ABSTRACT
An increasing number of medical and public health practitioners are seeking to address the toxic consequences of policing and incarceration, which overwhelmingly affect racial/ ethnic minority communities.1 A few of these efforts have engaged with movements inspired by a vision of abolition, which have long emphasized the incompatibility of public health and the criminal legal system. [...]abolition challenges institutions (police, jails, and prisons) that many take for granted as a natural part ofthe social landscape.4This provocation focuses attention on why these institutions have become catchall solutions to social problems. By ceding so much ground to legal and political authorities, we argue, health professionals may, wittingly or unwittingly, abdicate their responsibilityto righteously decry the US practice of extreme punishment. "6(p1) For health professionals, this phrase should have immediate resonance: the struggles of patients and the tireless work of health care workers are testaments to just how precious life is.