Abolish the Police

Legalization of drugs is the secret sauce complementary policy that unlocks massive amount of defunding of police

an other one that’s more low hanging fruit is to make a ‘traffic patrol’ who give people speeding tickets but don’t have guns and can’t search your car or do anything else

the answer to "what about..." is destruction of capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, etc.

that's not a dodge, the point is to destroy as much as possible the conditions that turn people into rapists and murderers, of which cops and prisons are a major part of worldwide. it's hard to imagine at the moment from within, it feels almost impossible but I know how stifled my imagination is

tbh my preferred solution would be to shoot them but I know that's dodgy and based more on feelings than anything else. still the notion that we need pigs to keep people in cages because some of them are dangerous, that the state is necessary because it kills and imprisons bad guys sometimes as well as loads of good people is way more horrific to me

I could ask the defenders of the state "what about murderers/rapists/serial killers...?" why do they exist? some of them are presidents, cops, CEOs, popular celebrities... so why are they not being taken care of?

I want to despair when people talk about how different carceral institutions will deal with things in the absence of police. fuck them all

I mean, I guess "just shoot them" is closer to an answer than I've seen (one I hate, but that is also dodgy and based more on feelings), but even then: who does the shooting?

there was an article in N+1 several years ago that argued that the movement to abolish the death penalty was a waste of time, and that the real goal to pursue was abolishing prisons -- which, the article contended, could best be achieved by simply executing every murderer. i found this ridiculous and kind of horrifying but i guess it has a certain logic to it.

i guess it has a certain logic to it.

First objection: in reality there is a marked difference between "every murderer" and "everyone convicted of murder". Innocent people can be and are convicted of murder.

Second objection: in reality the law recognizes many kinds of murder, including first degree, second degree, manslaughter, and negligent homicide. Where is the cut off point to be drawn among these? And if some lead to automatic execution, while others do not, won't this lead to even more egregious abuses of prosecutorial power when determining the charges that will be pursued, especially racial disparities?

Sometimes logic supplies really stupid conclusions.

i'm guessing that ppl who want to throw out the entire judicial system are not terribly concerned about the nuances of what happens afterward. tbh i've always been skeptical of the prison abolition arguments because i suspect that they inevitably lead toward conclusions like "just shoot them all."

I mean I am one of those mythical nonexistent people who wants to repeal the second amendment and get rid of everyone's guns, so I'm not sure I'm the best person to argue here

I'm sorry but the number of lives saved each year by abolishing police so grossly outnumbers the lives that would be lost if school personnel couldn't call militarily armed police on school age children that it renders this point infuriating.

180 lb 17 year old = “school age child”.

ikr superpredators

Jesus fucking Christ guys. I am talking about actual situations my wife has been in where she has been in danger and her colleagues have been seriously injured. But keep it up with the cool guy radical twitter rhetoric so you don’t have to face reality.

It’s not going to matter anyway because six months from now everything in NYC including police, schools and social services are all going to be facing severe budget cuts. There isn’t going to be money to take from the police and put into other things.

We can at least make sure the police get as many cuts as our schools do, if not more.

Police will be the only thing to take money from.

who does the shooting?

the workers

seriously though I know it's a bad solution and possible recipe for new proto cop forms of organisation. I don't have a better idea, some people probably do. otoh I don't think we need to have this all figured out theoretically, I don't know if we even can under current conditions

cool guy radical twitter rhetoric so you don’t have to face reality

why specifically have these radical demands (which are not new and certainly not a product of twitter) become amplified now, to the extent that people are arguing about it on a half-dead liberal music forum? who is responsible for making this conversation (such as it is) possible? not whatever hip stereotype you're trying to imply. have you tried facing reality lately it's terrifying, people who have been forced to face reality for too long have had enough

*looks at the vast numbers on people out protesting for days* wow I didn't rad twitter was the real world.

Love how some people here can't wait for things to get back to a normal of budget cuts, voting for a half dead candidate, etc.

oh I see you want trump to win too

Is he the one legalizing drugs? I hear that's the easiest way to cut a police budget.

"The idea that residents and local organizations can play a central role in creating safe and strong communities is not new, and it is not particularly controversial. And yet we have never made the same commitment to these groups that we make to law enforcement..." https://t.co/VLPifIrSp1

— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) June 14, 2020

people are arguing about it on a half-dead liberal music forum

CETERUM AUTEM CENSEO ILXINEM ESSE DELENDAM

How is relying on community organizations any different than libertarian wet dreams/vigilante justice/racist neighborhood watches, etc? (note: article is paywalled so I didn't read it). I mean isn't "communities being responsible for safety" why Ahmaud Arbery is dead?

buddy just start a “don’t abolish the police” thread and sort your feelings out there

isn't this the thread where it was meant to be debated?

idk the thread title is pretty unambiguously not a question

I mean I'm fine starting another thread if you just want this to be the left fantasy league police-free autonomous zone thread. ITT, consider the police abolished. You will never have to convince anyone, America agrees with you.

ignore the trolls

So is this good or bad?

https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-police-will-no-longer-respond-non-criminal-calls-2020-6

xxpost given your evident disinterest in engaging with the substance of counterrarguments to your endlessly reworked "180-pound 17-year-old" scenario, reading anything about the subject, or otherwise demonstrating a good faith engagement with the issues at stake, i'm not sure who here is living in a fantasy world and not trying to convince anyone.

idk the thread title is pretty unambiguously not a question

― methinks dababy doth bop shit too much (m bison), Sunday, June 14, 2020 11:35 AM bookmarkflaglink

since when do we allow police threads to only allow posts in support of the thread topic

oh no am...am i the police?????

nah but dr casino said it

man alive is completely right that there will still be scenarios where force is needed. And you guys jumping all over him when he asks a good-faith question about how it might work when cops have been “abolished” is completely fair. My wife worked in an elementary school and had a kid pull a knife in her, and THAT was scary (but not so scary that it required a cop). There are legitimate questions about violent high school kids to be asked. Sure, the “answer” could be “dismantle capitalism” (btw I love this answer!), but barring that, there is a constant flow of traumatized kids coming into schools that isn’t going to magically go away after they’ve had a restorative justice session or two.

It sucks that it seems like even gentle disagreements or questions about this concept are met with a wish to just completely shut down the conversation by some of you.

Is completely unfair

What I don’t understand is why man alive is unable to imagine a service of rapid response tough guys who are not The Cops

"(but not so scary that it required a cop)" xp

Cops are (forgive me) pussies btw they shoot anything vaguely threatening

xxpost given your evident disinterest in engaging with the substance of counterrarguments to your endlessly reworked "180-pound 17-year-old" scenario, reading anything about the subject, or otherwise demonstrating a good faith engagement with the issues at stake, i'm not sure who here is living in a fantasy world and not trying to convince anyone.

― Doctor Casino, Sunday, June 14, 2020 10:42 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm reading The End of Policing. I feel like no one wants to engage with the substance of my counterarguments though -- the answer always seems to be magical thinking along the lines of "Well we'll just address the underlying problem and there won't be violence anymore," or else "we'll just have other people do that who aren't police (but I guess are armed and otherwise have the same training as police but better?)?" Like in practice the "people who aren't police" who handle these situations are usually shitty rent-a-cops who are worse than police, so I'm just trying to understand what that actually looks like. And will they be non-union? And how will they not effectively just wind up being the same as police?

Oh you want an ARMED tough guy to tackle a teenager ffs you didn’t specify!!

I had no idea this scenario requires pointing a gun at a child

Maybe when Capitalism is dismantled we won't be required to work for rent, or even go to school as it is or take an exam anymore let me have me this dream!

https://www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21289495/trump-fox-news-chokehold-lincoln

On Friday, Fox News released an interview with President Trump by journalist Harris Faulkner. The interview was a disaster, a case study in why Donald Trump is not and cannot be the person to handle this moment in time.

When asked about police use of chokeholds on suspects like George Floyd, who was killed after a Minneapolis officer pinned him by the neck with his knee for nearly nine minutes, Trump initially told Faulkner, “I don’t like chokeholds,” even saying that “generally speaking, they should be ended.” But he contradicted that pretty quickly, saying when you’ve got someone who is “a real bad person ... what are you gonna do now — let go?”

He even went further, saying that “the concept of chokehold sounds so innocent, so perfect,” if a lone police officer is attempting to detain someone.

His position, as far as I can tell, seems to be that maybe sometimes individual officers need to use chokeholds,

man alive's position

just delurking momentarily to say that as a high school teacher who works in 100% low income school that is 99% students of color these anecdotes about violent kids sound completely absurd to me. we don't have cops on campus and we've never had a fight in the five years i've been there. we've called the cops a few times on kids that were dealing drugs at school but that didn't require anyone armed, just someone legally empowered to grab and hold on to drugs.

you want to protect your helpless white women from 180 lb 17 y.o. teenage superpredators? try making a school that isn't like a prison, try building a strong school culture. that's what restorative justice is for. in the meantime i'm a lot more worried about teenagers of color being victims of over-reactive state violence than teachers getting hurt.

also if an elementary school student feels the need to draw a knife on you maybe it is because you are a scary person who shouldn't be allowed near children?

i know that sounds absurd but so does an elementary school child threatening someone with a knife

yeah that sounds dumb as shit sorry

Blessings upon you, tlg. For the work you do all the time.

the school is all the things you are saying and more, violence still happens

full disclosure - i actually had a sheriff take a student who took a swing at me out of my classroom in my second year of teaching. you know whose fault it was? mine. because i was improperly trained and had no idea how to deescalate a bad situation. this is a deep source of shame i carry around with me, and it's why i have no sympathy for poorly-trained, insensitive teachers who feel threatened by their students.