Policing Black Lives (2nd ed) – Book launch with Robyn Maynard

WHO AND WHAT?
Join us for an evening with award-winning and best-selling author and scholar Robyn Maynard (@policingblack) as she launches the revised and expanded edition of her book “Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present” (published @fernpub) on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinaabe Territory | in Ottawa.

Following her talk, she will be joined by local anti-Black racism and police defunding organizers Nhora Aust (@justiceforanthonyaust), Robin Browne (@black_hubnoir), and police violence survivor Anthony Marriott for a roundtable discussion moderated by Sheryl-Ann Simpson (Planning for Abolition) on the state of Black freedom struggles and their visions for futures beyond surveillance, policing, and imprisonment.

WHY?
While all levels of government across the country have committed to ending anti-Black racism, it persists, including through increased investments in institutions and practices such as policing and imprisonment. In a local context where the Ottawa Police Service is proposing a massive 6.5% / $25 million increase to their operating budget for 2026 and is trying to get their cops back in schools, and at a time when children warehoused at the William E. Hay youth detention centre routinely face harm and the Government of Ontario has announced a series of jail infrastructure projects that, if all built, will increase our province’s human caging capacity by 1,601 beds to the tune of nearly $3 billion for construction alone, there is a need to collectively reimagine what is possible and organize towards achieving real safety and liberation for all.

EVENT ORGANIZERS:
@cpepgroup, @cappontario & the #NOPE | No Ontario Prison Expansion campaign

EVENT CONTACT:
justin.piche@uottawa.ca