All This Safety Is Killing Us

""A stark first-hand look at the ways policing and carcerality negatively impact health care delivery and patient well-being, and evidence-based steps we can take to create safer and healthier medical settings. This book should be required reading for everyone working in health-care settings.""—ALEX S. VITALE, author of The End of Policiing ""These pages evidence a rapidly emerging revolt against an existing order that deputizes caretaking professionals as state-ordained partners in the gendered anti-Black, colonial carceral warfare of hospitals, prisons, detention centers, clinics, and psychiatric/behavioral confinement.""—DYLAN RODRÍGUEZ, distinguished professor at UC Riverside and author of White Reconstruction ""Abolitionist health justice is a concept and movement whose time has come. A must-read for health practitioners and all those working to create a more just, life-sustaining world.""—JENNA M. LOYD, associate professor at University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of Health Rights Are Civil Rights ""All This Safety Is Killing Us forces a unique reckoning with the US health-care system. In a collective voice, it asks bravely and simply what might it mean to be well?""—CHRISTINA HEATHERTON, Elting Associate Professor of American Studies and Human Rights at Trinity College and editor of Policing the Planet ""A deep, intersectional exploration of our current carceral health system, alongside compelling case studies of groundbreaking abolitionist practice. A wide range of perspectives and lenses are represented in thoughtful, intentional ways—all clearly, accessibly, and beautifully written.""—MAKANI THEMBA, chief strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies ""This creative and innovative volume brings together an unusually wide range of voices to make a clear case that police, prisons, and borders are racist structures that not only fail to keep us safe, but also kill the most vulnerable members of our communities. Anyone who wants to understand and confront how carceral systems exacerbate health inequalities should read this book.""—TANYA GOLASH-BOZA, author of Race and Racisms ""Case studies and analyses offer concrete examples of the tactics and tools health care practitioners and organizers are already using to dismantle systems of carceral safety and replace them with abolition medicine. I hope this book becomes required reading for all health workers.""—A. NAOMI PAIK, author of Bans, Walls, Raids, Sanctuary ""Grounded in everyday practice and struggle, this engaging collection persuasively demonstrates that abolitionist frameworks are invaluable for health care justice and the collective labor of living otherwise.""—ALYOSHA GOLDSTEIN, professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico ""Accessible for everyone, from college campuses to health departments, this instructive text needs to be read and applied with urgency for abolition now and everywhere.""—WHITNEY PIRTLE, associate professor at UC Merced