This Month in Criminalization

Written By Tiffany Wang

October 31, 2025

You can also read the original newsletter in Mailchimp here.


Welcome to the October edition of our "This Month in Criminalization" newsletter, in which IC co-founder Andrea J. Ritchie shares hot topics and current legislative and policy developments in criminalization and points people to calls to action and relevant resources. You can find previous editions of this newsletter on our website here. 

You can find the full newsletter below, with action items and resources listed in drop-down sections, indicated by a "+” sign on the left. If you prefer to go directly to checking out all of the “action items,” you can find them in this white box section below:

Action Items:

Our goal in these monthly roundups is not to contribute to overwhelm, but to help you sift through the firehose of information and focus in on a few things we can and must do wherever we are — as organizers, community members, health care providers, educators, policy advocates, legislators, and funders — to interrupt the criminalization that is the core mechanism and methodology of implementing and rationalizing Right-wing, authoritarian, and fascist agendas and regimes. Deep thanks to our partners at the Building Movement Project, Muslims for Just Futures, Autonomy News, and FWD.us for their contributions. 

Let us know if you find these roundups helpful, how you are using them, and what you’d like to see more or less of in these monthly updates by completing this very short survey! 

First: A note from Andrea about everything we have been witnessing and living through, on navigating these times and fortifying ourselves and strengthening our communities for the ongoing fight and for whatever comes next, and for building the world we want.

COURAGE IS COLLECTIVE

Before jumping into the myriad developments in criminalization over the past month, I want to emphasize the importance of building and strengthening connections and community as authoritarian regimes consolidate power and ratchet up violence and repression in the U.S. and beyond. We need to create and utilize as many spaces as possible to collectively make sense of what’s unfolding in our communities, across the country, and around the world at an intentionally dizzying pace; identify small, concrete steps each of us can take to have an impact as part of larger resistance efforts; and to fortify ourselves for what lies ahead. 

Courage is collective, and requires us to come together as often as possible in community. In this time I am reminded of something shared with me in Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies — which, while published two years ago this  month, offers timely insights and guidance from abolitionist organizers around how we can move in decentralized ways to shift systems of power, starting with making and nurturing critical connections, creating communities of practice, and weaving them into translocal and transglobal networks with the capacity and power to transform our conditions. These core principles of visionary organizing were popularized by Grace Lee Boggs, who transitioned to the ancestral realm a decade ago this month.

One of the organizers I spoke with for Practicing New Worlds, who organized as part of a mass movement to resist an authoritarian regime for over a decade, spoke of the critical importance of putting these principles into practice, drawing strength from being part of a collective of people we live with, speak with, or see daily, with whom we build relationships and share resources, seek and offer emotional, material, and spiritual support, and fortify ourselves in resistance, that is connected to broad-based, multi-strategy, anti-authoritarian movements.

In September, I hosted a series of weekly Sunday solidarity potlucks, bringing together neighbors, friends, friends of friends, and community organizers to share information and perspectives, organizing opportunities, helpful readings and resilience practices; to discover and strengthen relationships, share favorite foods and hobbies, and find laughter and joy in the sounds of children playing in the late summer sun.

Since then, many of us have continued to share resources, and have come together to map out who is resisting and how in our community. Together, we joined our local People’s Assembly, Migra Watch, and mutual aid efforts; we flyered the #NoKings march to invite people into existing organizing efforts and opportunities to skill up for community safety; and now, we are planning a city-wide cross-movement strategy session around how to build infrastructure in preparation for intensifying federal enforcement and occupation.

I invite and encourage you to do the same however and wherever you can — and to bring similar intentions and conversations to wherever you gather with others, whether it’s a crafting circle, a parent group, a carpool, an exercise class, or a weekly potluck, karaoke night, or card game. 

Similarly, my fellow IC co-founder Mariame Kaba has been hosting monthly Another World is Possible virtual drop-in sessions for people who are and/or who want to take consistent community action and want to reflect with others — the next one is happening on 🗓️ Sunday November 30th. You can learn more and register here.

“What we do in connection makes the world.” —Ricardo Levins Morales

Wherever you are, we hope you will come together with others — including to read this newsletter — and to commit to collective care and collective action.

There is no other way to navigate what we are experiencing — our neighbors being kidnapped from our streets before our eyes, the military occupation of our cities, economic collapse, growing food insecurity, climate-induced natural disasters, ongoing genocide.

As the image gracing this month of Olly Costello’s calendar reminds us, we need to reach out, connect with, and accompany each other through what is and what is to come, and build the world we want on the other side. 

Solidarity is the Antidote to Repression — DOJ Files “Antifa” Indictment, FBI Frames Protestors as “Domestic Violent Extremists”

➡️  Following last month’s Executive Order purporting to designate the non-existent organization “Antifa” (“anti-fa” is simply short for anti-fascist) as a “domestic terrorist organization,” the Department of Justice filed a federal indictment against two people in connection with a noise protest outside of the Prairieland ICE detention facility, describing them as members of an “Antifa cell.” 

The indictment describes “Antifa” as a “militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology, which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the U.S. government, law enforcement authorities, and the system of law,” that has been “increasingly targeting agents and facilities related to DHS’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in opposition to ICE’s deportation actions.” 

It charges the individuals named, along with unnamed “co-conspirators,” with, among other things, “material support of terrorism,” a federal offense focused on support to “foreign” groups designated as “terrorist” organizations by the Department of State, although no such organization is mentioned in the indictment. Reminiscent of the #StopCopCity indictments, the government is citing use of encrypted communications with disappearing messages — which government officials themselves are well known to use — as evidence of criminal intent. Attorneys for both individuals named in the indictments have asserted that the charges are baseless and politically motivated. 

➡️  While the federal indictment in Texas is currently the only one we are aware of bringing criminal charges drawing on the language of the Executive Order, a Texas Congressman called for a DOJ investigation into the National Lawyers’ Guild’s connections to “Antifa.” Meanwhile, the regime is going out of its way to paint any challenge to its actions or authority as a form of “terrorism.” A recent FBI memo frames all protests against the regime’s agenda, including recent #NoKings protests, as potential covers for “terrorism” and “domestic violent extremism,” while a high ranking member of the Republican party described the #NoKings protest as “sponsored” by the “terrorist wing of the Democratic Party.” The Texas Attorney General has also announced undercover operations focused on “antifa” and “transgenderism.” 

 

Resist Detention & Coerced “Treatment” for Unhoused Communities

➡️  Utah is moving toward making the administration’s Executive Order targeting unhoused people, drug users, and people with unmet mental health needs and calling for “shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for … treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment,” a reality.  

The state is partnering with a private corporation to build a detention facility intended to incarcerate 1300 people, including unhoused people and drug users, outside the city and two miles from the nearest bus stop. Planners “vow stern measures to move homeless people to the remote site and force many of them to undergo treatment” whether under expanded court-ordered civil commitment or through “accountability centers” for drug users. 

One of the first states to pilot a “housing first” approach, prioritizing unconditional long-term housing to address issues faced by street-based populations, it now appears to be completely reversing course, focusing on behavior control over meeting basic needs, and increasing police power to “rescue” (read: round up) unhoused people and give them a choice between going to jail or indefinite incarceration and “treatment” at the new facility. Adding insult to injury, it is expected that the cost of building and running the detention center will be covered by siphoning funding away from community housing and supportive programs, despite local officials’ calls for long-term investments in housing and other supports for unhoused communities.

➡️  Similar efforts are underway in New Orleans and San Diego, aligning with the federal administration’s focus on mandating participation in coercive drug or mental health “treatment” over access to housing and meeting basic needs.

  • ✅  Join a local mutual aid or #StoptheSweeps group that works with unhoused people to fight police encampment sweeps and criminalization of poverty

    ✅  Check out these tools from Housing Not Handcuffs and learn more about the Homes for All campaign

    ✅  Stay tuned for more organizing lessons, strategies, and tools from our recent Abolition Means ALL Carceral Spaces convening, calling on abolitionist organizers to extend our visions, demands, and organizing beyond jails, prisons, and detention facilities to all carceral spaces and practices, including forced “treatment” facilities like these!

 

ICE Violence and Resistance Continue to Intensify

➡️  ICE enforcement violence continues to escalate and expand across the country:

 

Everywhere, People are Coming Together to Defend Their Neighbors

➡️  Across the country, people are building ICE Watch teams, creating sanctuary schools and campuses, educating and recruiting businesses to protect migrant workers and community members, targeting transportation infrastructure of the deportation machine, fighting construction of new detention facilities and to close existing ones, and sharing strategies, successes, and lessons with each other.

Stay tuned for an IC page gathering resources, campaigns & opportunities to take action!

✅  In the meantime, join Day of the Dead actions on November 1-2 across the country to honor lives lost to immigration detention as a part of the Communities Not Cages campaign.

✅  Join Detention Watch Network’s webinar on resisting 287(g) agreements on November 5th!

✅  Residents in Chicago and cities across the U.S. are deploying a wide range of resistance strategies, including hundreds of residents patrolling the streets with whistles to alert neighbors to ICE presence, stationing outside schools, and creating “walking schoolbuses” to escort children to and from school first seen in D.C. in response to the federal occupation; confronting ICE agents and refusing to serve them at local businesses and buildings; and continuous protests outside of detention facilities, while Chicago has declared “ICE free zones” around city properties. Join efforts in your neighborhood and community!

✅  As the government shutdown wears on, keep up the pressure on your representatives to stop giving ICE even more money (on top of the $45 billion they got in the last reconciliation bill) to kidnap, cage, and deport our families, friends, and neighbors, at the expense of essential programs!

 

The Drug War as a Pretext for Violent Military Intervention

➡️  The administration continues to use the drug war as an excuse for occupation and violent military interventions in the U.S. and around the world. Over the past several months the U.S. government has launched military strikes against 14 boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing 51 people to date, under the pretext of targeting “narco-trafficking,” and is now threatening military strikes on land.

  • ✅ Join the Drug Policy Alliance’s Reform 2025 conference in Detroit on 🗓️ November 12-15 to strategize around how to resist the central role the drug war plays in manufacturing consent for, entrenching, and building power of authoritarian agendas regimes in the U.S. and beyond.

    ✅ We’ll also be hosting a Building Black Feminist Visions to End the Drug War post-conference convening on 🗓️ November 16th to reflect and strategize around Black feminist responses to the central role of the drug war in the administration’s authoritarian occupation of cities across the U.S., intensifying criminalization and coercion of drug users and harm reduction and overdose prevention programs, and international vigilante violence. Reach out to us at info@interruptingcriminalization.org if you’re interested in participating!

 

Abortion Criminalization Ramps Up

➡️  Earlier this month 8 people were arrested in Texas who the state claims were practicing medicine without a license with Maria Rojas, a midwife arrested and charged in June with violating the state’s anti-abortion law. The state Attorney General referred to the arrested individuals as a “cabal of abortion-loving radicals” in a press-release.

➡️  Meanwhile the State of Louisiana filed suit against the FDA in an effort to prohibit telemedicine prescription of medication abortion, claiming it violates the Comstock Act, which criminalizes sending abortion supplies through the mail, and interferes with the state’s ability to enforce its abortion ban by prosecuting doctors who prescribe medication abortion to Louisiana residents through telemedicine. A similar case was dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court on procedural grounds, which the State of Louisiana claims to have overcome, last year.

➡️  And, at the request of 21 Republican Senators, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is exploring whether it can test for abortion medication in wastewater, prompting concerns about surveillance and criminalization and protest from the EPA union.

➡️  Finally, the State of South Carolina is once again considering legislation that would criminalize virtually all abortions as homicides punishable by up to 30 years in prison, and make it a felony to provide information about abortion over the phone or internet. It is among a growing number of states that have introduced legislation that would treat abortion as homicide, in some cases carrying the death penalty. 

  • ✅ Share accurate information about abortion medication and how to access it.

    ✅ Support your local abortion funds - demand continues to increase for support to travel to places where abortion is still legal to receive essential health care.

    ✅ Continue to pressure elected officials, health care providers, and advocates to push back against efforts to criminalize and limit access to abortion and reproductive care.

    ✅ If you are a health care provider or advocate interested in joining with others in interrupting the criminalization of care, join the Beyond Do No Harm Network!

 

Keep Up Actions in Solidarity with Palestine

➡️  The IOF continues to relentlessly bomb the multiply displaced residents of Gaza, killing over 200 people and injuring at least 600, including least least 25 children, since the U.S. brokered “ceasefire” was announced, while continuing to throttle aid and supplies to the completely devastated region which continues to be described as a dystopia where pregnant people give birth on the street and in the rubble and shelter, basic health care, and clean water, continue to be largely unavailable. We need to keep up our efforts to stop the flow of funds and weapons to the occupation!

 

Free Support

  • Feeling scared? Overwhelmed? The Liberation Line is there to support you! The Liberation Line provides free mental health support calls to organizers and activists, offering support, listening, resources, processing, debriefing or strategizing. These are confidential, non-crisis, non-therapy phone calls facilitated by a trusted volunteer with experience in offering mental health support and who aligns with Palestinian and collective liberation. The Liberation Line is open to any organizer or activist involved in social or political change, who may be impacted by police or state brutality, counter-protestor violence, racism, oppression, or is experiencing conflict, stress, burnout or trauma related to their community organizing or activism. 

  • A reminder that Interrupting Criminalization also offers a number of free help desks:

    • Resisting Criminalization Help Desk — for organizers and groups looking for thought partnership and one-on-one consultation and support around organizing, advocacy, budget, policy, legislative or litigation strategies to interrupt criminalization, policing, and state violence.

    • Transformative Justice Help Desk — for groups and individuals who are working on projects and community-wide interventions to respond to, transform, and interrupt harm and violence without using the police and other carceral systems, and are looking for support or thought partnership.

    • Abolition Media Office Hours — for journalists, communicators, and media makers who want to challenge "copaganda,” shift the narrative about Palestine, crime, community safety, and other subjects, or directly support incarcerated people in telling their own stories; for organizers looking for help on how to build relationships with journalists or hone in on messaging their campaigns.

    • Beyond Do No Harm Health Care Strategy Consult — health care workers committed to preventing and resisting harm in health care, or looking for a thought partner on practical strategies for organizing to interrupt criminalization in health care environments.

 
Tiffany Wang
Next

This Month in Criminalization