ella's Blog

Alternatives to Police (PDF) by Rose City Copwatch (2008)

Alternatives to the Police by Evan Dent, Molly Korab, and Farid Rener

The Avant-garde of White Supremacy by Steve Martinot and Jared Sexton

Broken Windows is On Hiatus: Community Interventions We Can Enact Now for Real Justice by Hannah Hodson

Can We Build an Anti-Policing Movement that Isn’t Anti-Police? by Radical Faggot

Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits of Community by Steve Herbert

Feeling for the Edge of your Imagination: finding ways not to call the police

A New Year’s Resolution: Don’t Call the Police by Mike Ludwig

Not Calling the Police by Prison Culture

Origins of the Police by David Whitehouse

The Other Side of the COIN (PDF) by Kristian Williams.

Policing is a Dirty Job, But Nobody’s Gotta Do It: 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World by Jose Martin

Policing Slaves Since the 1600s by Auandaru Nirhan

The Shanti Sena ‘peace center’ and the non-policing of an anarchist temporary autonomous zone: Rainbow Family peacekeeping strategies (PDF) by Michael Niman

Stop Kidding Yourself: The Police Were Created to Control Working Class and Poor People by Sam Mitrani

We Don’t Just Need Nicer Cops. We Need Fewer Cops by Alex S. Vitale

What Does It Mean to Be Anti-Police? by Alex S. Vitale

the daily mail: important conversations about muslim immigrant crime rates are being silenced by people calling us islamophobic for pointing it out!

libs of tiktok: important conversations about lgbt people's crime rates are being silenced by people calling us queerphobic for pointing it out!

transmascvoicesproject: important conversations about transfem crime rates are being silenced by people calling us transmisogynistic for pointing it out! b-but i'm NOTHING like those other three! i swear!! i'm an Ontologically Good Victim so i can't be a bigot!!! and i'm dressing up my statements about it in flowery feminist language, surely transmisogynists wouldn't do that, right?

Dyke March London 2026

The United Nations recognises it as a form of torture.

It increases suicide risk by 191 times.

It increases the risk of dying from heart disease and stroke by 3.5 times (no shit on that one, forcing extremely high doses of heavy drugs on someone without even titrating it does that)

45% of patients in psych wards have experienced sexual violence during an admission.

The UN Humans Rights Council report which includes discussions of how stripping the rights of people to accept or decline care erodes their dignity and personhood. Section V: Recommendations subsection 2 explicitly advocates for an end to involuntary hospitalization. This report also cites lots of other relevant data and is worth reading.

“Danger to Self and Others” a study that showed that in “compliers” (ie: people who are edge cases and are committed by some physicians but would not have been by others) rates of suicide and violent crime within three months of involuntary hospitalization rose significantly.

A comparative study that assesses a lot of other studies’ conclusions about the harm of involuntary holds compared to voluntary holds. This one is dense but worth it to understand that this isn’t an issue of data collection, the harm is visible in the aggregate

2023 study that found 45% of patients report being sexually assaulted in the psych ward. This study also notes that the numbers could be more, due to patient fears of reporting.

Here’s an article I personally find fascinating on the odd legality of psych holds in the US (do the cops have the right to seize your stuff if they think you’re a danger? Why the fuck are cops being allowed to make these assessments? How the fuck is this legal? Should it be legal?)

Having a loved one going through a mental health crisis is a horrible feeling. And it can feel right to try to send them to a “professional” or call in a wellness check when you can’t handle it or can’t get to them physically. But it really can’t be overstated: involuntary psych holds are proven to harm those who are struggling far more than they are proven to help.

Toni Morrison performing in Richard III as a student at Howard University, 1953

1990 -  When developers and the town of Oka wanted to start building a golf course on stolen land that belonged to them and that contained a sacred grove and a burial ground, the Mohawk tribe around Kanehsatake, Quebec, rose up and occupied the area. 

Ultimately the stand-off with the police and the Canadian army lasted 78 days before the warriors gave up the occupation. The building of the golf course was cancelled. 

Instead of a cutesie reference to film censorship it was an explicit statement of defiance of Maryland's criminalization gay sex, which was not repealed until 2002. This wasn't a guy saying "Oh they can't put what I do in the movies according to a completely voluntary industry code" he was saying "The State of Maryland wants to put me in jail for being gay and having gay sex."