Why The Police Need to be Abolished.
By Robert Alex Stubblefield
In recent years, policing in the United States has been an issue that has taken stage. At every level of government, politicians, community organizations have been grappling with ways and ideas to hold police accountable. This comes after decades of black and brown people crying out against the Gestapo tactics of a police force that has proven time and time again to be reckless, dangerous, and terroristic. These are just some of the nice words that I can think of to describe Police. Despite this, you have two camps: One that will glorify police and another side that advocates for more reform. The problem with reform is that reforms are good when something is truly reformable. Considering where we are at this point in time, it is pivotal that despite the copaganda that has been going around, we renew our battle cry to Abolish The Police. Let us focus on the reasons why police need to be abolished
Reason One: The Roots of Policing in the US
The first reason why police are not reformable is due to the fact that policing has rotten roots. Despite best attempts at reform across the country from body cameras to diversity hires to diversity and equity training, to the demands for community oversight that have been going on for decades, police are still killing Black, Indigenous and Hispanic populations disproportionately to the U.S populations. This is done by design. As Kyle T. Mays notes in his book An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States, “Black and Latinx and Indigenous police officers commit brutality too, because they work on behalf of a system designed to protect the property of the wealthy and control people of color” (Pg.161). In other words, police defend the wealthy have’s and exploit the have nots. To add to this, Delacy Davis, a former police officer and founder of Black Cops Against Police Brutality states that “Adding more black cops had no effect on police related shootings of black citizens…They want to be accepted by police organizations and feel they may not be able to advocate for black citizens because it violates the organization’s norms” (Pg.19). The reasons why are twofold: One is that it is important to realize that police protect a system that prepare the haves to patrol and control and if necessary, kill and push those society has deemed to be undesirable to the margins and keep them there. The second part is that even adding more officers of color, there had been little to no changes of police shootings. If anything black officers have in many cases stood by when either an officer has either shot or beat a black person in their custody. This is not surprising considering that police in the United States trace their origins to the urban model developed by the British and the slave patrols in the South. The other half of this coin as Mays continues is that “Policing is a fundamental part of US democracy…The architects of the US democratic project not only designed their political program to protect themselves against factions such as The Africans and the Indigenous nations and the will of the majority but to also control Indigenous peoples and lands. They tried to ignore the issue of slavery” (Pg.162). Essentially speaking, the democracy that the founders had a in mind wasn’t a true democracy where all people would have a say but an oligarchy under the guise of a democracy and in order to protect their interests, they needed to have an enforceable body to do so. If the roots are rotten, how can this change?
Reason 2: Police Violence as State sanctioned Violence
Continuing on from the preceding paragraph, the roots of policing create a need for violence. Let’s be clear, police violence is state sanctioned violence. The reason for this is because anytime a police officer commits an act of violence and the State provides any and every opportunity to protect that officer or officers in question, for all intents and purposes, the State has sanctioned that act. Another way the state sanctions police violence is that policing is one of the few roles where a person literally has the power of life and death and in a moment can become a person’s judge, jury and executioner. The results of this have been abysmal. Recently, an International Commission published a report titled Report Of The International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African descent In The United States. This report went over known police killings of black people from 2001–2021 and found that basically black people due to ugly history that Black people are more likely to be “killed, targeted, surveilled, brutalized and maimed by law-enforcement officers with impunity”(pg.13.) In other words, police can kill black people and for the most part, be considered justified despite all evidence to the contrary. The purpose of this violence is for two reasons. The first reason as Delacy Davis points out “is for fear, humiliation, pain and suffering, and death, to control black people and to keep them in their place”(pgs.6–7). The second reason is to serve the bidding of the elites and to serve as a force for gentrification. For instance, as Jeff Shantz notes in Analysis: Social war Policing and the Pacification of the Suburbs, notes that “Police are the domestic force for capital and their role specifically as pacifiers or counter-insurgency forces to maintain the working class in their current position” (Pg.1). As a result of this, police presence increases in working class neighborhoods that are undergoing gentrification and push out what the new elite deem to be undesirable despite them living in these areas for decades. But does this violence have a benefit in terms of solving or deterring crime? Does this violence make any residents feel safe?
Reason 3: Police do not solve or deter crime. Abolition does
The short answer is no. Police do not solve crime nor do they deter despite increases in police presences. The extent of this however is shocking. For instance two studies, one done by the University of Utah in conjunction with the FBI and another done by Yale Law School examined 50 years of data from every police department and found that “despite increases in police budgets, the militarization of policing, police only solve 2 percent of crime”(Pg.45–47). The Yale Law school study stated it was closer to 4 percent. Let’s put this in context: If a high school only graduated two to four percent of their student body on time, that school gets closed down or taken over by the state. If a public transit system, whether it is MARTA in Atlanta, Metro in Washington D.C or San Francisco Municipal Transportation only got their riders to their destination o time, two to four percent of the time, they get defunded. If the U.S Postal Service only got people their mail on time two to four percent of the time, they get defunded. So why is it that when police are shown not to do their job, instead of getting defunded or shut down, we as a society want to give them more money? In what world does that make sense. So yes we need to defund and abolish police, yes because they are rooted in white supremacy and anti blackness. Yes because they are rooted in being tools for the wealthy and as a gentrifying force, but because they are ineffective. Plus police do not deter crime. This is not new even Malcolm X rhetorically asked “How can one have more police yet more crime?” This is pivotal to understand especially that in the era of school shootings, where schools had police aka SRO’s on site and they still couldn’t prevent a school shooting, stabbing or massive brawl from taking place.
The beautiful thing about abolition is that it isn’t just some radical idea. Abolition already exists in many places throughout the country. Look at any wealthy area and one will not find police. What they’ll find however is an area that has an overabundance of wealth and resources. An area where schools are treated as palaces of learning. An area where there is a thriving local economy. All any of us at the Groundroots level are demanding is that abolition be applied equally and equitably with even further areas such as legalization of marijuana, with reparations and the legalization of sex work. In other words we must have in the words of Dr. King “Not only a economic revolution but a revolution of values.”
Work Cited
Baughman-Baradaran, Shima: How Effective are Policing? The Problem and Clearance Rates and Criminal Accountability. Pgs 45–47. Retrieved from https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=517114114008124115093088084091095121042008063067056033068109126025116085111006082102027022096016013008018069083004066121089101028042091029065096112005065001096083067041041066021117114083070089120076088117011117080024007069090086104003116113017115068009&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE
Commission, International: Report of The International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in The United States. Pg.13. Retrieved from https://inquirycommission.org/website/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Commission-Report-15-April.pdf
Davis, Delacy: Police Use of Force: Examining The Factors Relating to Police Officers Shooting Unarmed Black Males. Pg. 19. Retrieved from https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1419&context=education_etd
Davis, Delacy: Black Cops Against Police Brutality: A Crisis Action Plan. Published by Delacy Davis. Pgs. 6–7
Mays, Kyle T.: An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States. Published by Beacon Press. Pgs. 161–162.
Shantz, Jeff: Analysis Social war Policing and Pacification in the Suburbs. Pg. 1. Retrieved from https://mediacoop.ca/node/119020
#AbolishThePolice #BlackLivesMatter
Robert Stubblefield is a poet, activist, organizer and author currently located in the DMV. He has performed poetry for African Royalty such as King Toffa IX. He has also written articles for Maryland Matters, Black Agenda Report, and Medium.
