[1] Critical Resistance's national office is in Oakland, California, with three additional chapters in New York City, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon.

Projects included: Critical Resistance takes an abolitionist stance against the prison industrial complex which draws from the legacy of the slavery abolition movement in the 1800s.

CR utilizes academic work, legislative and other policy interventions, and grassroots campaigns in an effort to reverse the expansion of prisons and to call for the decriminalization of drugs and prostitution.

[5] Part of CR's mission statement asserts that it is the provision of basic necessities such as food, shelter, and care - not incarceration and punishment - that will make communities safe and secure.

Over 3,500 participants attended, including former and current prisoners and their families, activists, academics, religious leaders, homeless people, policymakers, and members of the LGBT community.

[7] CR's initial international conference put the term "prison-industrial complex" on the national agenda with the goal of convincing the American public to stop mass incarceration.

[6] Critical Resistance holds conferences as a strategy to open discussion about prisons, gain insight from different activists and participants, and spread information to different parts of the United States.

[12] According to CR's 2014 annual report, the purpose of The Abolitionist newspaper is to "share political analysis with imprisoned people, increase inside-outside communication, and augment organizing capacity inside prison walls".

[9] According to Critical Resistance The Oakland Power Projects was launched in March 2015 to educate and train community members on how to properly handle local safety issues without the involvement of the police.

The project consists of several workshops taught by instructors ranging from doctors, nurses, and healthcare specialist that discuss the impact of how to properly address people that are found in states of distress due to minor physical harm and mental disorder.

[16] According to Kristian Williams, this partnership was formed because the lack of attention paid to violence within communities, and the ignoring of the experiences of survivors of domestic abuse and other gender crimes, caused tensions within the feminist movement which limited the overall success of Critical Resistance.