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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNo, I do not think we need to "reform" the police . . .
No, I do not think we need to "reform" the police. Allow me to explain.
To speak of policing reform is to suggest that we can address the problem of systemic racism in American policing through a combination of efforts to address the individual racism of some officers, to change certain police methods or tactics, and requiring a few more racial sensitivity workshops. But these efforts have all been tried repeatedly over the years, and none of them have resulted in any significant or lasting changes.
That is because, I believe, the focus of those efforts fails to address the real locus of the problem. The problem lies not with the racism and bigotry of individual officers, although that certainly exists and should be addressed wherever it is found; the real source of the problem is to be found in the history of American policing and the real purpose behind the existence of domestic police forces, both then and now.
Domestic police forces were not founded as part of some effort to fight crime in general, nor were they founded to keep the American public safe from from violent criminals. They were founded, in both the North and the South, as a means of protecting the financial interests of the wealthy from the discontent of those whose labor the wealthy exploited in order to create and maintain their wealth. In the South, police forces originated with slave patrols -- forces that rounded up fugitive slaves and returned them to their owners (to face whatever consequences their owners decided to mete out). In the North police were founded primarily as publicly-financed strike-breaking forces intended for the purpose of quelling labor unrest. Whether they were capturing and returning fugitive slaves or breaking the strikes of workers protesting the conditions in which they were forced to work, police were effectively engaged in the same activity, which was to protect the investments of the very wealthy, be they slave owners or industrialists. And although the role of police has expanded over the years, I submit that its original purpose remains thoroughly intact, and is as operative today as t was n the late 19th C. It is no accident of circumstance that at a time when all other public-sector unions are under assault from the right and have been weakened to the point of ineffectiveness, the police unions have remained as strong and influential as ever.
Once you understand the history of policing in America, you begin to realize that the actions by police that so many have been horrified by in recent weeks are not aberrations, but are, in fact, examples of police doing exactly what they were created to do. And that's the problem.
So, no, I do not think we need to "reform" the police. I think we need to completely rethink the role police play in our society, and then dismantle and rebuild it from the ground up, with an eye towards making policing a service that protects the interests of ALL Americans.
Response to markpkessinger (Original post)
Mosby This message was self-deleted by its author.
Voltaire2
(13,008 posts)is and always has been.
But it still isn't obvious to many people. Even after watching a month of police riots suppressing people's right to free speech and assembly, even after one horrendous murder-cop video after another, a lot of people think the function of the police is to 'protect and serve' them, when of course as you note it is to protect and serve the wealthy elites who have run this country since its founding.
markpkessinger
(8,392 posts)Vitale writes:
The police exist to keep us safe, or so we are told by mainstream media and popular culture. TV shows exaggerate the amount of serious crime and the nature of what most police officers actually do all day. Crime control is a small part of policing, and it always has been. Felony arrests of any kind are a rarity for uniformed officers, with most making no more than one a year. When a patrol officer actually apprehends a violent criminal in the act, it is a major moment in their career. The bulk of police officers work in patrol. They take reports, engage in random patrol, address parking and driving violations and noise complaints, issue tickets, and make misdemeanor arrests for drinking in public, possession of small amounts of drugs, or the vague disorderly conduct. Officers Ive shadowed on patrol describe their days as 99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terrorand even that 1 percent is a bit of an exaggeration for most officers.
[. . . .]
It is largely a liberal fantasy that the police exist to protect us from the bad guys. As the veteran police scholar David Bayley argues, The police do not prevent crime. This is one of the best kept secrets of modern life. Experts know it, the police know it, but the public does not know it. Yet the police pretend that they are societys best defense against crime and continually argue that if they are given more resources, especially personnel, they will be able to protect communities against crime. This is a myth.1 Bayley goes on to point out that there is no correlation between the number of police and crime rates. Liberals think of the police as the legitimate mechanism for using force in the interests of the whole society. For them, the state, through elections and other democratic processes, represents the general will of society as well as any system could; those who act against those interests, therefore, should face the police. The police must maintain their public legitimacy by acting in a way that the public respects and is in keeping with the rule of law. For liberals, police reform is always a question of taking steps to restore that legitimacy. That is what separates the police of a liberal democracy from those of a dictatorship.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,323 posts)brooklynite
(94,499 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,323 posts)markpkessinger
(8,392 posts)brooklynite
(94,499 posts)What you're basically saying is that police protection is in place to support capitalism. Well, we're not getting rid of capitalism, and I doubt that any Democratic official (President, Governor, Mayor) are going to "completely rethink" policing along the principles you are suggesting.
markpkessinger
(8,392 posts). . . then our priorities are seriously fucked up!
brooklynite
(94,499 posts)We can reform what we have within the reality framework we have, or we can envision fantasies and achieve nothing.
markpkessinger
(8,392 posts). . . that those who fought for the right of women to vote, or participated in the Civil Rights movement, or who protested the oppression and inequality of LGBTQ folks, weren't limited to thinking they could "reform what we have within the reality framework we have, or we can envision fantasies and achieve nothing."
brooklynite
(94,499 posts)markpkessinger
(8,392 posts)In fact, they didn't exist until Boston instituted one in 1838. There is no reason they can't be restructured.
markpkessinger
(8,392 posts). . . our cynicism concerning what is possible to prevent us from fighting for what is right.
quakerboy
(13,919 posts)or we can get nothing.
And then people wonder why some folk want to just burn it all down.
brooklynite
(94,499 posts)...or is achieving something not the point?
quakerboy
(13,919 posts)Fortunately I am seeing the defund/abolish plan starting to be implemented, usually slower and more peacemeal than I'd like.
Be a lot easier if people would get on board rather than just throwing their hands up and saying nothing can be done about it though.
brooklynite
(94,499 posts)Sounds like
quakerboy
(13,919 posts)Being a democrat, even the next president, doesnt mean you get every thing correct every time. Hopefully at some point he will listen to the voters and come on board, or at least step out of the way.
Towlie
(5,324 posts)It resembles an advertising slogan, deliberately kept ambiguous to allow room for readers to assume something not actually stated.
When I was a child in elementary school a uniformed cop was brought into our classroom and we were taught that if we were lost or in trouble and needed help we could trust and depend upon a cop like him to help. That was undoubtedly true, but what we were never taught was that in general, this only applied to little kids like us.
Always remember, when you're dealing with a cop you're dealing with a person who chose to be a cop.
rwsanders
(2,596 posts)should be an immediate disqualification. This includes police, politicians, and thinking about it, judges (I've yet to be in the presence of a judge no matter how small the jurisdiction, that didn't ooze arrogance).
soothsayer
(38,601 posts)By April (or lose funding). Idea is to figure out how to build a relationship of trust and respect between the police and the communities they serve. Told people to start with a blank piece of paper and decide what do you want the police to do, what do you want them not to do, who reviews allegations of misconduct, how large a PD you need for your community (maybe 300 communities in ny state), etc.
Will be interesting to see what these communities come up with.
soldierant
(6,846 posts)It may not be the best choice. "Demolish"?
Ms. Toad
(34,060 posts)Despite protestations to the contrary in a thread yesterday, some of the people using the phrase "defund the police" really do mean abolish/cut all funding to the police.
Straw Man
(6,622 posts)Society's armed enforcers protect the framework (capitalism, in this case) around which that society is structured. Film at 11:00.
Mr.Bill
(24,280 posts)But the problem we are currently facing is that there is a lack of consequences for their improper behavior.
We make heroes out of them when their job is statistically not any more dangerous than many others. This makes it difficult as a society to call them out when they are wrong. And they are wrong a lot.
Wounded Bear
(58,642 posts)The current mindset seems to be more like an occupying army than a "Police" force who's duty is to keep the peace and seek justice.