whose mind is worth changing?
How do we contend with poisoned legacy and social media ecosystems? Who should we be speaking to and how?
How do we strategize and not just react? How can cultural work support material struggles?
7 March 2026, Somewhere In Central London
REHEARSALS FOR LIBERATION
Building Community, Building Resistance
Join Robyn Maynard in conversation with Adam Elliott-Cooper, Gracie Mae Bradley, and Sara Bafo at our London event on the 16th of February, organised by Haymarket books with Black Lives Matter UK and Books Against Borders.
PUBLIC LECTURE WITH ROBYN MAYNARD ON POLICING BLACK LIVES: STATE VIOLENCE IN CANADA FROM SLAVERY TO THE PRESENT
Join us for a talk & discussion with Professor Robyn Maynard on how policing works across borders to uphold racial capitalism and Western imperial power. The talk will draw from Maynard's best-selling book,Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present.
When: 18 February 2026, 18:00 — 19:30
Venue: Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
Book Launch of Anna Terwiel's Prison Abolition for Realists
Mon 9 Mar 2026 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM GMT
Online
With
Anna Terwiel is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Trinity College in Hartford, USA. She is the author of “What is Carceral Feminism?” and other articles on feminism, punishment, and prison abolition. She also co-directs Trinity’s Prison Education Project (TPEP), which offers credit-bearing college courses to incarcerated people in Connecticut.
And
molly ackhurst is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Greenwich. With over a decade of experience in a host of roles within the English frontline sexual violence sector, molly is also a central and active figure in the field of British abolitionist feminist scholarship. Her current research focus is the affective dimensions of contemporary Anglophone feminist politics around sexual violence and justice.
Coming Soon
2026 Abolitionist Futures Reading Group Returns.
We are currently at the planning stage for the 2026 Reading Group. Details and dates will be announced (hopefully) in next month's digest.
Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash by Sarah Lamble.
The twenty-first century “gender wars” have been driven by a powerful and seductive narrative: that safety can be secured through exclusion, surveillance, and the policing of difference. These punitive logics have gained momentum across the political spectrum, fuelling an anti-trans backlash and distorting the meaning of safety itself.
Articles from the Abolition Futures GBV Series
Lizzie on Whipping up fear.
So when anti-trans narratives talk about the women’s being made unsafe, they mean it is being made unsafe for a particular set of women who are worthy of protection: those who are in close proximity with the idealised form of woman.
Máiréad on Gender and ‘Historical’ Injustice Inquiries: Irish Reflections.
Participants in Irish inquiries have not been silenced or ignored in any simple sense. Instead, they have been drawn into inquiry processes which offer them some public recognition, but carefully restrict their political agency
Francesca on Domestic work, care, and gender-based violence:
Towards a non-carceral approach to migrant domestic workers’ rights
The carceral approach put forward by the ‘modern-day slavery industrial complex’ focuses on punishing the perpetrator rather than being centred on what migrant domestic workers actually want and need for a life of safety and dignity: the right to work and settle in the UK
Vee on Sex work and the abolition of capitalism
Sex workers want real, viable economic alternatives, not more policing. Feminists of colour have long criticized radical feminists (and broader anti-violence work) for its focus on interpersonal violence at the cost of institutional violence.
Tanya on A Just Hearing for Survivors: Feminist Activism and Political Listening
Focusing political attention on the politics of listening helps to avoid an individualist politics that leaves survivors isolated and vulnerable in an ‘economy of believability’ that is stacked against them, and leaves them open to excessive scrutiny, including from feministshe text here.
Other Articles
Ludovic Parsons in QueerAF on the Filton 24
One of the most significant prison strikes for four decades is underway, after queer activist Amu Gib refused food on Nov 2nd 2025, inspiring eight others to join. The activists have been remanded facing allegations of carrying out actions in affiliation with Palestine Action.
Queer activist among eight people on hunger strike for Palestine in UK prisons
Just Us
At demonstrations protesting police killings and deaths in state custody the slogan “No Justice, No Peace” is a recurring chant. However, are such aspirations – for justice – consistent with the history of justice as a concept?
Inside The People’s Tribunal on Police Killings
After years of waiting for change, friends and family of people who ‘died in police custody’ are coming together to demand justice from the police writes James Whitfield in Red Pepper
Inside The People’s Tribunal on Police Killings by James Whitfield
Publications
Free Ebooks from Haymarket Books
Abolish ICE, Abolish the Border
In solidarity with all those standing up against the brutality of immigrant detention and ICE occupation, Haymarket books are offering free ebooks of three crucial books about migrant justice and border abolition.
Help spread the word about these free resources by sharing them with your comrades and loved ones
Resources & Reports
Political Prisoner Letter Writing Guide
By: Nijjor Manush
Really useful guide to writing to prisoners.
Read here: https://nijjormanush.com/political-prisoner-letter-writing/
Know Your Rights on Palestine Action’s Proscription
By: CAGE International
Palestine Action has been proscribed, what does it mean and what can you do? This new guide will give you a greater understanding of what there is to know about the law and how you can continue standing for Palestine.
Read here: https://www.cage.ngo/articles/know-your-rights-palestine-action-proscription
Report: Policing the Playground, A New Model for Schools Policing
By: Liberty
Liberty's new report examines a pilot in Hackney, London, where traditional Safer Schools Officers were removed from regular school duty, evaluating whether this new model can better protect student wellbeing without criminalising them.
Read here: https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/policing-the-playground-a-new-model-for-schools-policing/
Podcasts
Four Podcasts that provide an overview of the key issues central to understanding the significance of the undercover political policing scandal perpetrated by spycops and their managers.
Consent: The difference between sex and rape
Blacklisting and the right to protest
Institutional Sexism
Coercive Control & Psychological Abuse
Solidarity Support
The Sameer Project
A donations based and mutual aid initiative, led by 4 diaspora Palestinians, working to supply emergency shelter, aid and water to displaced families in Gaza. The initiative prioritises those with critical medical needs and vulnerabilities. The project provides support in the form of shelter, medication, food, water, and other living essentials.
Instagram:@thesameerproject
Twitter / X: @sameerproject
Donation options here: https://linktr.ee/thesameerproject
Free the Filton 24
Follow and support the Free The Filton 24 campaign & sign their updated petition. The 24 are being held in British prisons on remand for allegedly damaging weapons intended for use in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Petition: sign the updated petition here
Instagram: @freethefilton24
Job
Common/Wealth are seeking an experienced, dynamic Communications & Campaigns Manager (0.6) who will help us tell our story, shape our public-facing communications, and lead on advocacy. Download our full Recruitment Information here in ENGLISH or WELSH
This is not an exhaustive list of upcoming abolitionist resources or activities and many more exist beyond this short digest. We will continue to share as many resources on our social media as we can - please get in touch if you have something to share.