Not to mention as I understand it many US departments outside NYC are actually pretty underfunded so cops are often unable to assist at all. Which yeah ACAB, but if you're defenseless against someone threatening you you'd probably want some help.
Vivek Chibber goes into this often and I'm like 50/50 on his takes. He thinks "defund" is playing into austerity mindset and thinks "schools not jails" is a better slogan (which seems like pointless tone policing to me and ignores people's genuine anger). But he does bring up good points that a lot of people calling for defund the police (including me) are ignoring that crime actually does exist, and seriously affects working people. It's a flip on Kamala's "you haven't addressed why I have 3 padlocks on my front door" quote which is funny, but from an ordinary person's perspective I do sort of understand the argument. The problem with the austerity mindset is that you focus only on police budgets in the richest country on earth, that taking money out of the police budget is totally not a prerequisite to all the good things defunders want, like mental health professional first responders, funding for schools etc. You COULD actually do this without defunding the police. But then to counter that, this argument completely ignores how infiltrated US cops are with white supremacists, and how there's a pervasive culture of violence against both poor people & POC.
Idk where to go from here rhetorically or theoretically. All I know is Kamala & friends use this argument for a larger carceral state which I'm fully against. But it is an important question. I think in my ideal socialist transitional egalitarian government, we would still want some form of armed first responders to protect people from violent crime, but with the materialist understanding that reducing poverty will reduce their need. The problem is that this goal doesn't really translate to a solid position or action in our current circumstances.
Totally. Also it feels like so many of these issue-based questions for me quickly become reduced to "this will probably be bad unless workers control the means."
I understand the thought that crime still happens and people need protection, but do police even actually prevent crime?
If your house is broken into, the police come after and it’s very unlikely your stuff is recovered. It’s also possible police arrest or kill you. If a cop car happens to be driving past your house as it’s being broken into, how likely is it that they’ll pull over and stop it?
Outside of hostage situations, I don’t really understand where police actually help.
It's a good question, I really don't have an answer. I have comrades who organize basically 8hrs a day helping with bail relief and police reform policies. When I made the same points as I just did, their perspective seems to line up more with yours, I guess the more strictly abolitionist stance.
My perspective is from as a relatively well off position in a place with high crime and homelessness problems, so it's a bit skewed. Getting held up & robbed by a homeless person sucks, so my instinct is "damn if only there were cops around." But I at least have the frame of mind to know my instinct is missing the full picture.
Big IDK energy in this thread for me, at least strategically speaking.
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Not to mention as I understand it many US departments outside NYC are actually pretty underfunded so cops are often unable to assist at all. Which yeah ACAB, but if you're defenseless against someone threatening you you'd probably want some help.
Vivek Chibber goes into this often and I'm like 50/50 on his takes. He thinks "defund" is playing into austerity mindset and thinks "schools not jails" is a better slogan (which seems like pointless tone policing to me and ignores people's genuine anger). But he does bring up good points that a lot of people calling for defund the police (including me) are ignoring that crime actually does exist, and seriously affects working people. It's a flip on Kamala's "you haven't addressed why I have 3 padlocks on my front door" quote which is funny, but from an ordinary person's perspective I do sort of understand the argument. The problem with the austerity mindset is that you focus only on police budgets in the richest country on earth, that taking money out of the police budget is totally not a prerequisite to all the good things defunders want, like mental health professional first responders, funding for schools etc. You COULD actually do this without defunding the police. But then to counter that, this argument completely ignores how infiltrated US cops are with white supremacists, and how there's a pervasive culture of violence against both poor people & POC.
Idk where to go from here rhetorically or theoretically. All I know is Kamala & friends use this argument for a larger carceral state which I'm fully against. But it is an important question. I think in my ideal socialist transitional egalitarian government, we would still want some form of armed first responders to protect people from violent crime, but with the materialist understanding that reducing poverty will reduce their need. The problem is that this goal doesn't really translate to a solid position or action in our current circumstances.
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Totally. Also it feels like so many of these issue-based questions for me quickly become reduced to "this will probably be bad unless workers control the means."
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:100-com:
I understand the thought that crime still happens and people need protection, but do police even actually prevent crime?
If your house is broken into, the police come after and it’s very unlikely your stuff is recovered. It’s also possible police arrest or kill you. If a cop car happens to be driving past your house as it’s being broken into, how likely is it that they’ll pull over and stop it?
Outside of hostage situations, I don’t really understand where police actually help.
It's a good question, I really don't have an answer. I have comrades who organize basically 8hrs a day helping with bail relief and police reform policies. When I made the same points as I just did, their perspective seems to line up more with yours, I guess the more strictly abolitionist stance.
My perspective is from as a relatively well off position in a place with high crime and homelessness problems, so it's a bit skewed. Getting held up & robbed by a homeless person sucks, so my instinct is "damn if only there were cops around." But I at least have the frame of mind to know my instinct is missing the full picture.
Big IDK energy in this thread for me, at least strategically speaking.