Today at work, I talked to my normie colleagues about ACAB. Their opinion was incredibly boring ("it is stupid, since obviously not all cops can be bad", etc.) and uninformed.

I am not hoping that some awesome debating skills might convince anyone during lunch break. But I was a bit annoyed at myself that I couldn't come up with better points than what my gut came up with.

So, I was wondering if anyone in here can suggest some material/reading list on abolitionism. Bonus points for:

  • Not US centric. I don't live in the US and it is obvious that the cops in the so-called united states are especially fucked up. Focusing too much on that might offer the easy way out of "good thing that's not where I live" instead of actually radically critiqueing the institution of police/prisons as an idea.
  • Not too polemic. We all enjoy a little dunking. But I think that if it is too obvious that the authors are anarchists and the conclusion is obvious from the start, it lessens the impact of the prece and I feel almost manipulated. Ideally, I could give this stuff to my left-leaning mom to read, who still enjoys her scandinavian copaganda mini-series.
  • Availability of an audiobook/podcast would be nice. :)

I am happy for your input, if you got any. :)

  • FloridaBoi [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I logicked my way into creating doubt in someone who was very stubborn. It was really simple maybe even simplistic but I think many/most people don’t conceive of crime in an accurate way and it helps to lay that foundation.

    1. most common types of crimes are property related like larceny, trespassing, petty theft, etc.

    2. most of this is caused by material need or deprivation as opposed to being purely pathological. People think others act from ideas alone instead of ideas coming from somewhere. The types perpetrators of crimes tend to also be victims of the same crimes and those people tend to be poor.

    3. cops may catch the perpetrator usually after the fact but do nothing to solve the situation that created the deprivation.

    4. cops don’t actually prevent or solve crime because they can’t. Their scope is such that they can only look at certain symptoms of the underlying causes where people are driven to certain acts by material necessity.