ALternatives to Police

[LastMinutePointer]

I was wondering if there are any resources (books, articles, threads on revleft forums, etc) for alternatives to the police under capitalism. The police are class enemies and would obviously be a different institution under socialism. However, I think we should be fighting for a radically different policing structure while building a revolutionary movement.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Good question! There's a lot written about policing in capitalism from a left perspective; the book "our enemies in blue" comes to mind. And lots of more general books about the effects of modern policing ("the new Jim Crow").

Historically there have been many attempts at reforming or putting popular checks on policing. Reforms from the black power era in the u.s., a wave of reforms in response to increased police violence in the late 80s. But these have only been effective IMO as long as there were popular and militant movements that could constantly push back against the constant attempts by the opposition to water down any reforms. So in the 90s, public overseight committed, etc, really didn't do much and just became some beurocratic forum that acted as a pressure release valve for community anger at the increase of police power.

I mention all this because my opinion is that attempts to reform or defang the police really can't be much more than tactics, positions, in the class struggle within capitalism. Police are an essential tool for the management of the masses under industrial capitalism, not an extra layer of crap to deal with IMO. I think it's sort of like fighting for better wages: you can win and defend better positions within exploitation, but the tendency of the system will always be to cheapen labor. Capitalism needs to repress, so within state power, we can only really tie their hands a little or win momentary reprieves... The need for the state to repress us will remain and so policing will remain.

But both are essential fights to wage... But ultimately it's not the reform itself that is most important in the fights, the most important thing in my view is that struggles like ones against the police can develop among workers and the oppressed, a layer experienced and militant forces that increases our ability to fight effectively.

I totally agree that police as we know it would have no place in a liberated society. I think that in the course of revolution and in the immediate aftermath, workers might need some kind of popular force to defend gains of the revolution from any remaining scattered counter revolutionaries as well as maybe some kind of service oriented patrol that might do things that modern cops happily only do in pro-police propaganda: help people who get lost, manage traffic, break up bar fights. But even this would only be needed for a short time. I think any necessary "policing" in communism (like making sure that huge public festivals don't end up with stampedes or drunken fights) will be ad hoc and done as matter of course informally. Policing didn't exist in class societies until the industrial era (because there weren't concentrated labor pools that needed to be controlled in general rather than by a lord or plantation owner individually) so I see no historical reason to imagine that they would exist in a liberated, Un-divided, post-class society. Public order would be the job of the public, not a specific order of an elite outside the larger public group and so a special body for maintaining that specific order would have no use.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

There are a whole bunch of interesting ideas coming out of the largely women-of-colour-led anti-violence movement. Check out The Revolution Starts at Home (pdf (http://lgbt.wisc.edu/documents/Revolution-starts-at-home.pdf) and ordering (http://www.southendpress.org/2010/items/87941))

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think one serious step would be a critical analysis of Red Cops under various "Communist" regimes in the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Yugoslavia and other areas with indigenous Communist parties which brought about a revolution or popular uprising of some kind, as well as the Eastern Bloc countries where Communist parties and state capitalism were imposed by a victorious Soviet Union.

What we see in those situations are organs of the state often no less oppressive than those in the history of Western capital. In those cases however, their violence was not committed under the guise of upholding the law but the "proletarian revolution." This was understandable during, say, the Russian Civil War when state power was so tenuous and their enemies so violent, but such institutions became increasingly oppressive and unaccountable. A red pig is still a pig (as I am sure many Anarchists, and later Trotskyists and other Marxist dissidents found out).

[(A)]

In a society with no class and where everyone has a voice police would not be the same as they are now. But they would be necessary. An end of poverty does not mean an end to crime so some form of organized, skilled and lawful; criminal investigation & security arbitration service who where answerable to the community only would be necessary and positive.

There is a lot of anti-police talk going around nowadays but there are good cops.
Just like politicians they should be subject to immediate recall.

[LastMinutePointer]

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry for asking a question and then jetting. I appreciate it.

[Connolly1916]

Just thought I would ask on this thread rather than starting a new one -

Any advice for how to deal with police harassment? Not harassment of me personally, I know it comes with the territory, but rather if/when they approach your family and feed them lies about you. It has happened before, and being young(er) and more stubborn than I am now, it led to me falling out with family members somewhat. So yeah, any advice would be very much appreciated.

[Art Vandelay]

The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it 'the reality of the ethical idea', 'the image and reality of reason', as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of 'order'; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state...The second distinguishing feature is the establishment of a public power which no longer directly coincides with the population organizing itself as an armed force. This special, public power is necessary because a self-acting armed organization of the population has become impossible since the split into classes.... This public power exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men but also of material adjuncts, prisons, and institutions of coercion of all kinds, of which gentile [clan] society knew nothing.... - Engels; Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

The state, as well as the 'special bodies of armed men' which constitute the police force and the standing army, are a natural by product of all class society. I think talking about alternatives to police under capitalism (as in the absence of police in totality) showcases a fundamental misunderstanding of their role in class society and the fashion in which such an entity is necessitated; although I'm not sure if the OP meant to imply that. The police force and the standing army, the 'special bodies of armed men' in society which protect the hegemony and interests of the ruling class, arose out of pure necessity with the development of the state and the further and further entrenching of the division of labor. As society was split into socio-economic classes, with irreconcilable and antagonistic interests, society could no longer simply be protected by the 'self acting armed population;' due to the fact that the 'self acting armed population,' split into antagonistic socio-economic classes, would logically result in violent insurrection and civil war. Instead, out of this class society, the police and army were formed and placed above society as a whole and continue to further and further alienate themselves from the class society which gave birth to them, as class antagonisms become more and more acute. Reforms against the current incarnation of the police force, which aim to hinder their ability to perform their duties, are surely an important battle to wage; as are the attempts to wipe them out of the labor movement. Having said that, the police and standing army will continue to be a reality, one necessitated by the present conditions, until the proletariat manages to succeed in destroying itself as a socio-economic class.

[TheFox]

As an anarchist, I believe that people should learn to protect themselves AND protect the people that cannot defend themselves.(Sick, elderly, injured etc) But knowing human nature, people would prefer to take advantage of the weak than protect them. :confused:
Maybe there should be a group that only exists to protect. My main problem with the police is that while some want to protect, others just want to control.
Imagine a group with no political affiliation, that only exists to protect the weak.
I would not have any issue with a group like this, so long as they don't let an asshole take advantage of the group and use them to oppress the innocent. :)
I don't know. This rant has gone on for far to long.

[Red Star Rising]

The very existence of a permanent body of police creates a class divide. Therefore, all police work must be temporary and additional to ordinary labour. Perhaps if people could apply for training in police work and some were called upon by lottery to keep order when it is necessary such as at large gatherings when things can get out of hand. After their service is done they remove any batons, firearms or uniform etc. and return to their daily lives. In things like bar fights then people can make citizen's arrests and collectively decide on whether action needs to be taken against the criminal.

All just speculation though, nobody can be certain of how a Communist society would operate. It can be assumed that crime would go down in a Socialist state and once the state withers entirely and people become self-sufficient, any police force would wither away as well and the public would control public order for themselves.

It cannot be claimed that ALL crime's root is class conflict but it can be said that a police force has proven to be an ineffective way of combating crime (how many people don't commit murder purely because of the consequences of doing so?) and that Communism might remove most crime based around self-interest, envy or hatred. I think that eventually the need for a police force will diminish when it becomes apparent that crime is damaging to society - in Communism, self-interest is replaced with what is best for the community as a whole.

[bilgacosmin]

Although it might sound really radical, I belive we don't need any police. In a good and healthy society, everyone is a "policeman" that watches, prevents and acts whenever they can to stop any harmful behaviour against the rest of the population.

That should be way more effective than the "hired" police, that actually does nothing else than protecting us against oursleves, which I find plain stupid.

Of course something like that is not applicable in a non-communist society, because people would try to break "laws" in order to obatin personal profit, but where there's no personal profit to obtain we can all act for the common good.

[Red Star Rising]

Although it might sound really radical, I belive we don't need any police. In a good and healthy society, everyone is a "policeman" that watches, prevents and acts whenever they can to stop any harmful behaviour against the rest of the population.

That should be way more effective than the "hired" police, that actually does nothing else than protecting us against oursleves, which I find plain stupid.

Of course something like that is not applicable in a non-communist society, because people would try to break "laws" in order to obatin personal profit, but where there's no personal profit to obtain we can all act for the common good.

I think that I agree with this. I think when you are talking about fully-functioning anarcho-communism the word "radical" loses all meaning :P Anyway, the primary principal of Communism is that the people collectively own the means of production and govern their own affairs without the intervention (or existence) of the state. We can assume that keeping order falls under governing our own affairs.