Asking

“how can we have public safety if we abolish police & prisons?”

is like asking

“how can we harvest cotton if we abolish chattel slavery?”

It’s a question reflecting a lack of imagination & interrogation, an inability to see beyond how society is currently organized.

Many asking this question view police & prison abolition as a stand-alone reform w/n a system that remains capitalist, imperialist & racist in its organization instead of seeing that, like the abolition of chattel slavery, it requires transforming society. https://mobile.twitter.com/BreeNewsome/status/1319370729104805895

It’s the equivalent of people saying, “...but after we abolish slavery, what will we do with all the slaves?” —which is absolutely a debate that was constantly raised in response to abolitionist movements against the slave trade in the Americas.