Obstacles to Transformative Change

This chapter concerns the pitfalls to avoid and obstacles to overcome when engaging in transformative change. The author discusses how it is difficult to sustain social movements in the face of police repression and movement missteps. Politicians cannot be trusted to carry out abolitionist demands without political pressure; and police power and police propaganda are powerful, formidable, and relentless. The discussion then turns to academic allies and apologists for policing, and the author critiques their arguments for maintaining the policing and police reform status quo. The chapter ends with some successful strategies of social movements seeking defunding and abolition to challenge the forces preventing change.