Punishment is not Accountability: Quakers exploring police, prison abolition, and futures of justice (Online Series)
"What would it mean for us to take seriously and collectively as a Religious Society a call to finish the work of abolition, hand in hand and side by side with those affected and their loved ones? What would it mean for us to stand fully with the calls to abolish the police and fully fund community needs instead? What would it mean to reckon with our past complicity with harm and fully dedicate ourselves to the creation of a liberating Quaker faith that commits to build the revolutionary and healing faith we long to see come to fruition?"
- Lucy Duncan, "A Quaker Call to Abolition and Creation," Friends Journal, April 2021
In this series, participants will explore the spiritual dimensions of police and prison abolition, the carceral system, and healing-focused visions of justice.
Through three workshops, an online community, and opportunities to interact in between sessions, participants will be given space to connect to abolitionist frameworks and movements, with a goal of collectively generating movement and next steps together in this work.
Specific details:
You can choose to attend all three workshops, one, or two. The facilitators will strive to make each session cohesive as a stand-alone workshop. The more you attend, the more opportunities you will have to build community and relationships over the course of the series.
We will have opportunities for participants to engage in community with others between the workshop sessions.
CART captioning will be provided (Closed captioning with a live captioner)
You do not have to be a Quaker to attend this series. We welcome all participants and will strive to explain any Quaker terms in ways that are accessible for non-Friends and new Friends.
This series is pay-as-led and we deeply value radical affordability. You are able to type any amount in the box shown for price at the bottom of the registration form.
To pay $0, simply type "0" into the box at the bottom of the registration form.
We have some suggested rates on the registration form in case that is helpful.
We can’t wait to share space, learning, and community with you on the paths of abolition!
Event Leadership
Jed Walsh is a queer and trans Friend, writer, and educator living on occupied Duwamish land. His heart is fed by dancing, vegan food, laughter, queer and trans community, and building joyful spaces with young people.
Mackenzie Barton-Rowledge (zie/hir or she/her) is a queer, disabled police & prison abolitionist, a Friend, and a white settler on Duwamish land. Zie has degrees in physics and peace education, but hir experience protesting and doing community organizing for racial justice have taught hir more than zie ever learned in class. Mackenzie absolutely loves learning, deeply values integrity, and is a healer — mostly of hirself.
Lewis Webb, Jr. serves as Healing Justice Program Coordinator in AFSC’s New York Office. After graduating from law school, Lewis has dedicated his entire professional career to criminal justice issues. At AFSC, Lewis focuses his work on decreasing New York’s prison population by mitigating paths to incarceration and increasing opportunities for release through sentencing and parole reform. He is widely recognized as an expert on the school-to-prison pipeline, barriers to successful reentry, engaging communities of faith and cultivating young activists.
Tanzania Thomas is currently working as an executive assistant at the Regional Plan Association, a New York-based urban planning research and advocacy non-profit organization, and served as an advocacy corps organizer with the Friends Committee on National Legislation during the 2021 academic year. A graduate of Siena College in Loudonville, New York, with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Tanzania also holds a master’s degree in French studies from New York University. Her master’s thesis on Parisian Black hair salons exhibits her interest in studying marginalization in the US and France and ethnography.
Grace Kindeke is an artist, activist, dancer, community organizer and a B.A. student of Africana Studies and Sociology at UMASS Boston. She was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and raised in New Hampshire. She is an avid reader, thinker and considers herself a Black feminist Afrofuturist dedicated to a more just and liberated world. Currently, she serves as the Program Coordinator for AFSC New Hampshire.
Jen Higgins-Newman (she/her) is the Program Director for Beacon Hill Friends House on the ancestral lands of the Massachusett and Nipmuc peoples. She is a Quaker, an activist, a writer, and theologian, and serves as the main point of contact for participants in this series.
