The Spiritual Case for Police Abolition

All is One, and All Cops Are Getting in the way of that.

Photo by Ryan Kosmides on Unsplash

I believe in abolishing the police.

Part of the reason for this is because I care about social justice and anti-racism. If at this point, you still don’t understand the entrenched racist violence of the American policing apparatus, I don’t know what to tell you anymore. I bet Google does.

Part of the reason for it is because I believe in sound public health policy. Specifically, I recognize that policing is a fundamentally stupid way to respond to public health crises like addiction, theft and violence. These are social health crises that are better dealt with by ensuring people have access to the resources they need: to heal, to have emotional stability and material security, and to find dignity, purpose and authentic connection.

Part of the reason is that the police, since the inception of the institution, have been fundamentally corrupt and unjust. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, we often saw slogans about how “America’s first police officers were runaway slave catchers,” and there is truth to this. Early American police forces cannot be disentangled from the perpetuation of slavery, but even in places where slavery had been abolished, police forces still arose for the purpose of crushing human…