Interrupting Criminalization

Website Contact the practice

Interrupting Criminalization Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Interrupting Criminalization, 496 Franklin Ave, Brooklyn, NY.

Interrupting Criminalization research aims to interrupt and end the the growing criminalization & incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color for criminalized acts related to public order, poverty, child welfare, drug use, survival and self-defense.

We conclude our week of honoring IC collaborator and co-struggler Curtis Renee by lifting up their role in co-founding a...
10/10/2026

We conclude our week of honoring IC collaborator and co-struggler Curtis Renee by lifting up their role in co-founding and facilitating SpokesCouncil Detroit, and as a beloved member of IC's extended community.

SpokesCouncil Detroit grew out of backyard conversations over food and friendship between Curtis, IC co-founder Andrea J. Ritchie, and Allied Media Projects Director Toni Moceri about strengthening Detroit movement ecosystems to facilitate rapid response, mutual aid, neighborhood-based political education, cross-movement strategy and solidarity, and fortifying our communities in the face of intensifying surveillance, policing, and ICE presence and deep cuts to essential programs. Since then, SpokesCouncil has engaged in community-based outreach, de-escalation and CopWatch trainings, trained facilitators for Be Seen, Not Watched workshops, and hosted community cookouts.

Curtis was and is the heart and soul of SpokesCouncil, leading the launch of our Summer of Resistance at The Potluck hosted by Talking Dolls, a Black-led community-based art and movement space, during Movement weekend. It was essential to Curtis that we honor and reflect Detroit's culture and histories of resistance, build on existing campaigns, center conversations with everyday Black Detroiters, remain relevant to Black youth, and iterate nimbly as conditions and capacities change.

Curtis also brought their brilliance, commitment to care, and Detroit organizing visions and lessons to IC's translocal learning spaces and communities of practice. Right up until their transition to the ancestral realm, Curtis quietly and consistently connected with countless members of IC's ecosystem, planning skill shares, kindling friendships, sharing kind words of support, offering quiet wisdom and care, leaving a lasting impact on all who experienced their welcoming presence.

Curtis may have left the building, but all whose lives they touched carry them forward in our hearts, spirits, and struggles, as the breadth, depth, and impacts of their mycelial network continue to be revealed. We are committed to manifesting Curtis' hopes and visions for SpokesCouncil Detroit as best as we can in their absence, to continuing to create building blocks for safety, nurturing Detroit as grounds for liberated futures, and living into their legacies far and wide. Rest in peace and power Curtis. We love you. We miss you. We give thanks for the blessing of having known you. Asé.

Please contribute if you are able toward supporting Curtis' family and community in uplifting their legacy, and join the celebration of life on October 11 in Detroit or on livestream - more information at https://linktr.ee/honoring.curtis.renee

• More than 38,000 women (22,000) and girls (16,000) have been killed, including since the so-called ceasefire. These fi...
10/07/2026

• More than 38,000 women (22,000) and girls (16,000) have been killed, including since the so-called ceasefire. These figures likely understate the true toll, as many bodies remain trapped under rubble.

• Under the most conservative scenario, UN Women estimates close to 11,000 women and girls with lifelong injury.

• Nearly one million women and girls have been displaced in Gaza, with many experiencing displacement more than four times. Vulnerable groups, including pregnant women, women with disabilities, and women heads of households disproportionately affected, often forced to relocate with minimal assistance.

• Physicians for Human Rights documented 2,600 miscarriages, 220 pregnancy-related deaths and 1,460 premature births, while more than 2,500 newborns required intensive care, during the first half of 2025 alone. C-sections without anesthesia and newborn mortality continue to be reported.

• One million women and girls in Gaza lack access to clean water, 690,000 are living in overcrowded shelters and 328,000 girls are out of school.

10/06/2026

We are continuing our week of tributes to our beloved collaborator, costruggler, and friend Curtis Renee today by lifting up and celebrating all the ways they practiced abolition through Detroit Safety Team and beyond.

This is video of Curtis in conversation with IC co-founder Andrea J. Ritchie at the Detroit in-person launch of Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies.

"So what I think is when you practice, it becomes something that is a part of your body...you're building this muscle memory...even if it's not that exact same instance, during that moment, your body remembers, 'Oh, this is what is possible...'

So instead of turning away and thinking this is something you can't handle, it's too big for your community or it's too big for you as an individual, your body remembers like 'Oh, no, we've done this before and so we can do it again.' And so that is what makes it become more and more possible.

And other people see you do it and they're like 'Oh, wait.' And then they get to practice...and so it's like more and more practice, and more and more bodies remembering what is possible...building muscle memory in our bodies as individuals, but as communities we also build muscle memories. That's what leads to a cultural shift, when communities are practicing together and building that memory together."
- Curtis Renee, Co-Director, Detroit Safety Team

We are grateful beyond words to you Curtis for all the ways you taught us to practice, embody, and experience safety, freedom, and possibility here and now, in our communities and in our lifetimes. We are a commitment to keep practicing toward abolitionist presents and futures, in your memory, in your honor, and in service of your vision.

Asé.

Find more information about the livestream for the memorial honoring Curtis this Sunday, October 11th and how to contribute toward Curtis' memorial and projects to uplift their legacy at https://linktr.ee/honoring.curtis.renee

There are many things to say about our late comrade and friend Curtis Renee, whose fierce spirit and work will continue ...
10/05/2026

There are many things to say about our late comrade and friend Curtis Renee, whose fierce spirit and work will continue to touch so many movements and lives. We are fortunate to have some of their dreams, their laughter, and their insights recorded.

When we asked Curtis about the biggest thing that they learned working on the Detroit Safety Team, they shared a piece of wisdom that perfectly encapsulates One Million Experiments and why they were such an important partner in our work and the work of so many others.

"One of the biggest things is not being afraid to try something and not feeling like it needs to be perfect, but being like, maybe this will work, and coming together with other folks and being like, hey, how can we assemble something that will maybe work? And also being honest and seeing like, oh, maybe this isn't working. What needs to be tweaked? Do we need to start over again? And as more and more people come into this conversation, I feel like we're getting closer to that space of re-imagining and redefining what safety looks like in community spaces.

We're all in practice — the practice of not being experts — but as a whole, we are experts in what we all bring to the table."

Curtis Renee, you are loved and dearly missed.

🔗 millionexperiments.com/projects/detroit-safety-team

📷 Curtis Renee in Episode 5, "Lineage in Detroit," from Respair Media's One Million Experiments: In The Field [SoapBox Productions and Organizing]

We are still struggling to find words to mark the passing of IC's beloved collaborator, comrade, costruggler, cohort mem...
09/30/2026

We are still struggling to find words to mark the passing of IC's beloved collaborator, comrade, costruggler, cohort member, colleague, and friend, Curtis Renee.

Curtis (they/them) modeled and practiced abolitionist presents and futures through the Allied Media Conference and Detroit Safety Team, resisted criminalization and cultivated communities of care through Black Lives Matter Detroit, supported Black migrant communities, embodied Black trans and q***r liberation everywhere, and lit up every space—with their smile, infectious laughter, strategic and practical organizing brilliance, deep commitment to Black liberation and to safer, resourced, connected, and well-fed communities, and most of all, with their grounded, welcoming, caring, and creative presence.

Curtis generously shared their brilliance on many occasions with One Million Experiments, and co-founded SpokesCouncil Detroit with IC co-founder Andrea J. Ritchie and Allied Media Projects Director Toni Moceri, weaving and growing ecosystems of community defense and mutual aid deeply rooted in their beloved community. As a member of IC's extended community, they collaborated, supported, and skill-shared with organizers across the country who are forever changed and inspired by having shared space and struggled alongside them.

The imprint Curtis left on the world extends far beyond our collective knowing, and their light will continue to be reflected by the countless lives they touched. As IC co-founder Mariame Kaba put it, “you can tell how a person lived by how people loved them and how people grieve them.”

IC is committed to lifting up, honoring, and celebrating Curtis' life and legacy, and to continuing to fight to transform the conditions that led to yet another loss of a Black trans life far too soon.

In the coming weeks we will share resources, wisdom, and insights from Curtis, as well as details for the Oct. 11th memorial, which will be livestreamed.

In the meantime, if you've been touched by Curtis' work or by those of us shaped by it, we invite you to share remembrances and to support their family and community by contributing to the memorial and legacy fund: linktr.ee/honoring.curtis.renee

Palantir is an enormous, unaccountable corporation collecting our data to use for denials from health insurance, deporta...
09/27/2026

Palantir is an enormous, unaccountable corporation collecting our data to use for denials from health insurance, deportations, drone strikes in Palestine, & more. Join the nationwide campaign to defend our privacy and stop Palantir by visiting purgepalantir.com.

Palantir facilitates expansive data sharing with ICE, including patient Medicaid data. Get inspired by National Nurses United's recent National Day of Action in support of efforts to Purge Palantir! nationalnursesunited.org/press/nurses-hold-nationwide-civil-disobedience-actions-to-demand-palantir-out

You can read all this & so much more in the most recent This Month in Criminalization: bit.ly/TMIC926 !

09/11/2026

Who is Block & Build for?

It's for you!

Check out bit.ly/blockbuildic

09/08/2026

✏️ It’s back-to-school time! If you’re ready to learn more about criminalization, abolition, & organizing, check out interruptingcriminalization.org/resources !

✨ anti-criminalization organizing • abolitionist toolbox • journalism • healthcare • policing & criminalization • q***r & trans liberation • racialized gender violence • reproductive justice • transformative justice ✨

09/06/2026

As we head "back to school" and into fall, when federal enforcement and occupations are expected to expand and intensify leading up to midterm elections, we invite you to (re)visit our Block & Build, But Make it Abolitionist tool for analysis and strategic frameworks to guide your organizing against rising authoritarianism and fascism.

Check out this introductory video and stay tuned for more breaking it down! To see this resource, go to bit.ly/blockbuildic

If you and your crew would like a Block & Build training, please reach out to [email protected]!

Free Joan Little tells the story of the groundbreaking 1975 case of the first woman in US history to be acquitted for us...
09/05/2026

Free Joan Little tells the story of the groundbreaking 1975 case of the first woman in US history to be acquitted for using deadly force to resist sexual assault.

NYC, Sun, Sep 20, 2:30pm: Q&A with IC cofounder Mariame Kaba & director Yoruba Richen.

For tickets & other special engagements, visit bit.ly/DCTVFJL

Address

496 Franklin Ave
Brooklyn, NY
11238

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Interrupting Criminalization posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Interrupting Criminalization:

Shortcuts

Share