This book examines the ‘defund the police’ movement from historical and contemporary perspectives. Against the backdrop of abolition and the failure of police reform, it uses international case studies to reimagine community safety beyond policing and imprisonment.

1. Time for change 2. A brief history of policing 3. Don’t police solve crime? 4. The protest movement never stopped: from Black Power to zero tolerance 5. Police violence is the pandemic 6. The protection racket 7. Disabling policing, protecting community health 8. The failure of reform 9. What is to be done?

“A clear analysis of the worldwide ‘insurrection’ against deadly use of force by the militarised police. Cunneen shows that death in custody and resistance are problems for all and not just for groups like BLM.” Onwubiko Agozino, Virginia Tech

• The first comprehensive, scholarly book-length treatment on the ‘Defund the Police’ movement. • Defund the Police is specifically focused on police divestment in an international setting which separates it from the literature solely on the Black Lives Matter movement or policing within the US. The publication is timely given the currency of the ideas centred on police divestment. The book will appeal to an international audience because it is both cognisant of similarities across national borders in terms of the targeting of racialised and/or Indigenous peoples, while at the same time understanding that particular organisational structures and histories of policing vary significantly. • The bulk of the academic and policy literature in policing studies and criminology has been preoccupied with highly conventional ideas related to ‘top down’ police reform. This book is distinguishable from this literature because it is a serious treatment of the theory, history and practice of police divestment.