If police are the problem, what's the solution?

Tens of millions of people poured onto the streets for Black Lives Matter, bringing with them a wholly new idea of public safety, common security, and the delivery of justice, communicating that vision in the fiery vernacular of riot, rebellion, and protest. A World without Police transcribes these new ideas-written in slogans and chants, over occupied bridges and hastily assembled barricades-into a compelling, must-read manifesto for police abolition.

Compellingly argued and lyrically charged, A World without Police offers concrete strategies for confronting and breaking police power, as a first step toward building community alternatives that make the police obsolete. Surveying the post-protest landscape in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Oakland, as well as the people who have experimented with policing alternatives at a mass scale in Latin America, Maher details the institutions we can count on to deliver security without the disorganizing interventions of cops: neighborhood response networks, community-based restorative justice practices, democratically organized self-defense projects, and well-resourced social services.

A World without Police argues that abolition is not a distant dream or an unreachable horizon but an attainable reality. In communities around the world, we are beginning to glimpse a real, lasting justice in which we keep us safe.

"A thesis sure to stir plenty of controversy but worthy of discussion." - Kirkus Reviews

"An essential introduction to the case for abolishing the police." - Publishers Weekly

"In A World Without Police, [Maher] advocates for police abolition alongside community safety." - Lit Hub (75 Nonfiction Books You Should Read This Summer)

"[A World Without Police] is nothing if not exhaustive. From transit police to the police unions under the Fraternal Order of the Police to a complicit Black elite, Maher implicates the police and its allies in the history of American violence writ large." - NPR Books

"Both one of the most compelling arguments for police abolition and a complete depiction of the nationwide George Floyd uprisings to date ... Sure to be a key abolitionist text for activists and organizers." - Workers World

"Compelling ... combin[ing] political theory and history with accessible writing ... [A World Without Police] demonstrate[s] that democratic and egalitarian alternatives already exist." - New Frame

"A World Without Policing lays out a withering takedown of the institution of policing with fiery vim and audacious aplomb. A searing and incisively argued indictment of the edifice of policing and an argument for abolition." - Rampant