A question about needing the police...

[PhillyGuy]

For starters let me state that I'm trying to learn more about the revolutionary left so, if I say anything stupid, please forgive me (or, actually, correct me because I'm trying to learn here).

I've grown up in a very rough section of Philadelphia, North Philly. Much of the area has been abandoned to the drug trade.

My question is this: There are a LOT of bad people in my area. They sell drugs, shoot up corners regardless of bystanders, and generally don't seem like they could ever 'play nice.'

I can count the worst areas on both hands. Drug corners at Kensington and Somerset, Front and Lehigh, up and down Germantown Ave... (read up on North Philly on Wikipedia if you want more background info.)

As an anarchist-at-heart, I'm wondering how a revolutionary movement would deal with members of the underclass who, though exploited and a product of their environment, might not be trustworthy enough to join into a anarchist/Marxist world.

I'm babbling, I know, but I'm wondering about the role of police. I know police are defenders of the state by nature but what do we do when gangsters on the corner refuse to stop being criminals?

Forgive me if I phrased this badly, still new at this...

[Jimmie Higgins]

Are you talking about what do people do now or what do people do after a revolution?

After a revolution, a lot of the conditions that create both economic crimes and the daily stess and hasstles that lead to more random outbursts would be eliminated. Right off the bat, drug prohibitions would probably be eliminated which would take away that black market. Ending rent and then creating new and decent housing would probably cut down on a lot of misary and the stresses that lead to violence.

In the actual uprising period of a revolution, workers will have necissarily created some kind of force to protect themselves - this doesn't necissarily mean a organized worker's militia, even just on the local level neighbohoods would probably have organized their own patrols to prevent fascist attacks - and this would also protect against other direct threats even if opportunistic (like looters or rapists) rather than political.

Before a revolution in "stable" times the best general approach is to just build worker's movements and organize in our workplaces and neighborhoods and schools. Revolutionary movements that have really connected with people have tended to draw some people away from crime, specifically gangs, by offering an effective counter-model for gaining power by the powerless: a collective and grassroots one.

But the pressures and conditions of the system produce crime, so there will always be some of this and usually workers and the poor are hit hardest by both the effects and our ruler's responce to street violence. Again, what workers should do is organize themselves to fight for their class interests - if workers have experience in struggle and self-organization, than if there is a direct threat from organized crime or something, then they will be better able to deal with it because they already have trusted networks and can mobilize people if needed. On a larger scale, class struggles resulting in refoms against policing and the "war on drugs" and the prison system - as well as fighting for hosuing reform, unemployment relief, decriminalized free drug treatment - can ease some of the specific things that contribute to the severity of violence associated with crime.

I don't think workers should organize specifically against crime as in a "guardian angels" sort of way. First, this is actually how some gangs have originated in the first place - to push criminal activity out of their specific area, only to find this to be impossible and so the alternative is to control local black market activity rather than try and stop it. And Second, as I said above, it's an impossible goal because the system creates the conditions that lead to crime (and sometimes really just invents "crimes"). So to deal with violence associated with criminal activity, ultimately there needs to be a different system.

The police don't do much as far as preventing crime and in some ways they make the violence worse. Police originated not to confront petty crime but to control large groups of people in industrial areas and today this is still their speciality.

Workers may initially need some kind of "force" on the streets to protect themselves but it will not be the current police and it will likely look nothing like how modern police organize - more likely a network of neighborhood-based patrols by people who live in the area and accontable and removable. But the capitalists always need a police force even when crime is low (in fact the US built up a huge police force, prison system, and increased the power of police and prosecutors even in times of declining street-violence.) because they need the control and it's the first line of defense for the system. Workers don't need to control people in this systematic way and so probably as resistance from the old regime and fascists declines, even neighborhood patrols would probably be organized only on an ad hoc basis.

[PhillyGuy]

Thanks for the reply Higgins.

I'm talking about before the revolution. For a year or so I worked in a public high school in Philly, generally with at-risk teenagers who were already veterans of the drug trade. I grew up with a lot of people like those teens.

Of course, we're all leftists here, so the fact that these kids are a product of a sick environment goes without saying.

However, many of these kids -- some of whom ran their own drug corners -- probably aren't going to give up their career in order to join a revolution. It's sad, but these kids, not to mention older guys who've been in the game far longer, probably aren't going to cooperate with revolutionaries.

I'm not saying this out of spite or negativity (in case anyone wants to accuse me of being anti-poor or somehow racist). I'm saying it out of experience and sadness.

Some criminals will be down with the revolution, but many will not. So my question may have evolved into something else.

If victims of the current system won't -- or can't, due to the environment in which they were raised -- take part in our revolution, what do we do with them? Is a prison justified?

Again, forgive me if I sound naive. I'm still learning (which is why I'm posting this in the Learning forum).

[blake 3:17]

There is a need for a police force and society needs laws and law enforcement.

I'd be wary of making any claims that the poor are necessarily the ones who need the most policing. They get it alright, usually in pretty shitty ways. But there are very basic problems which poor people face which force us into various forms of criminality -- usually it's simple economics and a lack of positive possibilities.

One school I worked at in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city had a series of B&Es -- which guess what? They were teens breaking into the school to play basketball at night. No vandalism, no theft. Simple want of a gym.

I have worked in front line social services for a while now, and have had to threaten people with calling the police, but have never had to. A few years ago I caught some teens smoking pot on a playground climber meant for little children. I just warned them very seriously that if they were arrested there they'd be in a crazy amount of trouble. Within a half mile there were a whole bunch of other places to smoke at. Where there was at had a lot of dealing/using going on, but regulated itself pretty well. When I'd be offered crack, I'd just say "No thanks" and folks would move along.

I'd be less worried about recruiting dealers and gangsters to The Revolution, than to be building positive alternatives for young people and marginalized people to get into. I've known a few armed robbers who were totally sweet and bright people. One had become a chef, then got into shit because of all the booze around, and became an arborist. The other one was trying to give up crack and heroin and had wished he'd had the opportunity to become an engineer.

I'd say that something like 95% of people in jail or prison should not be there at all. They're up on stupid arbitrary charges and/or too poor for a decent lawyer or surety. The war on drugs and prostitution should end immediately. Most people in for long times in high security situations should face much shorter and less harsh sentences. And there are a very few total fucking psychopaths who should be locked up in decent conditions with a regular right of review of their detention.

The single best contemporary policy resource against the War on Drugs is the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition site: http://www.leap.cc/ There are some very brave police officers who recognize this as a senseless stupid murderous set of laws and policies and are looking for and supporting alternatives.

[Marxaveli]

What about law in a post-revolutionary society? I realize that many of the social and criminal problems we have now are due to economic despair and lack of opportunity, but I've had debates with people where they said even in a communist society there will need to be some sort of law enforcement to keep people in check. Their rational is that you can never fully rid the world of 'crazy people'. I know many here will disagree with that, but to some extent I can see the point in their argument. Growing up in bourgeois society, it seems almost impossible to imagine a society completely rid of all crime, even a communist one. What are your guys thoughts on this?

[hetz]

I don't see a problem with calling the police on drug dealers.

[Psy]

I don't see a problem with calling the police on drug dealers.
Except I trust drug dealers far more then pigs, the NYPD has a quota for stopping minorities.

3X-rvjSXKo0

[Yuppie Grinder]

I don't see a problem with calling the police on drug dealers.

Then you don't know any drug dealers.

[hetz]

Except I trust drug dealers far more then pigs, the NYPD has a quota for stopping minorities.
I don't trust any of them. Also I don't know about NYPD, I'm talking in the general sense. There are countries where the police doesn't have quotas for minorities.


Then you don't know any drug dealers.
Yeah, sure, whatever.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't see a problem with calling the police on drug dealers.I do. Unless someone is directly threatening you and you have no other option, or have to for reasons related to a job or calling to file a reprot for insurance reasons or whatever, it will do no good. And even if you are threatened directly, it's unlikely a cop will be around or arrive in time.

Besides most regualr drug dealers just sit in their appartment all day or some do street-market stuff, but they are more likely to be subject to street-violence than directly cuase it. If there's a corner street-market, for example, and you call the police, what happens? Well the cops come, they might find something and fuck-up a kids life for a while because of it. Maybe the cops clear the dealer out of the appartment building or clear the corner - but then someone else moves in pretty soon and takes those customers. It might even actually cause violence if one area has been cleared and is now "open real estate" that gangs or suppliers can now compete over.

"No snitching" is ubiqutious in Oakland among young people and even older people in some areas - why? Not because (as the media tends to imply) people are either scared or like the violence associated with the drug trade (when you ride the Bus or Subway and see all the kids wearing memorial t-shirts, you can be pretty sure that high school kids here are not glorifying shit) but because they know it does more harm than good. It dosn't make things safer, but it does lock up tons of people mostly for innocuous things and ruin lives.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'd be less worried about recruiting dealers and gangsters to The Revolution, than to be building positive alternatives for young people and marginalized people to get into. I've known a few armed robbers who were totally sweet and bright people. One had become a chef, then got into shit because of all the booze around, and became an arborist. The other one was trying to give up crack and heroin and had wished he'd had the opportunity to become an engineer.

Yeah I think this is key and history backs this up with examples of street gangs actually transforming and becoming "political" like some groups who joined the Panthers and the Young Lords and earlier immigrant gangs in Irish or Jewish neighborhoods that later broke from a rather narrow view of organizing the block (in a defensive way) to a larger political view.

As long as capitalism exists, the pressures that make some people act violently, make many other turn to the black market to make money, and gangs and so on, will exist. So there's not much we can "do about it" in that sense, radical worker's formations will just need to figure out how to deal with them on a conditional basis. Organic class rebellion can alter the attitudes of neighborhoods and cities as a whole and so I'm pretty confident that as workers collectivly begin to find ways to organize their own power, then more people will be much more willing to throw their lot in with collective class struggle, rather than scrape it out in black market competition on the streets.

[LiberationTheologist]

I don't see a problem with calling the police on drug dealers.

Then you believe that people do not have the right to use recreational drugs. Then you believe the state has a right to put people in cages for years because they are selling processed plants. Then you believe that the people should pay exorbitant taxes for more police, more judges, more prosecutors, more jail guards, more prisons, more parole and probation officers in order to put those people in cages. What will happen to their families after they are caged for selling processed plants - cocaine, marijuana and heroin. Those are all processed plants in the form of coca leaf, cannabis, and poppies (plant).

Non violent drug dealers who only protect themselves from robbery are not criminals unless they dilute the drugs with harmful substances or sell to 13 year olds.

[Philosophos]

If we achieve communism there won't be any need for extra money or money at all. Then we won't have illegal actions that have to do with money, drugs for example. At the same time we will all be equals and have the exact same things (not poverty kind same things but whatever we need). These people that you mentioned grew up in tough conditions because they were poor. If the poverty doesn't exist then we won't have these phenomenons.

[hetz]

Drug dealers have no place in working class neighbourhoods. Look at Ireland and see what Republicans there do to such scum.

[Psy]

Drug dealers have no place in working class neighbourhoods. Look at Ireland and see what Republicans there do to such scum.

Yet how would police that are also drug dealers solve this, yes the police go after the street pusher yet large drug cartels hire police to escort their drug shipments as they have the money to buy the services of police departments.

[hetz]

Yet how would police that are also drug dealers solve this, yes the police go after the street pusher yet large drug cartels hire police to escort their drug shipments as they have the money to buy the services of police departments.
Don't assume it's like that everywhere in the world.

[Psy]

Don't assume it's like that everywhere in the world.
Do you not understand capitalism works. In capitalism loyalty always goes to the highest bidder (as loyalty is just another commodity) and it not hard for the ruling class of the drug industry to buy the loyalty of the police.

[hetz]

Yeah, whatever.
You didn't say anything concrete.

[Psy]

Yeah, whatever.
You didn't say anything concrete.
Basically you are supporting hired goons to kick out drug dealers but since they are just hired goons they won't go against the interests of those paying for their loyalty and the big bosses in the drug industry easily pay police officers in a day then what they would make in a life time from their wages.

Thus in this case police are nothing more then enforces to ensure drug pushers don't unionize and demand a larger cut of the profits from criminal organizations.

[hetz]

Basically you are supporting hired goons to kick out drug dealers but since they are just hired goons they won't go against the interests of those paying for their loyalty and the big bosses in the drug industry easily pay police officers in a day then what they would make in a life time from their wages.
Well then prove that the police in Germany or Finland is bought by drug dealers.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

As an anarchist-at-heart, I'm wondering how a revolutionary movement would deal with members of the underclass who, though exploited and a product of their environment, might not be trustworthy enough to join into a anarchist/Marxist world.

I'm babbling, I know, but I'm wondering about the role of police. I know police are defenders of the state by nature but what do we do when gangsters on the corner refuse to stop being criminals?

Putting aside those criminals whom act violently (which is probably the result of some underlining psychological issue), I think it's unfair and moralizing to characterize (as Marx so did) the lumpenprole as some heterogeneous category of unproductive, parasitical riff-raff when taking into account the pathology of the capitalist mode of production (which you have aptly pointed out) and the unshakable downward mobility this section of the proletariat face. I would argue that is exactly these sorts which would be more likely to be prone to revolutionary action and ideals, which has been witnessed in several cases throughout history.

Your question, is hard to answer, considering, under Socialism, what would be their motivation?

[Psy]

Well then prove that the police in Germany or Finland is bought by drug dealers.
It is the capitalist system that creates this class relationship between crime bosses and police, police always get chewed out by their bosses when they ask for raises yet crime bosses are far more generous in sharing their surplus value among those that can protect their investments, in short the crime bosses can offer police a taste capitalist life style.

Even If the police reject the offer and plays the boy scout there is the problem that the capitalist class also consume illegal drugs which is provided by criminal organizations, hell all the capitalists kids are now doing ketamine as it is cool thing for spoil rich brats snort and guess how they get hooked up with it?

[hetz]

Yeah but I'm asking you for concrete evidence that the police in Germany or Finland ( or pick a Western country ) is in general bought by drug dealers or other criminals.
I'm almost sure that isn't the case.

Cops in Brazil or Russia though...

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Here's a secret. There will always be assholes. Greed cannot be wholly eradicated from the human experience. Some people will always take the low road for quick profits and pleasure and some will always vent their frustrations and mental imbalances upon their surroundings. Unless we mass medicate the populace with Super Soma, vice, corruption and abuse will always attempt to thrive like a weed in a garden. You'll always need a gardener, and due to that society will always need a form of law enforcement.

[Psy]

Yeah but I'm asking you for concrete evidence that the police in Germany or Finland ( or pick a Western country ) is in general bought by drug dealers or other criminals.
I'm almost sure that isn't the case.

Cops in Brazil or Russia though...

That even though capitalists use illegal drugs police NEVER bust capitalists for drug possession or the drug dealers that supply them. This is because of the class relation that makes it impossible for any police officer to arrest a capitalist without having marching orders from the bourgeoisie state to go after that specific capitalist. If a police officer arrests a capitalist's drug dealer without first having marching having orders to do so they will be busted down writing parking tickets for the inability to follow orders.

[ClassLiberator]

Under any revolutionary leftist socioeconomic system(Marxism-Leninism, left communism, syndicalism), there would be a milita of people who protect other and enforce the law. The problem that we socialists/communists/anarchists have with the police is that they defend private property and serve bourgeois laws such as the War on Drugs or the suppression of revolutionaries.

[LiberationTheologist]

Drug dealers have no place in working class neighbourhoods. Look at Ireland and see what Republicans there do to such scum.


What recreational drugs do you enjoy? I want to put you in a cage for years and force your family to visit you in jail for years. I want to make sure you will have little chance of getting a job when you get out of that cage. I want to make sure your children stay on subsistence welfare. I want you to pay taxes for the police, judges, jail guards, prosecutors, bailiffs, parole officers and prison costs which will carry out these measures.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Yeah but I'm asking you for concrete evidence that the police in Germany or Finland ( or pick a Western country ) is in general bought by drug dealers or other criminals.
I'm almost sure that isn't the case.

Cops in Brazil or Russia though...

Well, cops in the United States were pretty directly involved in flooding racialized neighbourhoods with hard drugs - first heroin in the 70s, and later crack. It's pretty well documented - both in terms of investigative journalism (Alexander Cockburn / Jeffery St. Clair wrote a pretty detailed book on the subject, and they're hardly wingnuts), government documents, etc.
Here in Canada, the involvement of police in the drug trade in Vancouver is pretty common knowledge. Etc.

I think, going back the the OP, that what this illustrates is that "the police" as they exist are probably not an effective solution. What would be? I dunno.

[hetz]

That even though capitalists use illegal drugs police NEVER bust capitalists for drug possession or the drug dealers that supply them.
Google how many rich people and/or capitalists got busted in the last 5 years.


This is because of the class relation that makes it impossible for any police officer to arrest a capitalist without having marching orders from the bourgeoisie state to go after that specific capitalist.
Also nonsense. It may sound good to you but the reality is different.





What recreational drugs do you enjoy? I want to put you in a cage for years and force your family to visit you in jail for years. I want to make sure you will have little chance of getting a job when you get out of that cage. I want to make sure your children stay on subsistence welfare. I want you to pay taxes for the police, judges, jail guards, prosecutors, bailiffs, parole officers and prison costs which will carry out these measures.
Do you have an actual point to make?

[Psy]

Google how many rich people and/or capitalists got busted in the last 5 years.

None of the ruling class got busted for drug charges. For example Bush Jr. did tons of cocaine in the 1970's and nothing came of it. True he was arrested but his farther bribed the police department and the police department "lost" all the evidence.

[hetz]

Presidents or their sons usually won't get busted for drugs.

My point is that the police does often bust capitalists and other rich people for various crimes.

The state and it's organs isn't some perfect machine, and the police is not a mafia-type organization. I'm not saying that the police isn't the instrument of class oppression, all I'm saying is that it does not follow the orders from some mysterious "rulling class people" acting as some sort of a "family" ( like in Godfather ).

[Psy]

Presidents or their sons usually won't get busted for drugs.

My point is that the police does often bust capitalists and other rich people for various crimes.

The state and it's organs isn't some perfect machine, and the police is not a mafia-type organization. I'm not saying that the police isn't the instrument of class oppression, all I'm saying is that it does not follow the orders from some mysterious "rulling class people" acting as some sort of a "family" ( like in Godfather ).

The police only busts capitalists when they are ordered to by the bourgeoisie state. It is also not a mysterious ruling class, it is the dominant property owning class that the bourgeoisie state exists to protect. Also the laws of the bourgeoisie state only exist for the proletariat the justice system doesn't expect capitalists to be expected to follow any law, sure the bourgeoisie state will impose a fine when capitalists break the law but it boils down to capitalists democracy where money makes right.

For example in the 1947 GM, Standard Oil and Firestone was found guilty of conspiring to monopolize, the capitalists of these firms were finned $1 each (and their corporations were finned $5,000) that was nothing compared to the money they already racked in through anti-trust practices.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

[. . .] the police is not a mafia-type organization.

If you wanted to follow that with, "They're more like a biker-gang," I might take your grasp on the reality of the police seriously.

[C.K.]

My girlfriend has a family member who is a cop & her & I go back and forth about the motives of the police. She (I'm trying) has little concept of a society where cops wouldn't be necessary & is convinced that everyone will run amok w/out their presence.

I'm of the understanding that the police enforce laws based on basically 3 different reasonings. 1. To protect private property, 2. To protect corporate interests, 3. To shut down trades that the state is unable to profit from. All 3 are connected, obviously, and often times I'll ask her to pick a law & I'll point out how it easily falls into at least 1 of the above categories. Every rule has an exception, and in this case, sexual crimes would bust open my theory.

That being said, I do believe there will be some sort of need for 'law' enforcement, but not in the essence of what the police force represents or how they currently operate.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Under any revolutionary leftist socioeconomic system(Marxism-Leninism, left communism, syndicalism), there would be a milita of people who protect other and enforce the law. The problem that we socialists/communists/anarchists have with the police is that they defend private property and serve bourgeois laws such as the War on Drugs or the suppression of revolutionaries.

Revolutionary People's Posses is a really bad fucking idea. We don't need to axe the idea of cops, we just need to make them reds