Critical Resistance

Email: crno [at] criticalresistance [dot] org
Phone: 504-304-3784

Mission Statement:

Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. We believe that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure. As such, our work is part of global struggles against inequality and powerlessness. The success of the movement requires that it reflect communities most affected by the PIC. Because we seek to abolish the PIC, we cannot support any work that extends its life or scope.

Vision

Critical Resistance's vision is the creation of genuinely safe, healthy communities that respond to harm without relying on prisons and punishment.

We call our vision "abolition", and take the name purposefully from those who called for the abolition of slavery in the 1800's. Abolitionists believed that slavery could not be fixed or reformed - it needed to be abolished. As PIC abolitionists today, we also do not believe that reforms can make the PIC just or effective. Our goal is not to improve the system; it is to shrink the system into non-existence.

We don't believe that we need the PIC to keep us safe. Instead, we work to build safe and healthy communities, where the basics are provided, such as food, shelter, and self-determination. We also work to create and promote alternatives to the current system.

Critical Resistance (CR) is building a member-led and member-run grassroots movement to stop using punishment to "cure" complicated social problems. We know that more police and prisons will not make our communities safer. Instead, we know that things like food, housing, and freedom are what creates lasting safety. We work to prevent people from being arrested or locked up in prison. In all our work, we organize to build power and to stop the devastation that the reliance on prisons and policing have brought to ourselves, our families, and our communities.