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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until April 25, 2028

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Police Abolition and Radical Imagination in the Twin Cities, Minnesota

Tinnin, Camille Leigh
http://orcid.org/0009-0007-4058-0854
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1745245881582504

Abstract Details

2025, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Political Science.
Police abolition is a process and an end goal that calls for a rethinking of the police as an institution and the creation of alternative modes of safety and community care. It exists within this broader radical ethic of dismantling oppressive systems. More than merely a destructive process, it is a creative and imaginative process of building something new. The idea of police abolition is not new, but it has received increased attention in the years following the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing uprisings. In recent years, the solutions suggested by activists have shifted from being primarily reform-focused (body cameras, police review boards, ending qualified immunity) to increasingly including calls for police abolition. This critical qualitative dissertation took a case study approach to understand how some people become abolitionists and seek this radical form of social change. I created and tested a theoretical framework that that posits that people start their police abolition journey with their consciousness constrained by what Gramsci (1929) refers to as “common sense”, society’s mostly unquestioned assumptions about how society functions that are taught through cultural, governmental, and economic institutions. This theoretical framework claims that abolitionists move from common sense to critical consciousness, or the ability and willingness to question common sense and reasoning that supports it; from critical consciousness to radical imagination, the practice of envisioning an emancipatory present/future in community that prompts people to act in building the vision; and from radical imagination to prefigurative action, or the modeling of imagined future in the now while fighting against present oppression. I tested this theoretical framework through 16 narrative grassroots interviews with abolitionists in the Twin Cities, Minnesota metropolitan area, which showed multiple pathways to abolition, including the proposed theory and several variations on it. I also focused on what abolitionists do in the present to work toward the goal of police abolition. This included engaging imaginatively and prefiguratively to create alternative and community-focused institutions, from alternative emergency hotlines to community spaces. In the future, this theoretical framework could be tested on other groups of radical activists and organizations (and those who do not identify as ‘activists’ but are engaging prefiguratively) to determine the importance of radical imagination in movements focused on different issue areas that are key to questioning prevailing common sense.
Ashley Nickels (Committee Chair)
Dana Lawless-Andric (Committee Member)
Sara Koopman (Committee Member)
Johanna Solomon (Committee Member)
198 p.
Peace Studies; Political Science; Social Research
radical imagination; police abolition; prefigurative politics; social movements

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Tinnin, C. L. (2025). Police Abolition and Radical Imagination in the Twin Cities, Minnesota [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1745245881582504

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Tinnin, Camille. Police Abolition and Radical Imagination in the Twin Cities, Minnesota . 2025. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1745245881582504.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Tinnin, Camille. "Police Abolition and Radical Imagination in the Twin Cities, Minnesota ." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2025. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1745245881582504

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1745245881582504
© 2025, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12