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Derecka Purnell is a human rights lawyer, writer and organizer. She works to end police and prison violence by providing legal assistance, research and trainings to community based organizations through an abolitionist framework.

As a Skadden Fellow, she helped to build the Justice Project at Advancement Project’s National Office which focused on consent decrees, police and prosecutor accountability, and jail closures, providing community training, political education and legal representation to organizers. Her advocacy efforts led to the dismissal of over 3,000 cases based on unconstitutional policing practices. Additionally, she supports several campaigns and grassroots organizations around the criminal legal system, electoral justice, and community investment, including Action St. Louis, Dream Defenders, Communities Against Police Crimes and Repression, the Ferguson Collaborative, and the Movement for Black Lives. Derecka also organized the founding steering committee for Law for Black Lives, a growing network of 5,000 law students, lawyers and legal workers to support social movements.

Professor Trevor Gardner’s scholarship addresses various issues in crime governance with a primary focus on police. Gardner has written extensively on the relationship between federalism and police administration and is developing a separate line of research regarding disparate African American perspectives on police reform. His scholarship has appeared in the Columbia Law Review, the Boston University Law Review, and the Florida State University Law Review.