Abolish the Police

love it

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/how-i-became-police-abolitionist/613540/

That's a compelling piece. I think the question I have is: why isn't the movement to fix the things that make the police necessary instead of to focus on abolishing the police? I don't need to abolish the police in my neighborhood, because they aren't a problem in my neighborhood, because my neighborhood has the resources it needs to begin with - I don't live down the street from a chemical plant, there are job opportunities for people like me, our housing isn't crumbling, we have access to groceries, etc.

I know the movement answer, because it gets repeated ad nasueum: take all the money from police budgets and fund the other stuff. But there isn't *anywhere close* to enough money in police budgets to fund all the other stuff that you would need to make the police superfluous. Even Alex Vitale acknowledges this. Police are a woefully inadequate and at times harmful means of controlling the damage from racial and class inequality, but they are not the primary cause of the racial and class inequality imo.

yeah unfortunately we gotta defund the military too

"abolish capitalism" a bit more of a stretch goal imo

why isn't the movement to fix the things that make the police necessary instead of to focus on abolishing the police? I don't need to abolish the police in my neighborhood, because they aren't a problem in my neighborhood

because police are just the society-facing side of the larger incarceration system, which is racist by design. in poor black neighborhoods, police routinely drive in and search all the young black men. it's routine - the people often just raise their arms and surrender as soon as the cops show up, because they know what's about to happen. of course you don't see it from that angle - police aren't a problem in your neighborhood

my whole point is that police aren't a problem in my neighborhood *because* my neighborhood has resources, is not poor, etc.

Because it's almost as though police don't cause poverty, they are just there to manage it

I mean, South Africa has underfunded police and high poverty. The result is that there's a booming private security industry, which is probably even less accountable than police.

it's almost like there are dozens of things that need to be abolished or at least fundamentally rethought and this is the one people are talking about because there's urgency and movement behind it specifically

is anyone proposing "abolish the police but explicitly do not change anything else"

my whole point is that police aren't a problem in my neighborhood *because* my neighborhood has resources, is not poor, etc.

and my point is that "abolish the police" is not about your neighborhood. because your neighborhood has resources, and is not poor, etc.

the daily reality for so many people is getting hassled by the police and entering the incarceration system by their early 20s, then losing their civic rights and being at a disadvantage for the rest of their lives.

it is possible to defund/abolish the police and immediately address the problems that are *caused* by the police, and simultaneously try to address the much longer-term problems of poverty (partly _caused_ by the police - not in your neighborhood, i agree, but in many other neighborhoods) at the same time

Because it's almost as though police don't cause poverty, they are just there to manage it

the whole tone of this makes it clear that you're not talking about the same police

they should really have different names. there are cops for white people and then cops for everyone else. they serve different purposes.

that's why the "national conversation" goes nowhere. people aren't even talking about the same things, and white people (generally) still don't believe in the idea of racist cops who make hassling poc a part of their daily routine

'abolishing the police wouldn't fix the things that make the police necessary, the money from the police wouldn't be enough to fix the things that the police make necessary, therefore…'

man alive, what do you think the conclusion to your argument is?

"abolish capitalism" a bit more of a stretch goal imo

defund capitalism

my man

Also, while police are not the root or primary cause of poverty, the carceral system they belong to--including bail, asset seizures, the inescapable cascading of fines, prisoners being paid pennies, and as Karl noted incarceration's lifelong negative effects on employment--does cause or at least maintain poverty for many individuals

'abolishing the police wouldn't fix the things that make the police necessary, the money from the police wouldn't be enough to fix the things that the police make necessary, therefore…'

man alive, what do you think the conclusion to your argument is?

― j., Monday, 6 July 2020 17:31 (ten minutes ago) link

That the priority should be to fund the things that make the police less necessary, which also happen to be politically popular, rather than focusing on abolishing the police, which is politically unpopular and will not address the underlying problems that police are there to brutally and hamfistedly try to manage (fwiw I 100% agree with rob -- but those things are addressed by ending bail, ending asset seizures, ending cascading fines, ending prisoners being paid pennies, and reducing incarceration, none of which actually require *abolishing* the police).

strenuous advocacy for unpopular things both makes them more popular over time and provides cover for more popular things to happen, also the police should be abolished.

We're just posting after all, not prioritizing. Let bureaucrats and legislatures prioritize.

that's why the "national conversation" goes nowhere. people aren't even talking about the same things, and white people (generally) still don't believe in the idea of racist cops who make hassling poc a part of their daily routine

― time is running out to pitch in $5 (Karl Malone), Monday, July 6, 2020 1:24 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

re: the latter -- evidence suggests a lot more of them do now!

yep! hopefully that will continue. but still, i think when white people think of police the dominant narrative is still a norman rockwell painting version

man alive, what about all of the problems that police CAUSE? and by “problems” i mean murder and life-altering harrassment? do we just need to wait on that until we get to the other things on your list?

the police in well-off neighborhoods are not different people. they just happen to have their posts there. they aren't a problem for the residents, or the people they perceive to be residents, but they are a problem for "outsiders" because they are meant to keep those people out. they do plenty of bad stuff when you aren't looking.

For whatever it is that replaces the police, I prefer the name Meatspace Moderators to Community Care Workers.

man alive's Municipal Bouncers is still one of my favorite ideas

regarding high schools, this is an interesting short read: the perspective of a student on going to a school full of police, metal detectors, and further security/control/surveillance protocols. not a substitute for reading up on the school-to-prison pipeline etc., but valuable IMO.

There are maybe 30 School Safety Agents in the campus, for about 1,000 students. In the middle of periods, when people are switching, all you hear is, “Go to class, go to class, go to class.” You go through the scan, and it’s like, “Take your belt off, take your keys out your pocket.” This is what I had to experience when I went to visit my cousin in jail. I shouldn’t be experiencing this here. It’s just a very prison-like feeling when you’re in school.

I’m the community engagement organizer here at the Rockaway Youth Task Force. Last week I was putting up flyers around school for a meeting on Monday. I got permission, and scissors and tape from my assistant principal because she saw the flyers, she knew I was going to put them up. Next thing I know the School Safety Agent just starts yelling, “Where did you get those scissors from? Give me those scissors.” And I’m like, “Seriously? You’re seeing me use them.” He’s like, “You need to give them to me.” I’m like, “No, I’m not even halfway done, you’re not going to take them.” And he’s like, “Who gave them to you? Who gave them to you? Oh, you shouldn’t have those, you shouldn’t be carrying them like that. Put them into your bag, I don’t want to see them.”

I didn’t want to go back into the classroom yet because I knew this was going to end badly and I wanted to be a witness. I was fine. I was safe. No one was touching me, they were just fighting with each other. Another boy escaped and started fighting someone else and that’s when my Assistant Principal and Dean — who are both white males, who don’t live in this community — were like, “OK, you know what. I’m tired of this. Call the precinct. They’re getting arrested.” At that point, my teacher literally dragged me into the class. I remember hearing my Assistant Principal say, “Anyone who’s still out here, you’re going to get arrested too.” I started just ranting, “Had this been CJ and Mike,” the two white kids in my class, “they would have just been put in separate rooms. But because it’s them, 30 seconds later there’s five cops walking down, holding their guns, ready to cuff them.” That’s institutional racism, that shouldn’t be happening in our school. You shouldn’t be arrested, you shouldn’t be seeing police. You shouldn’t go through metal detectors when you’re in school, which is an environment where you’re supposed to learn and feel safe and supported.

thanks for that, passing on to my partner who works in a somewhat more sane but still empty charter school

during a peaceful protest in LA this week the LAPD knocked a disabled man out of his wheelchair, and then they broke it. there is absolutely no excuse for this - it’s disgusting.
who exactly are they protecting & serving???
DEFUND THE POLICE @MayorOfLA @GavinNewsom @KTLAnewsdesk pic.twitter.com/XYyAS5PmAd

— AK (@allykerans) July 16, 2020

abolish the police means abolish the state

Read this. Department of Homeland Security is refusing to take federal officers out of Portland and is essentially calling local officials cowards for not cracking down harder on protesters.

In the statement they use the term “anarchists” over 65 times.https://t.co/hYMzsXyG5N

— Rabbit (@skittishprey) July 16, 2020

Great piece on violence and how public opinion changes, among other things. This section is on police defund.

To play insurrectionist’s advocate: The protests weren’t entirely nonviolent. And one could argue that, had there not been rioting in Minneapolis, there would have been less media attention and thus, fewer nonviolent protests. So how do we know that the nonviolent protests were the source of the movement’s political efficacy? And why didn’t the violence at the fringes of those protests activate the public’s concerns about crime?

I want to caution against turning this into physics. There’s only so much we can understand about the dynamics of these events. But if you wanted to be purely utilitarian, and set aside the morality concerns, I think you can tell a story about how the initial wave of violence triggered media coverage, or got the police or security forces really primed to use violence against nonviolent protesters, and without that happening, it wouldn’t have exploded as much as it did. It’s hard to know. I can’t really evaluate that counterfactual.

But there’s always a mix of violent and nonviolent protest; or, there’s always some violence that occurs at nonviolent protests. And it’s not a situation where a drop of violence spoils everything and turns everybody into fascists. The research isn’t consistent with that. It’s more about the proportions. Because the mechanism here is that when violence is happening, people become afraid. They fear for their safety, and then they crave order. And order is a winning issue for conservatives here and everywhere around the world. The basic political argument since the French Revolution has been the left saying, “Let’s make things more fair,” and the right saying, “If we do that, it will lead to chaos and threaten your family.”

But when you have nonviolent protests that goad security forces into using excessive force against unarmed people — preferably while people are watching — then order gets discredited, and people experience this visceral sense of unfairness. And you can change public opinion. And if you look at the [George Floyd] protests, there was some violence in the first two or three days. But then that largely subsided, and was followed by very high-profile incidents of the state using violence against innocent people.

And, you know, the real inflection point in our polling was the Lafayette Park incident, when Trump used tear gas on innocent people. That’s when support for Biden shot up and it’s been pretty steady since then.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/david-shor-cancel-culture-2020-election-theory-polls.html

Glad Democrats pushed so hard for a “Department if Homeland Security” so that we now have a Federal secret police on the streets cool cool.

And, you know, the real inflection point in our polling was the Lafayette Park incident,

I'm sure this is largely true, but #bunkerboy was what, two days earlier? The White House with all the lights out, and Trump testily estimating exactly how long he'd been down in the White House bunker. It was incredibly reminiscent of the 'GWB peers down at Katrina from Air Force 1' moment - a crystalization of weakness and fright in one image that GWB never recovered from. I feel like Lafayette Square was possibly - probably? - an attempt to wrest back the narrative of strong leadership that he could already feel slipping away.

Glad Democrats pushed so hard for a “Department if Homeland Security”

It was a Republican proposal from the first and they were all on board. All the Dems had to do was contribute enough votes to acquiesce to it, which votes were easy enough to find in the immediate post-9/11 period.

Not quite the right thread, but this story speaks to so much of why abolition seems like the sanest response to the irredeemably racist & ableist carceral regime, ruled over by cruelly punitive bigots who adhere to 19th-c. moral psychology ("incorrigibility" as an official term ffs). Every detail is enraging: https://www.propublica.org/article/a-teenager-didnt-do-her-online-schoolwork-so-a-judge-sent-her-to-juvenile-detention

Why do now, what can you promise to do a year from now and then hope people forget what you had promised a year ago... https://t.co/fVonuLX44t

— Jeffrey St. Clair (@JSCCounterPunch) July 19, 2020

maybe they'd rather do it when there's a possibility for a democratic senate + president or is that too obvious

And maybe that possibility (because it is most certainly in no way a guarantee right now) would be greater if they'd get off their asses and start working on it now, while their constituents are being shot, beaten, tear gassed, and kidnapped in unmarked vehicles nationwide, desperate for any modicum of support politically, legislative, or otherwise?? Or is that too obvious? It's not like they've ever passed any serious legislation that's made any actual headway into honestly "reforming" the police in the history of their party, regardless of past control of the house/senate/presidency.

And besides, if they're going to indefinitely waffle around and put off any attempts at simply mere police "reform" (which we know is a fruitless and misguided endeavor to begin with)... then they're never going to get to the conversation and position they should already be at, which is outright defunding and abolition.

or is that too obvious

yeah so obvious i factored that in, Harpo, along w/ Dem leadership being shitburgers

Good profile, which was linked on the I may destroy you thread, and relevant to Abolish args.

https://www.thecut.com/2020/08/sarah-schulman-conflict-is-not-abuse.html

Interesting article. The case that book seems to be making seems strange to me, though

I'm intrigued as to how many schools in teh UK have a police presence. It surprised me when i heard taht Scotland had an equivalent to the SRO pretty widespread in its school system. & that came in as part of what was supposed to be a more widespread attempt to redress teh balance of poverty in the schools but appears to have been easiest to add a function to an existing force than to do anything more direction of fit, fit to purpose.

So is there a police officer in a similar role elsewhere in the UK.

the premise of the book seems pretty straightforward to me

I tuned out during the victim-blaming

have you never been a victim and lashed out in ways you wish you hadn't or would ha be e handled differently in retrospect

maybe not the thread for this subject tho

That is hideous, unreadable, and presumably all wrong https://t.co/YOivOzrknM

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) August 4, 2020