Why in the world call that abolition? It identifies itself with a movement that was explicitly not incrementalist. The Abolitionists were not all, oh hey, we need to make sure slaves have better working hours and we need to make it harder to break up slave families. Abolitionists rightly had scorn for people who were advocating that sort of reform of slavery, it was diametrically opposed to their position.
Similarly, why the scorn from police abolitionists for advocates of police reform? Because incremental change is reform, and as far as I can tell, many proposals of police abolitionists (increasing funding for social workers, shifting the burden for certain interactions from armed police to other, newly funded agencies), would be popular among reformers as well. Even many police would be in favor of that sort of thing.
Because reform is most often just a scam word used by police to get more money, toys, powers, and gang members to play with. That language has been coopted and now a clearer message must be communicated.
Well I hate to break it to you, “abolition” has also been co-opted, by the Abolitionists. If the first thing you have to do is correct the reasonable misunderstanding – no, we don’t mean abolish, like abolishing slavery or abolishing the death penalty – then how the hell is that a clearer message?
OK, so police are the armed agents of the state tasked with enforcing laws, authorized to use deadly force in doing so under certain circumstances. That, at a basic level, is what police are and what their function is. Reforming them would mean making changes while keeping that basic framework in place. A violent criminal breaks the law, someone calls the police, and the police arrest the criminal. Using force if necessary.
Abolish means that basic function is no longer filled by the police. With slavery people asked the same question: who will pick the cotton if we abolish slavery? The answer was simple: people you pay a wage they freely accept. The same question here: with police abolished, who will arrest murderers and bring them to justice?
I replied before I saw this was added. If you can’t even begin to articulate what the institutions that would replace the police would be, and how they’re better than the police, how do you expect to convince anyone? Fredrick Douglass didn’t just shrug and say idk, not my problem when he was asked how would slave labor be replaced.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the history and role of police in our society. From it’s inception (in the Metropolitan Police in early 19th century and fugitive slave patrols of the same era) the function of the police has always been to brutalize the people the capitalist class is exploiting.
If you want an answer to who builds teh roads?, idk man, google it ffs it’s not like you’re the first to ask.
I certainly agree that police have and still do fill that role. It’s not mutually exclusive with the role I articulated, and the police in America do fill that role, even if they also serve other purposes.
And I should google the answer to the question I’m asking Pocket Chads? That’s nuts, I want to know what Pocket Chads would recommend that would answer those questions. I can’t google that.
Guys if you want to argue with Keed you need to have a 100 page report showing the solution to all current day problems that police barely solve on their own. You also have to outline what’ll happen in every scenario he can think of.
I mean when you get rid of police in Chicago who will possibly solve the 44.5% of murders they solved last year or their 6% arrest rate for reported assault incidents??
By all accounts Chicago police are and always have been some of the worst and most violent in the nation.
“How will murderers be brought to justice” is a pretty relevant question here. 60% of murderers brought to justices isn’t great but it’s still like 9000 killings where justice was served. That’s important.
Y’all don’t seem to actually disagree that much, and the main issue seems to be that neither of you are able to agree on terminology. Seems kinda dumb iyam.
I don’t speak for anyone else, and maybe this is just a completely stupid idea, but my idea of abolition is literally disbanding current law enforcement agencies and rebuilding from scratch. It would be rebuilding some form of “police”, I guess, but I don’t see it as a dunk to say that abolitionists recognize the need for some public safety mechanism. I’d want to rethink scope of collective bargaining for police unions, institute strict rules requiring removal of officers for misconduct, have expansive civilian oversight of law enforcement agencies along with staffing as many roles as possible with unarmed civilians (social workers, medical professionals, etc), rules requiring prompt public disclosure of body cam footage and law enforcement personnel files, and removing guns from the vast majority of officers. I think the resulting agencies, in my ideal world, would be so distinct from current police departments that you can accurately say American policing was abolished.
I think a large problem is that we’ve had decades of different sides weaponizing the language and terminology involved here, and there is no way to have an effective public debate. The term “reform” could easily describe what I’m picturing, but when elected officials say “reform” what they mean is pumping a ton of extra money to police departments who will use it for training and equipment that does nothing but make them more efficient killers. The term “abolish” could mean completely removing all state sponsored public safety agencies, or it could mean a relatively modest set of reforms. Everyone on team “reform” can picture the reforms to be whatever they want them to be, and picture abolition to be whatever they don’t want. And likewise for team “abolish”.
I think the most important point in this discussion is this: I have never once heard a suggested reform from team “reform the police” that I think will do any significant amount of good. Training isn’t going to fix this. It‘s basically the same script as gun control - there might be some reforms that stop short of a full repeal of 2A and mass confiscation that will have a meaningful effect on gun violence, but limitations on assault rifles and magazine sizes and bump stocks sure ain’t it.
This is the only part most people see when they hear defund or abolish the police.
This would have been better. It has a better connotation than reforming. Reforming sounds bureaucratic and a bit abstract. It’s also not always associated with improving. But when people hear rebuilding, it’s often much more positive and brings up ideas of improving things, normally physical structures.