What if we did abolish police, courts or prisons? Where would we turn for justice? Do we need to have laws? Punishment? These questions are not just the preoccupation of an abolitionist pipedream. Their answers exist already, if only we know where to look.

We Make Our Own Justice introduces the reader to communities around the world who are already resolving harms and conflicts themselves, without looking to the state or judiciary. The book explores a number of locations where alternative forms of justice, peace-keeping and adjudication are taking place. With particular focus on indigenous- and women-led movements from across Mexico, Argentina, Rojava and the USA, Marina Sitrin looks at how each came to be, as well as the theoretical and political underpinnings of the process.

The book allows the reader to reflect on the ways in which the seeds of these alternative forms of justice and adjudication have been planted and nurtured over time—often over decades—and to consider the possibilities for other communities and regions to produce something similar. We Make Our Own Justice offers an invaluable resource as we seek to transform our neighbourhoods, groups and communities into abolitionist spaces in theory and practice.

Marina Sitrin is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. She is the co-editor, with Colectiva Sembrar, of Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid During the Covid-19 Crisis and is author of Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina, Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina and the co-author of They Can’t Represent Us!: Reinventing Democracy from Greece to Occupy.