No Saviors, Just People

On a humid summer night outside Brooklyn's central booking precinct, a volunteer folds up a lawn chair and refills a carton of smokes. “Sometimes a cigarette is the fastest way to reach someone,” one tells me. “But really, what people need when they come out is to be seen. To feel like we’re not here to fix them or save them; we’re just here.”

The volunteers, who asked to remain anonymous, are part of Brooklyn Jail Support, a grassroots mutual aid collective that offers immediate, person-to-person care to people released from police custody. Founded in response to mass arrests during the George Floyd protests in 2020, BK Jail Support has become a steady presence outside the NYPD’s central booking. They provide food, water, hygiene supplies, warm clothing, legal referrals, and emotional support to those emerging from jail, often in the middle of the night with no phone, ID, or transportation. Their mission is simple: to show up in solidarity, not charity. As abolitionists, they believe no one belongs in a cage and that care is a form of resistance.

BK Jail Support operates from the belief that the carceral system, comprising police, prisons, courts, and surveillance, exists not to protect but to control, punish, and extract from the working class. Their work exposes the lie that jails make us safer and instead affirms the power of direct human connection and mutual care. By treating people with dignity, regardless of what they’ve been accused of, they challenge the dehumanizing logic of incarceration and stand against the expanding police state. This means confronting a system that criminalizes poverty and punishes people simply for being poor. From loitering to fare evasion to sleeping outside, the so-called crimes that land many in jail are survival behaviors. Most of the people they encounter haven't committed violent offenses at all; many are jailed for crimes of poverty.

“People are coming out of jail in such an activated state,” one volunteer explains. “They’re traumatized. It’s hard for them to even recognize you as safe, or even just adjacent to safe.” The approach isn’t transactional; it’s relational. “We’re not an NGO. This isn’t charity. We’re just people showing up for each other.”

They describe how the vibe shifts when people realize that the help is free and unconditional. “There’s this moment of relief,” one says. “You can feel their guard go down. And that’s when they start to really ask for what they need. A phone call. A charger. A quiet place to sit. Or someone to be angry with them.”

Some are held for days on minor infractions, long after they should’ve been released, causing them to miss work and lose their jobs, plunging them further into precarity. In a city where rents are skyrocketing and wages stay stagnant, where services are slashed but police budgets balloon, the line between housed and unhoused, free and imprisoned, is thin. “We’re all one crisis away from being on the other side of those bars,” a volunteer reminds us.

Abolition is not just the absence of prisons; it’s the presence of systems that meet people’s needs. Volunteers stress that poverty, not malice, drives much of what we label as crime. “When people have resources, crime goes down,” one says plainly. The criminalization of poverty means that many people cycling through jail are simply struggling to survive, unable to afford rent, health care, food, or stability.

When asked about the public’s perception of people arrested or incarcerated, another volunteer doesn’t mince words. “People are not inherently dangerous. The system creates dangerous conditions.” They recount moments where individuals released after ‘violent crimes’ simply needed a phone or someone to sit with. “I’m handing my phone to people. I’m sitting down with them. And nothing bad happens.”

That simple trust, treating people as people, challenges the entire carceral narrative. “Sometimes I hope a passerby sees us and thinks, ‘Wait, aren’t those the dangerous people?’ and then realizes… they’re just sitting. Talking. Existing.”

The idea that only certain people “deserve” support is part of the carceral logic, they argue. “Anytime we put up barriers between us and the people society locks up, we’re isolating ourselves.”

They warn against exceptionalism, the belief that your mistake was forgivable but theirs wasn’t. “We’re all one moment away from being that person. When we pretend we’re not, we make the whole system stronger.” This mindset erases how people end up in the carceral state because our society has failed them. The safety net is threadbare. Affordable housing, healthcare, and mental health care are often out of reach, leaving people vulnerable to state violence and incarceration.

Which is why BK Jail Support also offers the community teach-ins and skill shares. One volunteer was adamant about the power of shared learning. “We all have badass shit we know how to do, and it’s cool to share that with each other.” They speak of Jail Support’s education efforts as intentionally anti-elitist, welcoming, and vulnerable.

“Teaching is vulnerable. But that’s the point. We need to be willing to show up raw and open.”

From ICE to NYPD, from jails to eviction courts, the volunteers see a single system designed to disappear and extract from the working class. “They want to cut people out of the picture. But they also want to extract everything from them first, labor, money, culture.”

They cite judges, landlords, cops, and deportation agents all as part of the same machine. “They’re getting paid to ruin people’s lives. The people they are targeting are the ones who make the city run, though. The people they deem disposable are the ones who make the art, cook the food, clean the subways.”

Abolition is not naive to harm. However, it recognizes that punishment does not equal accountability. Criminalizing poverty doesn’t prevent harm; it perpetuates it. A society that invests in care over cages is one where fewer people fall through the cracks in the first place.

One of the biggest misconceptions about abolition, they explain, is that it’s only about tearing down prisons. “It’s the rents. The housing crisis. The lack of food and medication. That’s all part of the carceral system, too.”

When people are deprived of basic needs, harm happens. But even then, they argue, the community can respond without the state. “We mediate fights, we take care of each other. Even normie people know this.”

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With the affordability crisis making life unlivable for so many, more and more people are at risk of being swept into the system for simply trying to survive. Whether it's a missed rent payment, an EBT card running out too soon, or mental health spirals without support, the pathways to criminalization are multiplying. Many who are jailed are stuck for days on end for minor infractions, missing shifts, losing jobs, and becoming more desperate than before. It’s a vicious cycle of poverty and punishment.

Asked what they’ve learned from doing this work, another volunteer pauses. “To slow down.” They describe a moment at the greeter station when six people showed up at once. “I had to remind myself, just focus on the one person in front of you. Listen. That’s care. That’s solidarity.”

They reject the sense of urgency baked into activist culture, insisting that slowing down is a radical act. “We’re all trying to carry the weight of the world. The best way to do that is one conversation at a time.”

“We’re not here to save anyone,” one volunteer says. “We’re here because this world forces people into impossible situations. Showing up for them is also how we show up for ourselves.”

Sometimes they hand someone a phone. Sometimes they just sit. That’s the work.

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