I like to think this isn't true, but the only cop I ever knew was a complete piece of shit, the kind of person who would pick up someone he suspected of being a gang member for nothing and drop him off on the other end of town in a rival gang's territory after taking the dude's shoes (I know this because he told me about it), so I guess maybe he wasn't the atypical case I always suspected.
I do wonder if there's a TSA effect here though. That is, the TSA are worthless, at least on the surface, but they do seem to deter would be law breakers just merely by their presence. Police could be the same in terms of crime in the community, so I'm still unconvinced they need to be completely gotten rid of.
I work with "security officers" on the reg. These are guys who make extra on the side not being cops, working security for the network. And we have our laughs, and things are convivial, and then you say something vaguely controversial and it's like you flipped a goddamn switch. They're not your buddy the "security officer" hanging out on the couch anymore; they're the cop looking for a skull to crack. You can see it in their eyes, in their posture, and in the way their speech changes. When I was in the clubs we had security guards that were definitely headed for the force and we had security guards that were paying the bills. There was one I didn't get along with because he defaulted to skull-cracker. The last I heard he'd "had" to use his sidearm in the line of duty four times, killing three people.
Yeah, but what motivates would-be law breakers? Police abolition has to happen in tandem with actually addressing why folks break the law. I'm sure there are some who are just out to cause mischief, and I'm okay with having some kind of small police-like infrastructure for dealing with them, but I reckon most people don't want to break the law.
I right with you. I'm for active reparations and an official government apology for slavery and Jim Crow and red lining, etc. I don't have high hopes for the prospect of any of these things. But in the interim I need to be convinced a bit more about cutting the police entirely.
The thing is, the police as you are imagining them here do not exist. If they did, we wouldn't have all these protests and police violence. You're not wrong for wanting something like you imagine, but given how bad things are and how resistant policing has been to any reforms, I don't think you're going to get it until you abolish the police.
Agreed on the reparations and acknowledgement of all the garbage that folks of color deal and have dealt with. There are some challenging conversations to be had here. Our police forces have to work from the model that physical force is the absolute last option and are held to the standard that they must demonstrate so in every interaction with the public. I'm definitely not for defunding or removing the police, just for exploring an entire remodel of the police force that we're used to. Why carry deadly force on your hip daily? Is is truly necessary to carry that power with you? Can we have highly educated and skilled officers that act as social workers to a great degree? Officers that can identify members of the public that need to be connected with a social service that can help them navigate a particularly tough time in their life? Can we rid ourselves of our for-profit prison system? I think it's possible. We've got a long way to go and a boatload of challenging discussions to get there. I think the quote attributed to Martin Luther King Jr. “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” fits well in this situation.
There are a lot of things hat can be done through policy changes that have nothing to do with the police per se (at least in terms of regulating their person-to-person interactions), but that would affect greatly how the police behave. For example, let's make it illegal to do asset forfeiture and to impose onerous court fees on civil infractions, as well as to bar any money generated by court fees and asset forfeiture to be used as operating revenue (it is the disgusting truth that some courts have to "self-fund"; the legal system is ostensibly for public protection, so it needs to be funded by the public at large, full stop). And let's make it illegal for employers to be able to see civil infractions and misdemeanors on a background check, and do something about aggressive credit monitoring by employers as well. All these things can be abused by the legal system and they lead to keeping poor people (black and otherwise) poor. I guess some of my frustration has been that so many of the root causes about why the police can act with impunity come down to money, plain and simple. We need to solve those money problems in parallel with police reform or it will amount to lip service and nothing more. That's my worry when we just say, "fuck the police" and we're done.
I certainly agree that these are all problems that need to get addressed regardless of what we do with the cops! This is begging for a socialist analysis of policing, but I'm not sure Hubski is ready for that and either way I'm certainly not the girl to do it. :) Any police abolitionist who has put thought into it knows it's more complicated than just closing police departments. Abolition only works if you do it in tandem with building social services and abolishing mass incarceration, reforming laws that unjustly punish folks, developing non-punitive forms of justice, and so on. But that's a bit less catchy than "fuck the police", so it's not what you see on signs or Twitter :) If you are interested in reading more, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? and The End of Policing are both available as free e-books right now!so many of the root causes about why the police can act with impunity come down to money, plain and simple.
These are all questions worth asking. I have yet to hear tangible arguments against them. The high suicide rate among police also tells us that the profession needs redefining.