Abolish the Police

it was definitely part of The Discourse preivously

What is the #abolishthepolice case against the Camden model?

i don’t support abolishing or fully defunding. im not sure what would even entail, and it obviously won’t happen, so it seems like a distraction to argue about it. saw a thread on twitter with someone responding to the good question “what about rapists?” and they said that when the cops put a rapist father in jail the kids grow up without a father. that doesn’t seem like a satisfying rebuttal, and the rest of the thread was similar whataboutery.

i feel like “abolish“ is the overton window shifting signal for “radically circumscribe police as currently designed”, which i do support, and that’s what ive spent most of my energy arguing for. the one “real” encounter i had with the cops was when we called 911 after my roommate got roofied and OD’d; they came in and beat the shit out of him (he was spastic and totally unaware of what was happening) then they beat the shit out of his girlfriend for freaking out at them while they beat her partner, and then arrested her and now she has a criminal record. it was a confusing and terrible situation but i feel like as a society someone else should have been the first responder to that kind of call. reading social media the last 2 weeks, it seems that everyone has stories like this.

the number and function of cops seems like it’s chosen by an unholy alliance between real estate developers, business groups and police unions, all of whom have selfish reasons for wanting police depts to be inefficiently large and powerful. and of course police unions want cops to be unaccountable, which the other 2 are happy to oblige. i hope this moment creates a countervailing popular movement that can permanently change the political economy and create some democratic accountability and smaller police depts

What is the #abolishthepolice case against the Camden model?

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, June 8, 2020 9:56 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

just that they didn’t abolish the police. they disbanded, immediately reinstated, and then hired many more cops

flopson, I know, I mean what is the critique of the tear down/rebuild differently approach in Camden - obviously you can find plenty of people claiming it "worked." Are there good critiques of it out there?

o Left, ye idiot still speaketh

saw a thread on twitter with someone responding to the good question “what about rapists?” and they said that when the cops put a rapist father in jail the kids grow up without a father.

You probably should have looked for the responses to that from women talking about how police ignored, harassed or blamed them for their sexual assault instead of that dipshit.

the people i know who are most interested in restorative justice are also victims' advocates who have had to deal most with the shortcomings of the criminal justice system when it handles sex crimes and domestic abuse

xp actually "what about rapists" is not a good question see lost rape kit links upthread

mostly agree with yr last 2 paras tho, yes it is an Overton Window slogan but also legit orgs have been working for this for years

morbs still reactionary creep

i'm a weirdo

xp - You should meet him sometime before you assign him a label and dismiss him.

You probably should have looked for the responses to that from women talking about how police ignored, harassed or blamed them for their sexual assault instead of that dipshit.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Monday, June 8, 2020 10:14 PM (forty-two seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

this was the thread:

For people who ask "what about the rapists?" during abolition conversations:

— Wagatwe Wanjuki 🇰🇪 🇧🇸 (@wagatwe) June 8, 2020

i don’t think the person who wrote it is a dipshit. it’s a decent attempt to answer a hard question, it just didn’t convince me. cops ignore and blame women for sexual assault, but they also do put some rapists in jail. imo they put too few in jail; i don’t know the source but the stat you often see is 0.5%. depressingly low but higher than 0 which is what it would be under abolition. a good friend of mine is very happy that her rapist is in jail. it’s hard to say whether or how an alternative system without a state monopoly on violence would be able to deliver her that peace of mind

changing how sexual assault is dealt with should be part of “radically circumscribing police” but i’m not yet convinced that switching to largely untested restorative justice and community based methods is the way to go

imo these debates are kind of troll-ey word games and largely besides the point

Was it Kierkegaard or Dick Van Patten who said, "If you label me, you negate me?"

Either/Or is Enough

i don’t think the person who wrote it is a dipshit.

Even under the most radical non-incarceral abolish prisons and police worldview, "rapists need to be able to raise their kids" isn't in the top 1000 reasons for that worldview

depressingly low but higher than 0 which is what it would be under abolition

this is just simply not true, c'mon dude

abolishing the police still leaves social workers, medical system, legal system, all kinds of accountability

ya it’s a bad point. her broader argument is basically that the “multiplier” from jailing a rapist is bigger than 1. jailing a rapist begets more rape through perpetuating a cycle of trauma and violence.

that was xp to milo

# of better slogans proposed so far: 0

flopson do you simply not believe in restorative justice? is that the disconnect here? is jail the only blunt instrument in your imagination?

Abolish the United States

depressingly low but higher than 0 which is what it would be under abolition

this is just simply not true, c'mon dude

abolishing the police still leaves social workers, medical system, legal system, all kinds of accountability

― sleeve, Monday, June 8, 2020 10:42 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is what i mean about word games though. abolish the police but rapists still get put in jail... so under the counterfactual social workers put rapists in prison? (prison still exists?) im fine with that, but it’s just a relabeling

see my jail comment above

pretty fucking rich for a dude who's concern trolling about rapists to be talking about word games

I personally support the use of cybernetic panopticon control systems to enforce the behavior of antisocial elements

We’ll build a humongous mainframe under the Sierra Nevada and staff it with 2 million people.

flopson do you simply not believe in restorative justice? is that the disconnect here? is jail the only blunt instrument in your imagination?

― sleeve, Monday, June 8, 2020 10:44 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

i definitely find RJ insufficient in terms of deterrence or retribution. i certainly wished a fate worse than RJ on the rapists i’ve known

pretty fucking rich for a dude who's concern trolling about rapists to be talking about word games

― sleeve, Monday, June 8, 2020 10:47 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

what would the social workers and legal people do to enforce accountability though? RJ doesn’t seem sufficient to me. you think it would be sufficient in all cases? what if someone repeatedly reoffends? isn’t there some jail-like final level of RJ that would eventually be reached for someone bad enough? it seems inevitable to me

restorative justice in NYC schools' track record is a bit unclear so far. I noted above my wife's experience that sometimes it works but sometimes there are just kids who don't respond to it and keep doing what they were doing. One of the "success" metrics often cited is a bit circular -- that it reduces suspensions (obviously if you change suspension policy to allow for fewer suspensions, it's going to reduce suspensions). NYC Principals have complained that student safety worsened with these policy changes (increased restorative justice and reduced suspensions), albeit they say they also support moving away from zero tolerance policies https://thechiefleader.com/news/news_of_the_week/csa-tells-carranza-of-members-fears-on-school-discipline/article_a0779eb4-33bb-11ea-b697-734ce0ec56e5.html and also complain that their staffs weren't given sufficient training in restorative practices (so I suppose you could argue that better training might create better outcomes?).

i agree were trolling and am happy to end the convo here but imo that’s wired into how discussions about ‘abolish the police’ unfold. there’s an unspoken acknowledgment that there is some counterfactual good alternative that everyone agrees upon. but that’s not true. we even agreed that it’s a “shift the overton window” signal slogan, yet we disagree on how literally to take certain parts of it. most abolitionists will describe what ultimately amount to reforms when pressed, “abolish” is a way to coordinate the movement without resolving all the debates and without conceding anything. it makes sense, is probably even smart strategically, but it still is a word game imo

(xp to sleeve)

I don’t think retribution (as I understand the word) should be a “thing” when it comes to making laws and shit... but I’m open to being wrong.

more on restorative practices: https://hechingerreport.org/the-promise-of-restorative-justice-starts-to-falter-under-rigorous-research/

multiple xp- i'm not trying to ingratiate myself with this community so i don't need to be nice to certain beloved regulars who i find gross

prob not worth me trying to be serious bc i seem to come off trolly here the more i try. but way too much confusion comes from treating all these oppressive systems/relations/apparatuses as discrete things that can be manipulated separately. if we're not abolishing patriarchy and white supremacy ("too") then what's the point

not a fan of a lot of versions of RJ in theory or implementation. my preferred solutions are also v problematic. none of that means we must perpetuate system of locking ppl in cages. and whoever is seizing on some random twitter post as representative of the anti-prison/anti-police position is just not being serious

i guess what i meant by retribution was keeping the person away from their victims and other potential victims. i don’t care about like, their salvation or wtv

xps brimstead

ah gotcha

xp staff buy-in and training is huge for school-based RJ. there are a bunch of teachers/counselors/admins i know who would get it in a second, and there are a bunch who are basically cops who'd look for ways to circumvent RJ to use punitive measures. or, if theyre stifled there, theyd not carry out RJ in any meaningful way.

i think relationship building is essential to making this kind of thing work which is why abolitionists stress community-based responses. it can sound like a dodge, like we're proposing this as a panacea to avoid answering to the extreme cases (which policing and incarceration generally do a bad job of addressing but have existing institutions in place to handle them so ppl feel more comfortable with it). but this is precisely why abolitionism is necessary, not just as rhetorical flourish, but as a fundamentally different way of organizing society based on an ethic of mutual care and not on domination. it is dedicating funds and creating work to build up our collective capacity to care for one another which is antithetical to the policing and carceral model.

lol man alive, i hadnt read the hechinger report article before i posted just now, but that hints at a lot of what i was saying. education is full of trends that come and go, so a lot of teachers are liable to tune the latest thing out. the subhed of that article is telling: "...trendy alternative to traditional discipline"

ok not to derail just to talk about my pet issue, but whatever

i rly hate how every educational policy is framed by its effects on standardized tests. like, RJ is worthwhile if kids fucking feel better afterwards and have ways of handling conflicts healthily in the future regardless if it helps their math skills!!!!! theres a huge missing gap of qualitative data that i'd want to know more abt here, but instead its easy but noisy shit like suspension rates and test scores, fuck.

and theyre reducing everything down to "dont punish, and get fighting kids to talk in a circle" which is reductive as all hell, i hate this shit.

I don't understand the conceptual separation of police & state at all tbh

― 1312 (Left), Tuesday, June 9, 2020 1:35 AM (two hours ago)

the police are an institution that can be legally defunded, reduced, or even abolished through democratic means. abolishing the state means abolishing, among other things, civil rights laws (along with workers' protection, food safety regulations, and about a million other good things). it's fine if anarchists want to make "abolish the state" their personal goal but it is not something that the overwhelming majority of americans want, and ppl who insist that we can't focus on ending one bad institution without tearing it all down are not really being helpful.

xp Working in a school for the first time this year... I don't see why any school wouldn't try RJ. We've all seen it - the same kids get into trouble again and again and punishment doesn't act as a deterrent of any kind. It's often emotional disturbance, psychological or home issues. I know one or two teachers who might be tiffed that they won't be able to "properly discipline" kids, but usually those are those the ones who are toxic and barely able to keep control. The teachers that communicate compassionately seem to be more successful, in my experience - but I'm also in a very young school, elementary level.

It is important to notice that whatever the next steps taken to improve justice and security in all segments of society, we will be taking those steps within the damaged, imbalanced, often ignorant and angry, selfish grasping society that exists out there right now. Even if we were to tear down all our present institutions to bare rock and start to rebuild, it would not be rebuilding from scratch, because the people doing the rebuilding would be the very same people who inhabit this society this minute, and they will be just as damaged, privileged, often ignorant and angry, selfish and grasping as they are today.

There are limits to what one can do immediately with such materials to work with. It shouldn't stop us from trying to move as rapidly as possible in a better direction, but do not expect miracles to fall gently out of the sky.

the hope would be different relations might do more towards healing from damage inflicted by current system than perpetuating that system would, not expecting miracles

the police are an institution that can be legally defunded, reduced, or even abolished through democratic means. abolishing the state means abolishing, among other things, civil rights laws (along with workers' protection, food safety regulations, and about a million other good things). it's fine if anarchists want to make "abolish the state" their personal goal but it is not something that the overwhelming majority of americans want, and ppl who insist that we can't focus on ending one bad institution without tearing it all down are not really being helpful.

wrt specific genocidal settler state idc what majority of its residents think, fuck democracy

if the consensus definition of this slogan becomes "abolish specific police forces within specific borders, distribute their functions between other agencies not officially called police" then fuck everything

but I'm also in a very young school, elementary level. um, well yeah, that's kind of the whole thing. This is way, way less of an issue at the elementary school level, much moreso at the middle and high school level.

I think when we talk about what "works" we also have to ask what "works" means. There are times when unfortunately a school does not have *any* sufficiently effective tools at its disposal to help a persistently violent kid stop being violent, but it still has a responsibility to protect other students, teachers, staff etc.

wrt specific genocidal settler state idc what majority of its residents think, fuck democracy

― 1312 (Left), Tuesday, June 9, 2020 4:31 AM (eight minutes ago)

curious how you would change the status quo if not through democratic means (however defined), but maybe i don't want to know

idk you can call strikes, riots, appropriation of resources democratic if you want

through three men sack races