An End to Political Policing
Facilitated by Alex S. Vitale
Moderated by Philip V. McHarris

Saturday, July 18, 2020, 5–7pm

About the reading group

This is an online event and will take place on Zoom.

Date: Saturday, July 18, 2020 
Time: 5–7pm EST (2 hours)
Free, Register here.

In this first Abolition Reading Group session, we envision an end to political policing and police violence with Alex S. Vitale and Philip V. McHarris. Join us for an introductory presentation and discussion by Vitale, followed by a moderated reading group conversation with McHarris. 

Reading list

1) Alex S. Vitale, "The Myth of Liberal Policing," The New Inquiry, April 5, 2017. Link here.

2) Stuart Schrader, "Policing Empire," Jacobin Magazine, September 5, 2014. Link here.

3) Alice Speri, "The FBI Has a Long History of Treating Political Dissent as Terrorism," The Intercept, October 22, 2019. Link here.

4) Connor Woodman, "The End of Political Policing: Why Riots, the Far-Right and Shoplifting Shouldn't Be Policed," Verso Blog, April 27, 2018. Link here.

5) Mohamed Elmaazi, "Spying, Surveillance and Sabotage: What Will it Take to Bring an End to Political Policing?" Open Democracy, July 18, 2017. Link here.

About the instructors

Alex S. Vitale is Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College and a Visiting Professor at London Southbank University. He has spent the last 30 years writing about policing and consults both police departments and human rights organizations internationally. Prof. Vitale is the author of City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics and The End of Policing. His academic writings on policing have appeared in Policing and Society, Police Practice and Research, Mobilization, and Contemporary Sociology. He is also a frequent essayist, whose writings have appeared in The NY Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Vice News, Fortune, and USA Today.   

Philip V. McHarris is a writer and PhD candidate in Sociology and African American Studies at Yale University. His research focuses on race, housing, policing, and mass incarceration, and draws on both qualitative and quantitative methods. Philip’s dissertation, High Rise, focuses on the everyday experiences of residents in a Brooklyn housing project and the strategies that they employ to navigate concerns surrounding safety, policing, and cycles of poverty. He received his B.A. in sociology from Boston College and is currently based in the New York City area.