Abolish the Police

Not everyone from “affected communities” supports abolishing the police. I doubt even a majority do. Which people are the right ones to listen to?

Prison abolition is now a tangible, long term political possibility, and defunding the police will be a major issue this election, and probably a "purity test" (ugh) for future candidates.

Everyone thought this about the progressive wing of the Democrats re: Medicare For All and a wealth tax and stuff a few months ago and now there's like a 60% chance Joe Biden's gonna be President with Jamie Dimon in his cabinet.

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/06/police-abolition-george-floyd/
https://www.autostraddle.com/police-and-prison-abolition-101-a-syllabus-and-faq/

FWIW my wife, who teaches in a high school, says there have been fights that only police were able to break up,

yeah, I've witnessed situations like this -- not in a school setting, but involving angry people under the influence or people suffering from several mental health problems and/or homelessness. Sometimes the cop actually dealt with these things effectively, and sometimes they made them worse.

thank you, in orbit

to J.D.'s point, reducing what we mean by a "police force" to enforcing a couple constitutional issues (perhaps making these forces federal instead of local?) may address this point.

Why are you being pointlessly difficult? "Who are the right ones to listen to" is a dumb question. Why don't you start looking into it and figure out what people are saying and take the time to consider it?

the occasions the cop dealt with the situation effectively and compassionately were definitely nowhere near most of the time

Which people are the right ones to listen to?

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Saturday, June 6, 2020 1:26 PM (three minutes ago)

that's true -- where I live there is a lot of conflict about this, within the black community (as well as other communities of color).

like the other day there was a discussion about undercover cops and cops who aren't from the community vs. those who did grow up here and are straightforward and open about "being a cop" and when they are aligning themselves with their job vs. with their communities. This especially applies to black cops.

“Why don’t you listen to black people” is a cheap rhetorical move that doesn’t address the question. Black people believe many different things.

there is something else wrong with using restorative justice approaches in schools, which is that when it's done the kids go back to the same shit. which is also what happens when you put the kid on probation, so idk. it's like neither available remedy is the problem.

“Abolish the police,” even if you don’t think it’s actually feasible for some reason is a useful starting point for negotiation. That’s how you get to, perhaps, disarmed police.

it also is a semiotic issue in re what does "the police" represent.

Caity Johnstone:

There is not enough gold in the earth’s crust to make the number of olympic medals these people deserve for all the mental gymnastics they are performing to excuse unprovoked, completely unnecessary acts of violence from public employees whose job isn’t even statistically all that dangerous.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/police-and-their-apologists-have-already-lost-the-argument-92b62f353c58

Idk if you'll be able to see all of these, but this was a good explainer of what it might look like not to depend on police for things that they're not trained or prepared or suited for, and which they actively make worse:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA_CzIZpzZ0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

“Abolish the police,” even if you don’t think it’s actually feasible for some reason is a useful starting point for negotiation. That’s how you get to, perhaps, disarmed police.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Saturday, June 6, 2020 3:35 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

FWIW I am closer to “abolish the police” than “eight can’t wait.” I’m not all the way there though. I think you need some kind of last resort, monopoly on force system even if it needs to be dramatically reduced in size, funding and role.

“Why don’t you listen to black people” is a cheap rhetorical move that doesn’t address the question. Black people believe many different things.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Saturday, June 6, 2020 8:34 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

So first it's, "I don't want to listen to people who sit behind computers" and then it's "Black people aren't monolithic" (I never said they were though)--is there anyone you actually do trust on this subject or do you just want a potted answer that you can dismiss?

there is something else wrong with using restorative justice approaches in schools, which is that when it's done the kids go back to the same shit. which is also what happens when you put the kid on probation, so idk. it's like neither available remedy is the problem.

― contorted filbert (harbl), Saturday, June 6, 2020 8:35 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes.

oh hey a free book

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2817-the-end-of-policing

re duties/responsibilities given to cops that could be better assigned -- where I live the police are in charge of issuing special event permits for parties / concerts / festivals etc. If you want a one-day alcohol license for a charitable event, you have to get permission from the local PD. This was something the City of Oakland had created a "task force" about after the Ghost Ship Fire and it never went anywhere.

Re police from within the community: I've felt VASTLY different ways about being in rooms full of police officers of different races. At my school, my principal was extremely close with the local police and they were almost uniformly white and bro-y and Blue Lives Matter-y and seemed like EXACTLY that guy that knocks ppl around and believes in "law and order" above all.

But in the majority Black neighborhood where I live, when we have meetings with the local precinct and we serve potluck dinners to a room of cops who are mostly Black or POC, it's genuinely pleasant. Totally different atmosphere.

It's still a broken system. The people sitting down together having dinner are still going to end up unfairly treated if they enter the system for any reason.

still going to end up unfairly treated if they enter the system for any reason.

The judicial/penal system is a whole 'nother level of fucked-up that needs addressing, too. But the more you expand the focus of the discussion, the more overwhelming it gets to fix and the more the current leverage generated by protest gets diffused over an enormous area of grievance.

Vitale is not really an abolitionist, he’s more of a reformer to the more radical end of reform. I am probably not that far off from him - I haven’t read his book but I have heard him speak.

xp It's all the same thing.

That’s how you get to, perhaps, disarmed police.

So the police are the only people in the US not allowed to be armed?

Clowns iirc

Idk if you'll be able to see all of these, but this was a good explainer of what it might look like not to depend on police for things that they're not trained or prepared or suited for, and which they actively make worse:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA_CzIZpzZ0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Saturday, June 6, 2020 3:38 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Some of these are good but some strike me as vague and/or fantastical. For example, the idea of "neighbors who are trained in self-defense and deescalation" -- this idea of being "trained in self-defense" is a fantasy from movies and martial arts hucksters. It would take years of very intensive training to get to the level where you could confidently approach someone who might be prepared to attack you and/or might be armed, and you'd still be putting yourself at substantial risk of bodily harm. Not to mention that there's a pretty fine line between that and just vigilante justice. Or the idea that "trauma-informed crisis intervention teams" will always be sufficient to deescalate armed conflicts, for example, seems extremely naive and pie-in-the-sky. Or the idea that a "crisis intervention team" will be able to stop a fight without physically restraining people, like it nearly always takes physical restraint to get people to stop fighting, unless by "crisis intervention team" you just mean, like, municipal bouncers?

So the police are the only people in the US not allowed to be armed?

Beats the current situation.

yep

People who don’t carry guns can also physically restrain people. And there’s a lot less physical restraining that needs to happen on a regular basis than there are police wandering around looking to start shit. We can even let them use the cars with sirens!

I’m not saying I’ve got the right answers just like allow yourself to brainstorm

man alive I think you really need to take a step back and look at why you are so resistant to even discussing the thread topic as a general concept. it's really pretty weird how argumentative you're being.

here's what that those ideas io linked to look like on the ground:

https://www.registerguard.com/news/20191020/in-cahoots-how-unlikely-pairing-of-cops-and-hippies-became-national-model

also, read the Caity Johnstone link upthread

Municipal bouncers sounds way better than the police to me, nice thinking!

otm, bouncers generally know how to actually de-escalate shit

Friendlier demeanor. More likely to live near to where they work. Supportive of the scene.

Easily bribed - is that a positive or a negative?

a key failing they unfortunately share w cops

https://i.imgur.com/PCXZTBs.jpg

sorry 4 size

hmm yeah maybe I have actually backed into a good idea here. Although it seems like what that would really boil down to is just less-armed and very physically strong police? A bouncer can also throw someone out of the club. What recourse does the "municipal bouncer" have if a person just continues to be physical and dangerous?

call for backup just like the police do, each time you call you get a successively larger bouncer

Each larger bouncer envelops the smaller bouncer, like russian nesting bouncers

yup, exactly like the system Cahoots uses in that link above, send in a nonviolent trained street medic team with backup if needed, take it from there

these are harbl ideas guys

/joek

Do you or somebody you know think that #AbolishThePolice is unrealistic? It might be because you haven’t taken the time to understand what it means, the reasons for it, and why it actually makes a lot of sense. [Thread]

— Bridget Eileen (@TravelingNun) June 4, 2020

This is an interesting thread on what a major strand of ‘abolish the police’ thinking means, in line with Vitale’s suggestions, proposing that it’s not about literally getting rid of all policing / hating all cops, it’s about removing functions the police should never have been handed in the first place until policing, as it exists today, is unrecognisable.

The responses broadly break down into ‘why do u hate all cops and want to get rid of all policing?’ and ‘why do u not hate all cops and want to get rid of all policing?’.

this argument could be moot if the police abdicate: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/citizen-patrols-make-statement-in-minneapolis/2020/06/06/cc1844d4-a78c-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html

There seems to be a real split on whether abolish the police actually means abolish the police or not.

This is maybe more of a #DefundThePolice train of thought but I like it:

I always had this vague idea that we could find money to provide real social services in this country if we cared, but now that I’m looking up city and county and state budgets, it is 10,000% clear that the money was always there.

— Courtney Milan 🦖 (@courtneymilan) June 7, 2020

ppl who want to abolish the police vs ppl who want to abolish the police eventually vs ppl who don't

if the former sentiment gets more popular the latter group can easily pass as those in the middle