In Becoming Abolitionists, Derecka Purnell traces her own political shift from reformist instinct to abolitionist commitment.

As a lawyer and organiser shaped by sexual violence, loss, and the aftermath of Ferguson, she once believed policing could be fixed. Experience led her elsewhere.

The book moves between memoir and political analysis, situating contemporary abolitionist thought within longer histories of Reconstruction, racial capitalism, and grassroots organising. Purnell argues that reforms have repeatedly failed because they misunderstand the function of policing itself.

The book outlines a practical, movement-informed argument that abolition is less about subtraction than about building alternative systems that reduce harm at its source.

Missing dust jacket and a little marginalia, but otherwise perfectly clean and intact.