Annual Conference
Annual Conference
SPEAR hosts an annual conference on campus for anti-carceral academics, organizers and students. STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES ON OUR 2025 CONFERENCE!
You can find information about all past conferences here.
Students Against Policing
The Students Against Policing committee is pushing for Princeton University to defund and reform its private police force (PSAFE) and invest in a new safety model that doesn't involve policing or those with the power of arrest.
Students Against Policing
The Students Against Policing committee is pushing for Princeton University to defund and reform its private police force (PSAFE) and invest in a new safety model that doesn't involve policing or those with the power of arrest.
About half of those employed by PSAFE are sworn police officers, detectives, sergeants, etc., who hold the same powers as municipal or state police and whose policing powers extend to Princeton township. Yet, as private employees, PSAFE officers are only accountable to the University administration, which is not beholden to the interests of the Princeton municipal community. In April 2019, a campus officer at Yale shot a community member while investigating a reported armed robbery. The Yale officer was suspended for 30 days, and later returned to work as an administrator. While we do not know if a similar abuse of power has happened at Princeton yet, the jurisdiction of our armed P-Safe officers also extends to the surrounding community, creating the conditions that allow for such violent interactions with community members. As long as the University employs sworn police officers with similar authority to detain and use force against our students, staff, and local community as local police officers, the University is not only complicit in, but actively contributing to the racist institution of policing in this country.
PANEL: “SAFETY IS NOT SURVEILLANCE: ADDRESSING CARCERAL CAPTURE AS A RESPONSE TO COMMUNITY NEEDS”
February 20, 2025
Amidst the uptick of scrutinous surveillance methods on Princeton's campus, SPEAR’s PSAP Committee hosted "Safety is not Surveillance: Addressing Carceral Capture as a Response to Community Needs," a panel centered around spreading awareness and facilitating dialogue about alternatives to surveillance methods, implications of intrusive surveillance and carceral capture methods, AI surveillance (such as ShotSpotter), and mitigating police violence in response to surveillance methods. The panel consisted of speakers that ranged from social justice activists, attorneys at the ACLU of New Jersey, professors at Princeton, and more, and was an engaging and insightful conversation that shed light on the future of surveillance and police violence on Princeton's campus and beyond.
IMMIGRATION COMMITTEE
SPEAR stands in unwavering solidarity with the communities of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented people in central New Jersey and beyond. The Immigration Committee works to expose and fight the carceral logic which governs the US immigration system and provide solidarity to our neighbors, regardless of status or origin.
IMMIGRATION COMMITTEE
SPEAR stands in unwavering solidarity with the communities of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented people in central New Jersey and beyond. The Immigration Committee works to expose and fight the carceral logic which governs the US immigration system and provide solidarity to our neighbors, regardless of status or origin.
As xenophobia has become one of the most virulent political weapons in the US in recent years, New Jersey in particular has become a center of “crimmigration” - the intersection of prisons, policing, and the immigration system - with the opening of the Delaney Hall ICE Detention Center in 2025 and multiple recent attacks on the Princeton community by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We recognize that the crimmigration system is one of the fastest-growing systems of carceral oppression in our country, and we are committed to using our position at Princeton University to fight the persecution of immigrants and support our community members, regardless of status or origin. Through partnerships with local community organizations, we are working to connect Princeton students to the ICE Out of Princeton campaign, build material solidarity and allyship with immigrant communities, and support academic efforts across campus to fight the criminalization of immigrants. We are also committed to protecting international students on our campus, and we are in coalition with activists at Princeton fighting the unjust imprisonment and deportation of student activists and the fear-mongering tactics used to quell free speech on campuses.
Re-Entry Working Group
Re-Entry Working Group
The re-entry working group is partnering with formerly incarcerated activists and local organizations to better understand the persistent challenges of re-entry post-incarceration and create sustainable resources grounded in the needs articulated by the community.
Reentry Support
The Reentry Committee partners with New Jersey Prison Justice Watch and the American Reentry Initiative, along with other universities and community partners. We engage in advocacy for degree programs for formerly incarcerated folks in NJ and facilitate other kinds of support. This semester, Reentry will be leading a course titled “Radical Imagination and the Political Consciousness” aimed at justice-impacted folks considering higher education. Sign bit.ly/spearclass. This past year, we worked on the Welcome Home Initiative, which supports NJ residents returning home from incarceration. This initiative was primarily established to support the passage of public health legislation that led to the release of over 2,000 NJ residents. We staffed a hotline for returning citizens, compiled a network of distribution centers and county-specific resources, and contacted partners to collect in-kind donations, such as toiletries, PPE, and cell phones. Going forward, we will continue to work on the Welcome Home Initiative and look for more opportunities to support reentry in New Jersey.
Reentry Support
The Reentry Committee partners with New Jersey Prison Justice Watch and the American Reentry Initiative, along with other universities and community partners. We engage in advocacy for degree programs for formerly incarcerated folks in NJ and facilitate other kinds of support. This semester, Reentry will be leading a course titled “Radical Imagination and the Political Consciousness” aimed at justice-impacted folks considering higher education. Sign bit.ly/spearclass. This past year, we worked on the Welcome Home Initiative, which supports NJ residents returning home from incarceration. This initiative was primarily established to support the passage of public health legislation that led to the release of over 2,000 NJ residents. We staffed a hotline for returning citizens, compiled a network of distribution centers and county-specific resources, and contacted partners to collect in-kind donations, such as toiletries, PPE, and cell phones. Going forward, we will continue to work on the Welcome Home Initiative and look for more opportunities to support reentry in New Jersey.
