DefundSPD is powered by  Somerville residents just like you who care deeply about not only reimagining safety for our city, but actively building pathways of safety and community.

Our work happens in decentralized, non-hierarchical teams. To help abolish the prison-industrial complex, fill out the the form and ask to join a team!

Partial list of Defund SPD Teams:

Communications Team

• Helps other teams notify the public of their efforts and pursues their own initiatives to educate the public.
• Examples include writing social media content, responding to social media messages, and creating popular education materials, such as our first zine, Money Matters.

Community & Onboarding Team

• Welcomes and onboards new members and fosters cross-team community.

Politics Team

• Monitors city activities relevant to policing and shares information with other teams.
• Advises other teams on how to collaborate on certain issues with elected officials and other influential community members.
• Contacts elected officials to advocate for our interests

Research Team

• Develops and investigates different hypotheses regarding how the city's resources and decisions contribute towards the prison industrial complex.

Example questions include,

• "Did the Mayor request to hire more police officers than allowed by the budget?"
• "Are body cams effective at improving public safety or police accountability to resident concerns?"
• "Is it legal in Somerville to mandate a certain number of traffic stops per day?"
• "What are the implications of the police department's revenue sources outside of the budget, such as state and federal grants and asset forfeiture?"
• "How has the city attempted to reform the police in the past?"

Campaign-specific teams

• Advances our interests on problems that require multiple members for multiple months.