All This Safety Is Killing Us Health Justice Beyond Prisons, Police, and Borders--Abolitionist frameworks and practices from clinicians, organizers, and incarcerated activists

A multi-discipline, multimedia guide to abolition through the lens of healthcare and medicine – featuring writings and artwork from 10+ incarcerated and post-detention activists

Exposing how marginalized communities are vilified by “carceral safety” systems, educators and health justice advocates Carlos Martinez and Ronica Mukerjee call for a radical break with reformist strategies in favor of ones grounded in grassroots organizing and abolition

Prisons, border security, and police forces are meant to protect. Yet for the most vulnerable, they more often cause harm. Funded in response to a never ending “crime wave,” people with disabilities, Black and brown people, trans and queer people, people with mental health diagnoses, and survivors of trauma and abuse are targeted by punitive carceral policies. These policies perpetuate physical, psychological, and intergenerational harm. And they don’t keep anyone safe.

All This Safety is Killing Us reflects this view, combining political strategy with evidence-based medical and social science research to envision a post-carceral society.

With contributions from scholars, activists and artists, All This Safety is Killing Us marks a radical break from punitive frameworks. Special features include: 

• Contributions from nurses, doctors, doulas, public health workers, physical therapists, acupuncturists, and disability justice workers.
• Woodcuts, comics, mini-zines, infographics, and drawings by community activists, queer and trans/gender expansive-focused writers, current prisoners, deportees, and survivors of state-sanctioned violence.
• Interviews with leading abolition and health justice scholars.

Bringing scholarly research into public conversation, this book shows that those working within public health and medical fields have a critical role to play in creating a truly safe and flourishing society.

Carlos Martinez, MPH, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies and faculty of the Global and Community Health program at UC, Santa Cruz. Martinez’s research examines the health consequences and sociocultural implications of migrant policing, deportation, our fractured asylum system, environmental injustice, and the global War on Drugs. His research and advocacy are aimed at promoting health and social justice among migrants, asylum seekers, deportees, substance users, and other marginalized groups.

Ronica Mukerjee DNP, MsA, AAHIVS is a family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and acupuncturist. Mukerjee is an assistant professor at Columbia University and has a private practice providing hormonal and psychiatric care for trans and gender-diverse patients. Mukerjee focuses include border, police, and prison abolition as well as racial, economic, and healthcare justice for people with substance use disorders and LGBTQIA+ people living with HIV in refugee and migrant communities.