Member Statements on PCR05: Make the Abolition Working Group a Chapter Priority Campaign for 2026
AGAINST by Mina/Nat S
Regretfully, I encourage my comrades to vote against the Abolition Working Group’s priority campaign proposal.
Broadly, I would group the Abolition priority proposal’s intended actions into several categories:
Political Education
Mutual Aid
Legislative Advocacy
Popularization (e.g. tabling, outreach)
Community Defense against ICE, National Guard, and MPD escalations
The Community Defense aspect of this proposal is duplicative of the Community Defense working group, who are already doing this work with regular ICE Watch community patrols that have gathered 200+ activists across 60+ patrols. (I could not attend the Local Convention directly but I heard there was some discussion on this point, which I will not attempt to summarize.) I encourage everyone to read the Community Defense priority proposal which IMO presents a strong case for prioritizing that work in name and funding. I’d like to see the work that focuses on defending our communities be coordinated under one banner.
I do want to mention one positive aspect of the Abolition WG’s work – their outreach east of the Anacostia River, in Wards 7 and 8. However, I find it hard to square that with their stated recruitment lens, given we have a tiny percentage of our overall membership in that region. I appreciate the difficulties of recruiting in areas and among demographics we are not strong in, but this proposal does not scream “2026 priority campaign” given its results as a past priority campaign thus far. It seems clear some change in approach is necessary.
Finally, the items that the priority campaign funds would be spent on – mutual aid supplies, tabling, speaker fees, wheatpasting etc – do not seem like sufficient reasons to allocate this portion of our budget, given the other priority campaign proposals and their correspondingly larger funding needs.
I encourage everyone to think hard about the fact that we have limited priorities for a reason: if we prioritize everything, in practice we prioritize nothing. At the present political moment (“conjuncture”), there are several vital areas we need to make moves on, of which I will briefly name our exciting Electoral possibilities, defending against attacks on federal workers and Labor, attacks on trans people and Bodily Autonomy, Community Defense against state repression, and developing a DMV-wide tenants’ union with Stomp Out Slumlords. I support continuing the goals of the Abolition WG and especially making intentional moves to recruit and root ourselves east of the river. But when so many other campaigns have very strong proposals with clear action items and funding needs that take maximal advantage of our present political moment, this proposal, this year, does not make the cut for me.
Regardless of how the vote goes, I encourage Abolition WG members to continue working, coordinating with the other chapter formations, and building the strongest campaign possible. It feels as though there is something building here which can yield dividends in the years to come.
AGAINST by Eduarda S
Seeing as there can only be 5 priority campaigns and we have 8 to choose from, I urge my comrades to vote against Abolition Working Group (AWG) becoming a priority campaign. Instead, vote in favor of Community Defense to become a chapter priority campaign. Despite it seeming like a natural fit for AWG, when Trump sent military troops and masked ICE agents to terrorize and abuse our communities the AWG failed to mount a response. We are in desperate need of leadership against armed forces and AWG has not risen to the challenge. Community Defense has been able to step up without any support from AWG. While I appreciate the mutual aid work AWG does of brake light clinics and donation drives, they have proven that their work can be self funded. They will be able to continue that work without priority status. Community Defense needs our priority status so we can fight back against Trump’s militarized police force. Vote NO on Abolition, vote YES on Community Defense.
IN FAVOR by Will M
My name is Will M, and I am a proud member of the abolition working group, the PG County Branch, and have assisted electorally with the campaigns of multiple DSA members.
The last year of occupation has shown us the importance of continuing the fight for abolition. It has served as a reminder that the carceral state, and in particular the police, are a sword of damocles hanging over every member of our society, ready to be used against our most vulnerable populations. We must defend our community by abolishing the police!
Abolition deserves priority campaign status because police and prisons are the state’s primary tool for crushing working class resistance and protecting capital. When we fight the cops, we’re fighting for every working group in this chapter. Police propaganda runs deeper than almost anything else in this country. But we’re taking it on across DC, Northern Virginia, and Prince George’s County, giving as a large footprint across the chapter, and we need resources to match that scope.
We do legislative work, political education, and mutual aid, as well as direct action through our immigrant rights subcommittee. We’ve shown up to testify against pre-trial detention expansions and runaway police budgets. And through projects like Kids Not Cops, Coats Not Cops, and our Brakelight Clinic, we’ve raised over $10K while directly serving hundreds of people and talking to them about what we’re building.
The cops are capital’s armed enforcers. Priority funding lets us spread this work across the metro area and build real power in working-class neighborhoods. Support the work of one of largest and last Abolition campaigns in DSA, and you will help us open space for every struggle we’re waging.
IN FAVOR by John P
My name is John Payne and I’m a member of the abolition working group. This statement will mainly be focused on the work of the DC side of abolition but I wanted to mention that we now have three different branches in the working group: NOVA, DC, and the newly formed PG County. Comrades outside of DC are doing great work fighting ICE, connecting with incarcerated individuals, and expanding into new places for both abolition and DSA as a whole.
In terms of DC, the past year has shown the need for a world without police and prisons and DSA needs to give priority funding to this crucial work at a time when police are being given more and more power and prisons here and abroad are seen as the answer to every problem. We’ve seen this reactionary view of policing in both our federal and city government. In response to this political reality the abolition working group put a larger emphasis on community and mutual aid events will lay a foundation for an abolitionist future within the DMV. We’ve worked to completely remake dozens of pieces of literature that shows how abolition relates to other topics and answer some of the basic objections to a world without police, we have started turning one time mutual aid events such as our backpack drive into regular occurrences to try to start building long-term connections within different communities, and have continued to work internally to strengthen our own communication skills. We know that abuse by ICE and MPD are making people receptive to critiques of police behavior at the moment and we are excited about the chances to use that openness for new dialogues. Additionally, we know from experience that working directly with our community and neighbors is the best way to avoid the reactionary blowback that we saw after the 2020 uprising.
And while we have had a renewed focus on investing in our community, we have not pulled back from holding DC officials accountable or fight back in the Wilson Building. Members of the Abolition working group testified at numerous different DC Council hearings this year on Peace DC, the DC Budget, and several on MPD/ICE collaboration in the occupation. We have also continued to work as a part of coalitions including Fam Not Feds and the DC Anticriminalization Coalition to turn out numbers for events, lobby DC officials, and create a unified strategy/messaging. This work not only uplifts abolition, but helps prioritize city funding and resources on the things that truly keep us safe..
In the coming year we look to continue our work on mutual aid and improving our ability to talk with community members across the city. We will continue to work with coalition partners on a number of issues, especially fighting back against MPD/ICE collaboration, and look to engage candidates in the upcoming elections through all three of our branches.
I encourage all comrades to support the abolition group for priority status in 2026 as well as working groups along with the Internationalism, Bodily Autonomy, and Green New Deal working groups.
AGAINST by Julia P
I encourage my comrades to vote NO on abolition working group as a priority campaign. I might feel differently if the working group were putting forward a clear campaign strategy to accomplish their stated goal of abolishing the police, but between their priority campaign application and the work I’ve seen them do since I joined the chapter, I do not have confidence that they would make strategically optimal use of priority resources. From what I’ve observed, most of their work in 2025 has been mutual aid efforts such as school supply drives and brake light clinics, and while this work is undeniably valuable and worthy, it does not in itself further any particular legislative or political goal. I understand that the rationale behind these mutual aid projects is to provide alternative community resources that can replace police, but our goal as socialists is not to be one of “a thousand points of light,” as former President George H.W. Bush would say. Meaningful change to state institutions such as policing is not going to happen until socialists hold state power. Until we’ve done the work of building up a sympathetic bloc of electeds, I am doubtful that granting the abolition working group priority status is going to bring us any closer to a world without police.
AGAINST by Tim S
Abolition has been a priority campaign for the majority of the years we have had the priority campaign structure, and has had a similar strategy in all of those years: a focus on community outreach and mutual aid, combined with community and chapter political education and some lobbying, with a particular focus on giving testimony on legislation related to policing. This is all fine work to be doing, but in a year with 8 priority campaigns, we need to ask ourselves hard questions about whether this strategy can make a significant impact on the balance of forces in our communities. The mutual aid and consciousness-raising work that AWG has consistently done has not created a mass base for abolitionist politics, nor has it recruited a significant number of new members to DSA (both of which are, of course, high bars). Its legislative work has moved in fits and starts, largely due to the composition of the legislatures that we rely on to make the changes that Abolition correctly advocates for. It is thus my view that their strategy can’t make significant changes in the short to medium term, because the demands this campaign makes are nearly all legislative, while its approach has been to focus on a purely outside strategy on these legislative aims. This strategy has been rendered ineffective, through no fault of Abolition organizers, by the weakness of our inside strategy, because we simply don’t have enough friendly decision makers in power. We need to focus on that work through our numerous electoral campaigns, and on other urgent priorities where we can make a difference on the timetable that priority campaigns operate under, and let abolition continue its consciousness-raising and mutual aid activities without priority status, which it will surely do if it does not win this election.
IN FAVOR by Far
I am writing to strongly recommend that Metro DC DSA choose Abolition as a priority campaign and I highly encourage everyone to vote FOR this campaign. I believe that as we build socialism, we must do so while CONSISTENTLY centering collective liberation and offering active resistance to all forms of oppression. So inextricably, we must also continue to center and work for the abolition of prisons and policing even in times when we are not facing escalated repression. The Abolition Working Group has been continually organizing on this front since its inception.
If we are to build a truly multi-racial working class mass movement, we must first ensure that members of the multi-racial working class aren’t murdered at the hands of the state, disappeared en masse from their communities into prisons, or otherwise silenced from participating in mass movements in myriad other structurally violent ways. We cannot show up for “community defense” when the conditions are at their worst and disappear in times when things are calmer. Previously the chapter had a Migrant Justice work centered around direct action, which was active when conditions against migrants were at their worst which was important and good to do. However, this sort of reactionary activity only in moments of rupture is not conducive to a long-term effort at addressing the ROOT CAUSES of why people are being repressed. To this end, the Migrant Justice fizzled out in the rest of the chapter, with the work continued only in NOVA, and eventually ended up in the NoVA side of the Abolition workgroup.
It is in NoVA Abolition, through showing up consistently in the long term for our migrant-led coalition partners, we have become core organizers in our coalitions like Ice Out Of Arlington, Ice out of Alexandria, Free them All Virginia. We have members participating with these coalitions in the Rapid Response work that has popped up throughout Northern Virginia. Our reputation as an ally in these spaces was levied and bolstered by the long-standing and continued support through the Abolition comrades who sought to continue it and we have built a positive reputation for DSA through our consistency. Providing, supporting and amplifying this work ensures we can continue to build a space where people can feel safe and supported in their own struggle against oppression and confront the entrenched beliefs around the carceral state.
Also, I want to note that community defense is not only about confrontation, community defense is ALSO about providing people with all the necessities to live a safe, dignified life. Abolition has been building a consistent presence in our communities through its repeated mutual aid efforts like the Kids not Cops Backpack Drive, Coats not Cops Coat Drive, and the many Brake-light Clinics we have held. All three of which we have done this year. So I urge you to vote for Abolition as a priority campaign, to continue to invest and focus our organization in a way that ensures that ALL of us are allowed to live safe and dignified lives, and that we are seen as a consistent partner in this space.Ultimately we are up against a collectively indoctrinated belief system that holds the inevitability of a carceral state, and many people simply can’t imagine alternatives. If we only show up in moments of rupture, and discontinue this work in moments of calm, we will not build the world we seek.
IN FAVOR by James S
I’m James, one of the stewards of the abolition working group where we fight against the ever-expanding police state in the metro DC area. Abolition should be a priority campaign for a handful of simple reasons:
The state uses the police and prisons to suppress all progressive causes, so fighting against the police is a fight for all of our working groups
Pro-police propaganda is so entrenched in our society and institutions that this is possibly our chapter’s most difficult battle it faces
With the recent addition of Prince George’s County Abolition, our group now does work in 3 localities: DC, Northern Virginia, and Prince George’s County and we need the resources to support our work across such a wide geographical area
The abolition working group frequently collaborates with other working groups in the chapter which makes our entire chapter stronger
Our group does a wide scope of work that I would put into 3 groupings:
Legislative: We fight back against the onslaught of pro-police legislation our officials propose and against the ever-expanding police budgets by showing up to hearings and testifying. This year we collaborated with other abolitionist groups to help prevent Brooke Pinto from permanently expanding the scope of crimes subject to pre-trial detention.
Education: We teach the public about the harms of policing and the alternatives to it by hosting workshops, organizing walking tours, and tabling at events. We’ve put a lot of work into our “rainbow literature” which highlights how policing intersects with all progressive causes like environmental justice, labor rights, and bodily autonomy, to name a few. We most recently collaborated with other abolitionist groups on a teach-in on the federal occupation of DC where we explained what’s happening, how we got to this moment, and how we can fight back.
Mutual Aid: We help our neighbors directly with their immediate needs and talk to them about our work. Our biggest projects for these are:
Kids Not Cops Backpack Drive where we raised over $6,000 to give out over 300 backpacks with school supplies to kids and also had the Public Defender Service table with us to give information about record sealing
Coats Not Cops Winter Coat Distribution where we raised over $4,000 to give out over 350 winter coats and tabled with We Power DC who were able to get firsthand accounts from frustrated Pepco customers
Brakelight Clinic where we helped fix the brakelights on 20 cars, which will make it less likely for the police to pull them over
We encourage everyone to vote for the Abolition working group for priority campaign status, along with Internationalism, Bodily Autonomy, and Green New Deal working groups who also embody the collaborative spirit that is essential for our chapter grow stronger and help people.
IN FAVOR by Sheryl K
My name is Sheryl K and I spoke at Convention about why you should vote in favor of making the Abolition WG a Priority Campaign. In this written statement why members should vote YES for Abolition, I have prefaced my previous remarks with some new insights based on input at Convention.
NEW INSIGHTS: Cops do not keep us safe! In fact, one-third of all murders committed by strangers are cops killing members of our community. (Violence in Blue | Patrick Ball | Granta) I was a public defender in Miami and the real criminals were the cops. The cops would lie in court and unleash gruesome violence on my clients. Also, statistics show that cops are bad at their jobs. FBI data shows that cops make zero arrests in 67% of reported rapes and nearly 50% of reported aggravated assaults. (FBI — Table 25)
More cops on our streets equals more violence to the community. The real way to solve crime is by investing in people and their neighborhoods. We need to redirect the vast amount of resources that goes to DC’s Metropolitan Police Department to schools, teachers, the revitalization of communities, affordable housing, and access to excellent healthcare services. Instead of cops harassing our unhoused neighbors, we need social services to lift them up.
The Abolition WG wants to work with other working groups. Additionally, if something happened many years ago with an excess of money that did not get spent quickly enough, that does not mean that the Abolition WG currently does not spend thousands of dollars each year on mutual aid and direct actions. In our two big mutual aid events in 2025, we spent approximately $11,000.00 to support struggling DC community members. We are responsible with money; we use money wisely; and the money we spend has a huge, positive impact on people across the DMV.
ORIGINAL SPEECH: The Abolition Working Group stays engaged with the community. We do low cost things such as a KYRs presentation we did virtually regarding DC’s Family and Domestic Violence Courts. I gave abolitionist solutions to handling domestic violence and also taught folks how to navigate a custody case without an attorney. This presentation will be available to everyone accessing DSA instructional videos.
We also do more costly things such as the Kids Not Cops backpack and school supplies drive we did over the summer. We raised over $6000 for this mutual aid event where we provided over 300 kids with colorful backpacks and school supplies. We talked to our neighbors about our work and also provided legal expertise to the community at this event by inviting the Public Defender Service to teach people about record sealing and I answered parents’ special education questions.
More recently, we had a successful Brake Light Clinic where we paid for and changed brake lights for people. This was a way to help people avoid contact with the police on the roads while also giving us a chance to talk to folks about why we are abolitionists and about Metro DC DSA in general.
As you can see, the Abolition WG impacts people’s lives in a plethora of ways. We want to keep making a difference in 2026, which is why you should vote for the Abolition WG to be a priority campaign.
IN FAVOR by Shawn V
Abolition puts on successful mutual aid projects, fights the d.c council in city hall, does constant education, and advocates for those most oppressed in this country. We do court watches, jail supports, letter writings for those incarcerated, and so much more. There is so much to do and having priority will enable us to put on more projects to fight back against the carceral state. Abolition connects to our most oppressed community more than any other working group, we constantly say we need to connect to ward 7 and 8 and Abolition is one of the few WGs that does that. No one is free until we are free like Maya Angelou said so lets fight for those that need the most help.
IN FAVOR by Radia L
My name is Radia and I’m one of the stewards of the Abolition Working Group. I encourage you to vote YES on making the Abolition WG a priority campaign. Our work is rooted in building a more just world by pushing back against policing and prisons, systems that keep racial and economic inequality in place.
Right now, MPD is growing its overreach and brutality, and working hand-in-hand with agencies like ICE and CBP. That means our Black, brown, and migrant neighbors are facing even greater harm. And that means our responsibility to show up is bigger than ever.
Over the past few years, we’ve done that through real, tangible work: Fighting carceral bills like Secure DC and Peace DC, building political education through reading groups and walking tours, through mutual aid like backpack drives and prison letter writing, and showing up in coalition work with partners like Families Not Feds, Colectivo de Familias Migrantes, and Letters for Liberation, and more
We were able to secure outside funding this past year, which let us keep our work going without relying on chapter priority funding. But the truth is, going into 2026, becoming a chapter priority again is essential. Our work has grown, our role in the chapter has grown, and the need in our communities has grown.
This year we’ve expanded across all three MDC regions, and we need funding to keep up. To continue mutual aid events, strengthen rapid response with our coalition partners, build resources for everyday abolition and political education, and deepen collaboration with other DSA formations, from narcan distribution to street safety.
Voting for the Abolition Working Group as a priority campaign is a commitment to building a world beyond policing and punishment, starting right here in the belly of the beast. It is how we make sure we’re ready to meet MPD overreach with real support, and real alternatives. It is a way for us all to share responsibility for the safety and dignity of the people most impacted by policing, and keep our communities safe, supported, and organized against harm.
IN FAVOR by Ben M
My name is Ben M, and the Abolition Working Group has been my political home in MDC DSA since its creation in summer 2020 (then as the Defund MPD Working Group). I encourage comrades to vote in favor of Abolition as a priority campaign for 2026 for two primary reasons:
- The struggle against policing and prisons is central to all working class struggles, and therefore must be central to DSA. Police and prisons are the principal weapon wielded by the forces of capital against the working class. They are the tip of the capitalist spear, drawing blood through their very real and regular violence as well as its ever-present implicit threat. When renters are evicted by predatory landlords, it is police who come knocking. When indigenous land defenders fight against the plunder of the earth by multinational oil corporations, it is the police who tear up the prairies and fire the water cannons. When any of our comrades nationally or internationally are found to pose a sufficient threat to the capitalist and imperialist world system, it is the prison that constrains them. There is a reason that police violence is what triggered the largest working class rebellion in modern US history in the summer of 2020 — abolition is not just a struggle for a new mode of justice and community safety, it is the struggle against capitalism altogether.
The Abolition Working Group represents the best of MDC DSA and is, in the current hyper-fascist moment we find ourselves in, a principle engine of its growth. In my near-decade in DSA, it is the most well-oiled political education, mutual aid, and legislative fighting machine that I have witnessed. In just our DC abolition branch, we have fully onboarded and integrated 46 new organizers in 2025 alone, and nearly 154 new comrades have signed up to join us as activists over the past two years. We have now expanded our work into PG county, truly representing the chapter across the region. And we are just getting started. Please vote for us as a priority campaign to build on this incredible momentum.
IN FAVOR by Keeli M
As former chair of this working group, I hold a unique perspective on Abolition Working Group. I’ve seen them grow/change/evolve and push through over the last three years.
Abolition Working Group has been here. Through it all. Moving in silence…in support…AND leading our own wildly successful actions. Consistently fighting and showing the people of NoVA and DC and their legislative bodies, that we will not take these bills lying down. We have not only been in the streets but in the courtrooms, outside jails, inside jails via our incarcerated comrade penpal program, educating people in libraries, distributing coats and school supplies in churches in our neighborhoods, literally helping our comrades in solitary confinement get the medical care they needed. Reaching out across coalitions in every.single.region. Taking the criticism before my time that we were too silo’d in our work to now actively reaching out to ANY working group in which our work aligns with to proactively see how to collaborate.
We are diverse in our composition AND tactics and that’s what makes Abolition working group a unique and strong campaign that should be a priority for this chapter.
—> At any given moment we have at least 5 consistently strong projects going on, which allows everyone, no matter their ability, the opportunity to engage in this work - in person or remotely. No need to be able to knock doors to join this fight - we’ll meet you where you are.
The rainbow multi- colored pamphlets that may have been the very thing that brought YOU into DSA after they caught your eye at a Street Team tabling event - that was ABOLITION Working Group. Abolition is the core of all of this!
Every single one of those pamphlets shows how our entire lives are impacted by policing….how every single working group in this chapter and the work we do is impacted by abolition. The very definition of intersectionality!
—-Abolition may not be the flashiest tagline right now, but it is a core of all of our work and I urge my comrades to see that investing in these roots, and not just short term fixes (which are also important!!!) is how we build the foundation to the socialist future we all deserve——
Earlier this spring when ICE invaded, Abolition members were in the rooms where it happened: helping prop up the Migrant Justice Subcommittee, lobbying in the Wilson Building, supporting our coalition partners in jail support and court watch, in the streets during the early version of Rapid Response neighborhood watches (and still supporting those now), testifying against the continuous “crime bills” DC council attempted to pass as Bowser bent the knee in the midst of occupation, working in coalition to educate our neighbors about the occupation - you name it! Learning. growing, expanding.
All the while, continuing on the course we had set in motion during 2024 and continuing to fight back against the root causes of harm in our region.
This working group is strong from its roots to its branches because we’ve done the work to create this bedrock.
I inherited this working group at a time when we were struggling to get 5 people to show up after the surge and energy of the George Floyd uprising had passed.
The last few years, this working group took a long honest and hard look in the mirror to figure out what we needed to do to really live out the meaning of a “priority” for a socialist organization and I genuinely could not be prouder of how we have pushed to become what we are now…the ONLY working group that now spans three regions/branches of the DMV - NoVA, DC, and PG County and a group that consistently has a core base of 20-30 active members showing up to biweekly meetings (and that’s just DC!)- not just showing up to our actions.
—> That takes base building, that takes strategy of knowing how to go back to the basics, engage and work with people where they are and to do the painstaking work of revitalizing outdated systems to find efficiencies that last in the long haul and create a foundation that sets up an environment to thrive across diverse lifestyles.
This is the foundation that goes beyond the flashy protests and keeps people engaged when the very fight for our cause takes repetitive beatings in the legislative buildings - all the way from the Wilson Building to Congress where DC ”crime” has given Trump the ammo to occupy this city.
(2025 background)
In 2025, we chose to take a step back from being a priority (as we had been since our inception in 2020) because we had an outside source of funding that would allow us to continue our work for a year.
We not only took that time to double down on the work we were already doing and knew we could fund but made sure we expanded beyond that - raising almost $10k on our own to make sure we could do additional work this chapter necessitated - a 2nd annual Back to School supplies distribution and winter coat distribution.
This group knew we were going to have to be scrappy with our resources and rose to the challenge - they refused to be limited by the scarcity budget. We were wise with chapter money every year we’ve been given it, learning what works and what doesn’t and generous when we knew we could spare resources. It’s easier to raise money for the work of giving coats to our community - it’s harder to raise the funds that allow us to make sure impacted voices are at the table to testify against drug free zones or to spread the word about what the differences between crime bill #2 vs #3 will do for the black and brown teenagers in our neighborhoods. That’s why we need this funding. The work that must be done, but may not be easy.
We’re asking for priority status this time around, not just for the funding that comes with it but because we know in an occupied city of over 80 police forces that Abolition and what it means MUST be the bedrock of fighting back AND building the new version of what our world can be.
IN FAVOR by Beth S
There can be no socialist future worth a damn without abolition. We and our broader communities can learn to let go of the idea that it is acceptable to create a class of disposable people, with every ugly thing this requires, or we can fail. We cannot be the people on the side of maintaining a permanent underclass.
IN FAVOR by Alex Y
The Abolition Working Group has repeatedly and consistently done one of the long held goals of our chapter by hosting events East of the Anacostia River where it is rare for us to host events and where we have always struggled with membership. That has made real progress that will only help the chapter many years into the future by investing its time in that area in particular. I have seen no other working group hold enough events East of the river for them to ever consider notable and worth mentioning. This achievement alone is worthy of attention and I hope to see this work continue throughout next year. With the increased development of a police state in DC as well as the rampaging by the masked bandits from ICE, now is most certainly the time to make Abolition a priority campaign. In 2023, DC and much of the rest of the country thought it was time to be “tough on crime” again. In 2026, we need to show everyone the way to be tough against the actual criminals in MPD and ICE. Only we keep us safe!
IN FAVOR by Georgia H
I’m Geo, one of the co-stewards of the DC branch of the Abolition Working Group, and I am asking you to vote Yes for Abolition and the work we are doing across our chapter and across the city to promote the dignity of all people and our right and responsibility to keep each other safe.
I am extremely proud of the work so many comrades in Abolition have done this year, a year in which we did not seek priority funding and instead supported the newly-re-formed Internationalism Working Group to seek priority funding, because we had funds from an outside source and we trusted our ability to fundraise to meet our needs for the year. And we accomplished a lot, using a project-based model that encourages our members to grow as organizers by taking on increasing responsibility for leading projects that advance our goals as abolitionists in the community. Our vision for our work within the chapter is one where we connect our skills around mutual aid, political education, and advocacy with the work other formations are doing, because we are all working to build a safer and more just city and metro area for the people who live here, work here, and call the DC area home. For all the Abolition work listed below, I know our comrades in Internationalism, Bodily Autonomy (BAWG), and Green New Deal have also spent the year hard at work pushing back against Zionism and US imperialism, working to protect trans and queer people as well as people at risk of drug overdose, and exposing the corruption and abuses of power that Pepco has gotten away with for far too long at the expense of DC residents — I ask you to vote for these groups as well for priority campaign status, because we are stronger when we support each others’ work and build on the natural connections across all of our specific struggles.
Mutual aid — In 2026 we plan to build on our successful mutual aid events this year, repeating the backpack drive for the third year and the coat drive for a second year. We also plan to continue supporting our incarcerated and newly returning comrades, and responding to other needs we see in the community.
In 2025:
Kids Not Cops Backpack Drive where we raised over $6,000, purchased supplies and backpacks, and packed grade-appropriate supply kits into over 300 backpacks that we distributed to community members at an event where we also had our rainbow literature on abolition and the Public Defender Service table to help community members get information about their rights
Coats Not Cops Winter Coat Distribution where we raised over $4,000 and gathered coat donations to give out over 350 winter coats, and invited We Power DC to table with us where they heard directly from community members who had had utilities shut off by Pepco, further informing their work fighting for a more just energy future for all of us.
Our partnership with a church east of the river in DC for the backpack and coat drives led to an invitation for working group members to show up and pack meals for a meal distribution, an important step in building trust and relationships in a new area of the city for our working group.
Brakelight Clinic where we helped fix the brakelights on 20 cars, showing up for community members at risk of being pulled over by cops on a pretextual stop that will lead to searches, other charges, and potentially even greater risks such as police violence.
Rapid response has been something working group members have engaged in across the city, and we have set aside time to check in and ensure that people are safe, engaging in a responsible way, and connected in the ways they want to be.
Prison and returning citizen support where members of the working group write to incarcerated pen pals, support each other with questions about how to navigate those interactions, and bring asks for support from their pen pals to the working group and the broader community to raise money and awareness as-needed for critical supports such as emergency medical expenses, retaliation against prisoners, and systematic denial of parole applications. Working group members also do jail support, connecting with others in the community who welcome people released from DC jail with basic supplies and assistance to even access their confiscated belongings.
Education — We plan to make a larger effort around education in 2026, working with Poli Ed to run an Abolition 101 Socialist Night School, working with partners to develop and run more teach-ins and Know Your Rights sessions, and developing and distributing supplemental materials through print and social media.
In 2025:
We participated in a teach-in with coalition partners about the history of federal overreach and overpolicing in DC, to help community members learn that this federal occupation is just an escalation of existing problems we need to fight together to keep each other free and safe as DC residents.
We finalized a revamp and printing of our rainbow literature, which connects abolition to many other issue areas, and helps people see that we as socialists are for a world where all of us show up for each other and keep each other safe.
We have collaborated with Street Team to table at events around the city, most notably H St Festival, and have worked internally to improve our ability to canvas and have conversations with community members about abolition and socialism.
We ran a Know Your Rights session about how to navigate family court without involving police, and will post the recording as a resource for the community.
Advocacy — We plan for this to remain an area of effort, working with coalition partners to show up for hearings and community events where we can pressure our elected and appointed leaders to use our shared resources on things that actually keep us safe while protecting the rights and the dignity of DC residents from all of the various law enforcement agencies at work here in DC.
In 2025:
We collaborated with coalition partners to testify and fight back against yet another set of bad bills brought by Brooke Pinto, this time seeking to expand the scope of pretrial detention in the city.
We supported our members to learn the skill of writing and submitting testimony for Council hearings, something we regularly do during Council budget and performance oversight season to make the community’s priorities clear to our Councilmembers as they decide how to use our tax dollars.
We got several ANCs to pass resolutions condemning the reinstatement of previously convicted MPD officers, as well as the collusion of MPD in the seizure of the US Institute of Peace offices.
IN FAVOR by Leah T
My name is Leah T. and the Abolition Working Group was the first one that I became active in when I moved to DC and joined the chapter over a year ago. As an Indigenous woman, as an educator, and as someone who lives in one of the most policed neighborhoods in DC, being an abolitionist is one of the most central parts of my identity. And, by voting for us as a priority campaign, we can not only strengthen our work but also highlight that our values are the same as the chapter’s. Especially while DC is living through an occupation, I cannot imagine anything more important than abolition work — if we want to show up for our city and our future, then we need to make sure our values actually reflect the work supported by the chapter.
Within the past year, Abolition’s work has taken off: with our newly launched PG side of abolition, we now have branches in all three regions of our chapter; we’ve strengthened our already existing relationships with other organizations and coalitions and built new relationships (such as with the church in ward 7 where we held our backpack distro who then invited us back for multiple events!); and had deep conversations with people about abolition and the world we’re building while running events and tabling with the chapter.
Within abolition, we often talk about how our work falls into three buckets (education, legislative, and mutual aid), though often, our projects blur the lines between those buckets because we’re hitting things on all fronts. If we want a future where the carceral systems of today — built on the bodies of Indigenous, Black, and Brown people — cease to exist and where people in DC can live safe and full lives, then we need to organize using every tool at our disposal. And we’ve been doing that: testifying and fighting against harmful bills like Peace DC and Secure DC, attending ANC meetings throughout the city and pushing resolutions through, hosting reading groups, distributing backpacks with school supplies and winter coats, repairing brake lights, organizing with working groups across the chapter (setting up a Narcan distribution system with Bodily Autonomy, wheatpasting with We Power, working on an anti-Brooke Pinto campaign with Electoral, holding reading groups with Internationalism, tabling at large community events alongside Street Team, writing articles for the Washington Socialist with Publications, and more!), and, of course, always talking to people about what a future without police looks like and how we get there.
Fight for the world you want to live in where every single person is safe, protected, and free. Vote for the Abolition Working Group for a priority campaign and ensure that our chapter is standing up for our city.
IN FAVOR by Shruti N
My name is Shruti and I joined the Abolition Working Group in February this year. The Abolition Working Group should be a priority campaign due to its coordinated efforts to fight back against carceral systems that repeatedly and increasingly harm DC residents.
This year, we’ve witnessed the abuse and expansion of carceral violence against our Black, brown, and immigrant neighbors in DC, with a 25% increase in arrests compared to 2024. This surge in policing, especially in collaboration with ICE and other federal agencies, poses an increased threat to the DC community. Through a combination of mutual aid, public education, and legislative actions, the Abolition Working Group is positioned to continue the fight against the growing police state and should be a priority campaign for 2026.
As a newer member of the WG, I’ve been both surprised and impressed with the WG’s ability to provide direct mutual aid in various forms to meet community needs. In August, we distributed over 300 backpacks filled with school supplies for our annual K-12 backpack drive. In early November, we got winter coats into the hands of more than 350 DC residents as the temperatures dropped in DC through a winter coat drive. And just a week after that, we hosted a brake light clinic where we fixed over 20 people’s brake lights for free in an effort to reduce unnecessary police stops. The Abolition WG demonstrates what it looks like to divest from police and reinvest in communities, which tangibly impacts the lives, safety, and wellbeing of DC residents.
The Abolition WG also recognizes that we must bridge the gap between accepting the current police-centered state and helping DC residents envision the alternatives. In response, the Abolition WG has undertaken various public education initiatives, including hosting consistent reading groups throughout the year, developing comprehensive literature, regularly tabling + conversing at events, and setting up walking tours. In more public settings, we engage in efforts to attend public council hearings and testify against carceral bills, including Pinto’s Peace DC bill earlier this year.
Voting YES on making the Abolition WG a priority campaign will allow us the capacity to continue combatting the police state across our three regions (DC, Northern Virginia, and Prince George’s County) so that we can protect our communities and continue moving toward a world where everyone is safe and free.