Totally. The police enforce laws through violence. If there's a single unjust law, the police have sworn to enforce it. Going to jail is humiliating and traumatizing regardless of social system.
We want restorative justice, not punative justice.
Any good reading you can recommend on restorative justice? A lot of the articles I've read focuses on restorative justice practices in small, tight-knit communities, and I've seen some of the challenges at scaling that up to modern, atomized cities.
Yeah. There have been a few studies on the efficacy of Cure Violence's work in Chicago, but they collaborate with the cops, so it's kind of murky what's having what effect on crime. Critical Resistance has a lot of writing on it, but it's geared towards organizers, so it's like 50 pages of framework and theory and then like 3 of reflection on what they did, if it worked, if it's saleable. A people's history talked a little about the War Veterans Labor Guard that non-violently kept the peace in Seattle ring the general strike, but I'm sure you could dig up more in depth sources on it, hell I could just look at the reference in my copy and get back to you.
I want to add that I'm not sure the modern, atomized city is conducive to socialism, let alone the trickier proposition of restorative justice. Part of out project is the re-thinking of cities for a good reason.
Theoretically it would only apply to police that impose the will of capital upon the workers. Though I’m personally always wary of people who choose a career which grants them authority over random citizens, seems like a career path that’ll always attract assholes no matter how proletarian the state. Maybe that’s just the American in me tho, cause from what I hear, Vietnamese police are super chill and definitely don’t deserve to get lumped into ACAB, but it can be hard to accept that cops like that can even exist when you’ve lived your whole life in the police state that is the US
Though I’m personally always wary of people who choose a career which grants them authority over random citizens
You hit on what might make all Cs not Bs in a socialist future -- you take away much of the authority they have over other citizens. You decriminalize a ton of stuff we have on the books to harass poor people and people of color. You give a lot of their responsibilities (dealing with noise complaints or people having a mental health crisis) to non-police public servants. You take guns away from your average beat cop. You take our hollowed-out laws restricting searches, interrogations, and self-incrimination and you beef them back up. You condition their jobs on living in the communities they police. You not only make it easier to fire cops over misconduct, but you make it a priority to prosecute those cops.
Between all that and a society where no one's basic needs are unfulfilled, you might be able to have an institution that handles real crimes with actual victims, but that doesn't turn into a bastion of reaction.
Fun fact. My grandad got drafted into NKVD in '45 and spend a couple of years guarding some industrial warehouse outside of Moscow. There was no stand-alone police organisation at that point, so NKVD basically included cops and security guards.
I never got to thank him for his service...
This is pretty much all I know about it. I never bothered to ask him about his service as a kid, knowing that he didn't actually fight in the war. That's just something my uncle told me later on. Grandpa spent all his service as a security guard and once almost got court marshalled for leaving his post to get drunk.
Yes
The police, in its current form, will not exist under socialism.
There will be no police under communism. Communities will police themselves.
no police under communism. Communities will police themselves.
dril
Chinese cops might not suck as much as American cops, but they still suck.
A, and I cannot stress this enough,CAB.
There is just something about being a cop that attracts the worst people.
Also, even if they aren't technically in the service if capital, all of the crime caused by capitalism still exists, and to a large extent so must the response.
There is just something about being a cop that attracts the worst people.
Isn't this the classic anarchist take? Positions of power disproportionately attract people who will abuse that power.
ACAB is universal because "cops" supposes a class of professional law enforcers. Police are a technology of social control, but they're not the only method of enforcing social norms and mitigating anti-social behavior.
As a thought experiment, imagine every member of a community was trained in community self defense, deescalation, mental health support, and other skills for nurturing a safe and healthy community. Every member of the community takes turns being "on call" or walking around the neighborhood in a community support role. There are no cops, instead the entire community is performing the roll of community defense and community nurture on a rotating schedule. There's no opportunity to accumulate power, there's no hierarchy. If the community needed assistance with a serious crime like a murder they could call in professional investigators or detectives with specialized tools and training, but the findings of those investigators would be turned over to the community for action.
There are alternatives to police. Police aren't necessary or inevitable. And because there are better ways all cops are bastards.
It's technically an anarchist thing but socialists in capitalist countries aren't going to be pedants about that. Just like many of the things anarchists say after "abolish" (police, prisons, the state, etc.) socialists see police in service of the dictatorship of the proletariat as useful or necessary. However, we also think the method of policing and the crimes policed would be drastically different between a socialist and a capitalist society. We remold the state apparatus to fit the needs of the dictatorship of the proletariat just as the bourgeoisie molded the old feudal state to their needs.
Edit: The hope is that eventually they aren't necessary though like all parts of the state apparatus. That's in the future though and there's not really any way to describe the evolutionary process to that besides "the withering away of the state".
Cops
in Japanare racist assholesthere ya go, fixed that for ya, on the house. acab'ers get a 100% discount. :stalin-garrison:
These comments are surprising. I thought there was more or less a consensus about supporting at least some actually existing socialist states?
I feel like there's a lot of idealism in this thread. The material conditions across the globe necessitate some form of police, imo. Ofc we can and should work towards changing those conditions to minimize the role of the police. But like what do you think happens if, say, Venezuela abolishes their police tomorrow? Seems like inviting a coup.
a relevant video about police in Vietnam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQCpn305vUk
