It was a freezing cold, grey October day in London. My hands and feet were numb but, transfixed by what I was hearing, I didn’t want to go home. It was 2018 and I’d travelled to the capital to join the annual United Families and Friends Campaign demonstration for the first time. The procession, from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street – the home of the Prime Minister – was led by family and friends of people who had died in state ‘care’: police custody, prison, immigration detention and psychiatric institutions. One by one they took to the mic. Every story was harrowing. Some were about people who had approached the state apparatus for help, only for their loved ones to end up dead.
This was a catalyst for me to learn more about the long-standing abolition movement organizing to abolish prisons, police and the systems that support them.
