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Abolitionism
1493 words, ~8 minute read.
I'm a supporter of the police abolition movement, which calls for police and prisons to be abolished. It argues that there are many inherent problems with policing and incarcerating people that cannot be fixed with just further training or restrictions - the entire system must be entirely abolished. In this way, it is a more extreme version of the police reform or defund the police movements. The movement also posits that there are alternatives to policing and incarceration that can be more effective at reducing crime.
What is police abolition?
Just to make sure we're all on the same page as to what police abolition means and involves, I'll be using some definitions from Critical Reach:
The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.
PIC abolition is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.
I'll generally just say police or prison abolition, but I'm still referring to pieces of PIC abolition.
Why abolish police?
There are a variety of reasons for abolishing the police, from its controversial origins to its pervasive discrimination to its overall lack of effectiveness. Ultimately though, I would argue this movement stems from anarchistic principles and values. Anarchism posits that no person should hold power over another (a simplification sufficient for this document), which would include the use of force or imprisonment. Anarchists argue the State has no right to exist, let alone that it has no right to call it's violence legitimate. From this premise, any form of policing or incarceration is unjust. However, let's explore additional problems within the specific context of the US:
Origins of policing
The initial implementation of the police in the US was inspired both by the systems they experienced across the pond as well as the bands of slave catchers that were present at the time. The fact policing and incarceration as concepts had to be invented and introduced to people who were already existing just fine is telling enough, and the fact they were introduced to bring slaves back to their owners is even more telling. These origins have ingrained racism into the entire system, and they are still evident today when looking at racial profiling, incarceration rates, etc.
Throughout their history police have, in practice, protected "property" (which slaves were considered to be at the time), not people. In a broader sense, they were a tool of the capitalist elite. That's why the Supreme Court ruled that police do not actually have an obligation to protect nor serve citizens and why early cops were also strike breakers.
While the origins of an institution don't necessarily dictate how it is structured and operated hundreds of years later, they do give insight into how the institution was designed and what purposes/roles it was actually filling. Today, thanks to various forms of "copaganda" in media, there's rhetoric that people should support and appreciate the police, that they are fair and effective and protect us from crime and villainy. As we'll continue to describe, I think the police are much more similar to their roots than the fiction they're portrayed as.
Discriminating against the poor
The police are designed to reinforce the capitalist status quo; the "law and order" they uphold is less so to do with ensuring life is fair and safe for all, but rather to keep the working class in check so the capitalist class are safe and secure. This is most evident by looking at how many laws primarily affect the poor and how rarely laws are enforced when the perpetrator is a capitalist.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
Anatole France
Property crime lead to over 750,000 arrests in 2019. Wage theft, which according to a 2014 study may account for up to $50 Billion stolen, is a civil matter that doesn't lead to any arrests. In fact, white collar misdeeds are often not classified as criminal offenses - that's why after the 2008 housing market crash that devastated millions, only 1 banker was arrested and it was for something relatively trivial compared to the actual crash.
Even when it is a criminal offense, white collar crime is rarely punished. A lot of societal elites get away with horrendous misdeeds essentially out in the open. In fact, prosecuting the rich is so out of the norm that a rookie cop arresting Justin Timberlake caused a kerfuffle online because of just how much people like Justin aren't supposed to get arrested.
As a side note, there's a double standard here where rich are treated differently from poor people when they're the perpetrator of the crime, but not when they're the victim. If you look online for opinions on whether stealing from the rich to give to the poor is actually justified, you'll get a fairly overwhelming response that "theft is theft" and the context within which the theft occurred is not relevant. I think it's important to keep in mind the context of how the rich have rigged the system to consolidate wealth in the hands of as few as possible, and the impact that has had on society. On other issues, people are just fine dealing with nuance, like how violence is justified when it's self defense. I believe our society has been deliberately shaped to have the value that the victim being poor vs rich shouldn't matter, specifically because it benefits the rich.
Racism
The PIC has not shaken off the racism ingrained within its roots. Arrests are not proportional to actual crime rates, disproportionately affecting people of color - including when the cops themselves are black. Additionally, laws have been introduced throughout the history of the US that were explicitly designed to affect minorities, like the Jim Crow laws or the entirety of Nixon's war on drugs (a victimless "crime").
The police are an active threat to black people, who are 3x as likely to be shot and killed from the police without presenting a threat. That makes cops people to be avoided and who cannot be relied upon in an emergency. Even calling the police yourself is a risk.
Cost
The government spends hundreds of billions of dollars on the incarceral system, an absolutely profound amount of money that could make enormous differences had it been put to social services instead.
The prison system has for profit private prisons with minimum occupancy clauses that cost taxpayers money if we don't arrest enough people. This is a gross financial incentive to arrest more people, and it disincentivizes actual rehabilitation. These contribute to the US' incredibly high recidivism rates.
Ineffectiveness at stopping crime
Most crimes performed are out of necessity, not malice. For example, few would be stealing baby formula or bread if it weren't for our economic system introducing artificial scarcity to keep prices going up.
America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, for a variety of the reasons mentioned in this document. Yet, the fear of punishment and imprisonment does not seem to have the effect of discouraging crime. Indeed, increasing incarceration does not decrease crime.
Criminal officers
Officers themselves perpetrate a lot of crime (and I suspect there's a lot of police crimes that doesn't get reported), including 1/3 of all murders that involve a stranger, and are typically protected by a corrupt system with the strongest union in the nation (often attributed to the union serving the interests of capital, rather than workers like labor unions). In particular, officers have incredibly high rates of interspousal conflicts. Therefore, abolitionism is the only solution to gender-based violence.
How to abolish police
There are many ways to reduce the need of police until it's eventually zero. Immediately, perpetratore of victimless crimes should be let out of prison. You can also reduce most root causes of crime, rather than spending the money on incarcerating the perpetrators
Crime reduction
Abolitionists still want to ensure public safety, just not through policing and incarceration. They believe, since most crime is not born of malice, that improving society by ensuring everyone's needs are met would evaporate the majority of crimes as well - at least as many as are prevented by the current system. Police are incredibly over funded, enough to buy things like surplus tanks from the US military. That money can instead go to social programs that would solve the root causes that lead to crimes.
Societies can and will find alternative ways of preventing any specific crime. An often used example is if you have a drunk friend who is about to drive home, you typically will help get them a ride (driving yourself if you're sober, or calling them a cab or uber otherwise) rather than calling the police on them. Abolitionism finds policing as only required by those who lack the political imagination to find other solutions - basically, cure the diseases rather than treat the symptoms. At a systemic level, drunk driving can be reduced or eliminated by improving public transit.
Dangerous incidents
With the police abolished, there are likely to still be cases where an individual is a danger to themselves or others. For these situations, there are ideas on how to resolve it without state sanctioned violence, that typically focus on local communities setting up alternative resources. Mobile crisis teams are one such alternative, although not without similar concerns regarding their authority to forcibly incarcerate people in mental health hospitals. There are a lot of alternatives out there, but they're typically specific to local communities and don't really have a "one size fits all" solution. Here's an article about a couple such initiatives, and this article linked earlier also discusses some specific local initiatives.
Another criticism of prison abolitionism specifically is What do you do with the murderers and rapists?, but as that article describes: we already don't incarcerate many murderers and rapists, especially the significant amount of murderers and rapists who are also officers. It argues the incarceral system already fails in this regard, and focuses on punishing the perpetrator rather than helping the victims, which is something we could do without incarceration.
Further reading
I have not finished reading it yet myself, but I recommend We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba based on this NBC article on the book and author.
How police make up the law by Philosophy Tube is a very well produced look at how police got their de facto supreme authority, and it's implications. They have several other videos on the police I recommend, and any other videos they've made :).