Kristian Williams

The May issue of Interface includes an article I’ve written on counterinsurgency and community policing. It extends the argument from Our Enemies in Blue, and it includes discussion of recent developments in COIN theory, in military doctrine, and in police/military collaborations.

I’ve also just written a piece, “Profiles of Provocateurs,” looking at a few recent cases of anarchists or radical environmentalists being entrapped by state agents. In an effort to learn from past mistakes, I point out some of the warning signs that the victims of these campaigns overlooked, or sometimes, deliberately ignored. I’m posting the essay to various activist sites.

And, I took my lecture from the “Law and Disorder” conference, and turned it into a small essay. The piece considers the political and strategic divergences between the police accountability framework and that of police abolition, and it describes the areas of overlap where cooperation between the adherents of each can cooperate. It’s appeared in the most recent issue (#106) of the Canadian journal Slingshot.

I’ll be giving a talk on May 20 at 3pm, at Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington.

I’ll discuss my recent research on counterinsurgency and community policing. I’ll outline the counterinsurgency model, describe its transfer from the military to the police and back again, explain how it is being implemented domestically, and consider some implications for social movements.

I’ve written a couple reviews for The Comics Journal, just before it re-invented itself.

One is a review of Audrey Niffenegger’s latest, The Night Bookmobile. The other is a review of Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection. Given how different the books are, it’s interesting how alike they are — creepy yet beautiful.

I also wrote a profile of Tequila expert Clayton Szczech for the Reed College alumni magazine.

I’ll be giving presentations at two conferences this month, both in Portland.

The first is the Counter-Counterinsurgency Convergence at Reed College, April 8-10. I’ll be giving a presentation with Will Munger at 9am, Saturday the 9th. I’ll be discussing the adoption and development of counterinsurgency techniques by domestic police, and Will will present a case study based on his field work in Salinas, California. For details on the conference, visit: http://countercoin.wordpress.com/convergence-schedule/

The next weekend, April 15-17, I’ll be speaking at the Law and Disorder conference at Portland State University. I’ll give a talk called “Police Accountability and Police Abolition: Dilemmas, Paradoxes, Strategies.” In the first half of the session, I will consider the sometimes thorny relationship between the police accountability perspective and the police abolition perspective, outlining the fundamental differences in their assumptions and goals, and considering the possibility for cooperation on short-term campaigns. The second half of the session will be opened up for audience discussion, and I’ll ask the participants to reflect on their own experiences in pursuing demands for accountability or organizing toward abolition. The talk is presently scheduled at 10:30 am on Saturday April 16, but check the website for any updates: http://lawandisorder.wordpress.com/about/