Note: The NLG National Office, in collaboration with NLG Review, is publishing a 4-part blog series exploring questions around policing in the United States. Guild members are sharing pieces analyzing the policing of social movements, the role of police in maintaining current power dynamics, and alternatives to policing from community power to defunding to abolition. The goal of this series is to generate discussion and conversation among our members and the public regarding the current state of policing and to envision new strategies of social organization. Please also read the Guild’s recent resolution supporting the abolition of policing passed by the membership in 2020.
In the second article of the series, NLG member and attorney Paul Petrequin discusses the emerging movement to defund the police and suggests two strategies to immediately initiate this process: 1) investing in infrastructure and resources to address mental health crisis intervention and 2) ending the War on Drugs through decriminalization and treatment.
Read the full piece below, or download the PDF.
Paul Petrequin is an attorney and fundraising professional currently living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a Legal Coordinator and Observer for the National Lawyers Guild and volunteers with several local progressive organizations to provide mutual aid, research, and organizing.
