Abolish the Police

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AlNg

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According to the following NY Times article, the police department should be abolished or at least as a start cut them in one half. “Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people.”
From the article: “When people, especially white people, consider a world without the police, they envision a society as violent as our current one, merely without law enforcement — and they shudder. As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm. People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation.”


It seems like America has big internal problems that demand attention?
 
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If you think the police are bad now, wait until it’s the national guard. FYI, I’m not “white”, I have a mixed racial background.
 
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Abolishing police and prisons won’t bring in a society of mutual aid and cooperation. We live in a fallen world. The Church recognizes the need for government. That necessitate having a police force and prisons to house those who are dangerous to society. That’s how it’s worked in every well functioning society since time immemorial. It’s also the easiest way to have a resource for resolving disputes. The anarcho-capitalists have already been all over this kind of talk and have the only semi-realistic solution, which is private law and private security forces, silly as it all is. The classical anarchist position doesn’t even rise to that level of realism.
 
AlNg said:
According to the following NY Times article, the police department should be abolished or at least as a start cut them in one half. “Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people.”
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Fewer officers means under-staffing means the ones who are left need more extreme methods to come home alive.
AlNg said:
People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation.
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I’m pretty sure this individual does not run a bar, nor a gun shop.

To say that the police ought to be abolished because “reform won’t happen” is an abdication of responsibility. It is despair.

To the “abolish the police” partisans, I say: Hey, abolish legislatures, too. Abolish governments and schools. Choose “each one for himself and the Devil take the hindmost,” if that is what you prefer, but don’t pretend that you thought that although the police committed abuses when there was no one to hold them to account that the general population will somehow magically avoid abuses when there is no one to hold them to account. Don’t pretend you thought the 300 million+ firearms in this country were going to magically evaporate. Don’t pretend that sociopaths and psychopaths wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the rule of law. Don’t pretend you had no idea what you were really choosing.
adamhovey1988 said:
If you think the police are now, wait until it’s the national guard. FYI, I’m not “white”, I have a mixed racial background.
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National Guard, nothing. It will be private posses.
They’ll make George Zimmerman look like Pee-wee Herman.
 
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In a deeply decided society like ours, where people think that anybody who believes differently than them is a hater, bigot, phobe, stupid and crazy, how are you going to make them “understand” and “cooperate” with each other?
 
If police are eliminated, who will be called in cases of domestic abuse?
 
“When people, especially white people, consider a world without the police, they envision a society as violent as our current one, merely without law enforcement — and they shudder. As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm. People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation.”
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Reality check:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1267882301444284416

Most people across racial and religious lines aren’t interested in abolishing policing.
 
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I am for reform, not abolishment. This idea is getting a bit out of hand. I’ve even heard suggestions of getting rid of security in public spaces. I do think retraining and defunding could help in some cases. not to dismantle the police but many services they do really shouldn’t be in police jurisdiction, could be addressed by other agencies, and some funding can be better spent aiding social services and institutions that can help uplift the vulnerable. City hospitals, schools, and libraries are always getting cut while police departments get more. Address some of these other gaps and crime will go down. Most people commit crime because they have no hope, are mentally ill, poorly educated, or desperate. Fix the other systems and we will need less policing… but we do still need policing.
 
catholiclala said:
retraining
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That would be a good start. I’ve seen a number of videos where some officers use more force than necessary.
catholiclala said:
defunding
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I’ve read less funding just means more stress for officers, which affects the judgement of some.
catholiclala said:
City hospitals, schools, and libraries are always getting cut while police departments get more.
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I don’t believe that’s the case. It seems everything in the US is getting cut. This thread could use some data on this.
 
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If other types of city employees are handling a lot of the issues cops are overwhelmed with it may lessen stress. It would be an experiment for sure, but heck, at this point it’s worth testing. I just talked to my father about this and he agrees. He regularly meets with active duty cops because he is in an officers’ association and many agree that they are being asked to do way more than fits within duties they should be dealing with and areas they aren’t trained in. A big one is non-violent mental health crises. Cuts are happening in many places but the fact that we have city hospitals that were using trash bags as PPE, my library system has branches without air conditioning and with roofs caving, and I can’t even begin to talk about schools, yet I see my local police with shiny new cars and the equivalent of military grade gear and I think there is an imbalance. I live in NYC to be exact.
 
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The police are unlikely to get abolished anyplace. All that happens when an area has no police is that they end up relying on the state police. State governors are unlikely to want to provide police support to jurisdictions with enough population and tax money to put their own police in place.

It is quite possible that some cities may follow the past example of Camden, NJ which for years had one of the worst crime problems in the USA and a police force corrupt beyond repair. They pretty much fired the whole police department and rebuilt it from scratch, implementing a community policing model. There are still police there though, and a police department.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The police are unlikely to get abolished anyplace. All that happens when an area has no police is that they end up relying on the state police. State governors are unlikely to want to provide police support to jurisdictions with enough population and tax money to put their own police in place.

It is quite possible that some cities may follow the past example of Camden, NJ which for years had one of the worst crime problems in the USA and a police force corrupt beyond repair. They pretty much fired the whole police department and rebuilt it from scratch, implementing a community policing model. There are still police there though, and a police department.
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Yeah, anyone thinking we can be police free is living in a utopian fantasy. I’m intrigued by these Camden reforms, I will read up on that.
 
As was said before, police are dealing with problems far beyond what they should be handling. The massive de institutionalization in mental health, developmental disabilities, juvenile justice means those populations were dumped on the police.

Beyond that there’s a lack of political support. Politicians are glued to the media, and the bulk of the media has a particular agenda that tends to reward or at least condone terrorism in the name of social reform.

I suspect that those who assaulted police during the riots will have their charges dropped or pled way down.
 
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catholiclala said:
I’m intrigued by these Camden reforms, I will read up on that.
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If you’re interested in the Community policing model, they already had implemented that in Buffalo and in most other cities where the current criticism of the current police is the harshest. Minneapolis, Atlanta, and others are post reform police departments.

There’s a break down of morality across society. The police are not exempt but most of the breakdown is elsewhere. No “cure” or reform of police will work.
 
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This is a no brainier, just do the math. Who is committing more crime, the police, or the general population? Anyone who reads their local news knows the answer to that. Yes, occasionally police do break the law, but the majority uphold the law, laws needed for a civilized society.

Who will fill the void without any police to keep order? That would be gangs. There will be a power struggle for who rules the streets and neighborhoods. There is a silent battle as it is now. Just imagine the violence, and all the other crimes related to drug sales and use. Abolish the police??? Seriously! It’s the most ignorant and absurd thing I’ve ever heard. It’s exactly what Satan wants, no authority, no law and order.
 
I wonder how most rank and file officers think about the current troubles. They must hate to see the brutality as well, if for no other reason than because it makes their own jobs much more difficult. You’d think that they would have their own internal pressure not to brutalize people, but I have no idea about the internal dynamics of the police.
 
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