Community Safety
Re-envisioning community safety by centering health instead of punishment
We work toward a society where all people are healthy and free, and our collective resources support care — never punishment or harm.
The criminal legal system inflicts widespread mental and physical harm — especially on people of color and those impacted by structural oppression. We are fighting for a world where there is no need for prisons, jails, detention centers, or policing, because all people get the care and assistance they need to repair harms they have caused, heal historical or ongoing pain, and grow in community together.
We advance community safety by:
- Conducting public health research in close partnership with grassroots community organizations working on abolitionist policy and budget campaigns
- Using a health lens to advance policies that dismantle the prison industrial complex and disentangle care from punishment (e.g., by supporting community-based health infrastructure, like non-police mental health crisis response)
- Building capacity for public health students, staff, faculty, and alumni to recognize and organize for abolition as a public health strategy via our Abolitionist Public Health Student Network
- Making the case for why all forms of state violence are a public health crisis— and how abolition offers a transformative framework to advance health equity and healing
We advance community safety by:
- American University
- Boston University School of Public Health
- Capella University
- Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science
- City University of New York
- Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
- Colorado School of Public Health
- Drexel University
- Emory University Rollins School of Public Health
- George Washington University
- Georgia State University
- Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Howard University
- Iowa State University
- Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Northeastern University
- Northwestern University
- Oregon Health and Science University and Portland State University School of Public Health
- Rutgers University
- San Diego State University School of Public Health
- San Francisco State University
- San Jose State University
- Seattle University
- Tufts University
- Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
- University of California Berkeley School of Public Health
- University of California Davis
- University of California Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health
- University of Central Arkansas
- University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health
- University of Iowa College of Public Health
- University of Maryland School of Public Health
- University of Michigan School of Public Health
- Wayne State University
- University of Minnesota School of Public Health
- University of Minnesota Medical School
- University of Oxford
- University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health
- University of South Florida College of Public Health
- University of Southern California
- University of Victoria
- University of Washington School of Public Health
- University of Wisconsin Madison
- University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health
We advance community safety by:
- Conducting public health research in close partnership with grassroots community organizations working on abolitionist policy and budget campaigns
- Using a health lens to advance policies that dismantle the prison industrial complex and disentangle care from punishment (e.g., by supporting community-based health infrastructure, like non-police mental health crisis response)
- Building capacity for public health students, staff, faculty, and alumni to recognize and organize for abolition as a public health strategy via our Abolitionist Public Health Student Network
- Making the case for why all forms of state violence are a public health crisis— and how abolition offers a transformative framework to advance health equity and healing
Our Impact
Health Instead of Punishment Steering Committee:
We believe social change work must be rooted in accountability to people directly impacted by criminalization, incarceration, and surveillance, as well as movement leaders.
Aimee Gana
Incarcerated organizer, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Dustin Gibson
PeoplesHub
Jackie Jahn
The Ubuntu Center at Drexel University, DeeperThanWater Coalition
Rehana Lerandeau
Critical Resistance
Maria Thomas
Beyond Do No Harm
Caesar Thompson
Abolitionist Public Health Student, Racial Public Health organizer
From our partners
Stop Cop Cities: Invest in Public Health Solutions
Drawing from public health literature and the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta, Georgia, we authored a research report on the health harms posed by the growing number of police training facilities, commonly referred to as “Cop Cities.”
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From Crisis to Care: Ending the Health Harm of Women’s Prisons
We collaborated with Californians United for a Responsible Budget; California Coalition for Women Prisoners; and Transgender, Gender-variant, and Intersex Justice Project to create a research report, fact sheet, and social media tiles about the harms of women’s prisons.
Liberation is Essential: Leveraging Governmental Public Health Tools to Address the Harms of the Criminal Legal System
We partnered with Critical Resistance to provide examples of how local, state, and territorial health departments can use the 10 Essential Public Health Services to support abolitionist visions and campaigns.
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