🎙️ Season 2 of This Authoritarian Life continues at another frontline: policing  as a site of concentrated state violence and neoliberal austerity management.

In this episode, we speak with Alex Vitale — Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College, coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project, and author of the influential book The End of Policing. He joins us from New York, where he serves on the transition team for Mayor Zohran Mamdani's new administration, helping to build a Department of Community Safety.

• What do real estate developers have to do with why your city sends armed officers to deal with homelessness?
• Newark's violent crime is at a 60-year low — not because of more policing, but less. What are they doing differently, and why is New York so far behind?
• Abolition is a powerful critique — but what happens when it has to become policy? What compromises, resistances, and contradictions emerge when the theory meets City Hall?

🎧 To find out, tune into This Authoritarian Life, Season 2, Episode 5 — The End of Policing?  Abolitionism in New York’s City Hall, with Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren.

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