“Abolish the police” is about the worst messaging you can use, it makes people vehemently reject you. It became a laughingstock thing in the midwest after BLM protests, “Can you believe those crazy Minnesota liberals think we shouldn’t have police.” We do actually need police, as you’ll discover if you’re robbed. We just need them to be completely different, in a way that no one’s quite figured out yet. The discussion about what they should actually do (and not do) is the conversation we need to start.
Civilian review boards. Abolishing qualified immunity. Abolishing the practice of cops getting fired for some fuckery but then getting new cop jobs in a different district. Abolishing civil forfeiture. Disarming cops except for highly specialized and carefully managed units. Training in de-escalation and enforcement of its use. Employment of mental health crisis agents when armed cops aren’t warranted. Abolishing no-knock raids.
These are just the policies I could think of off the top of my head that would go a long way to improving the police problem. I imagine there are tons more. We could try to implement any or all of them and see immediate improvements. But instead people go straight to “abolish the police / ACAB,” and suddenly there’s no such thing as a discussion anymore, just pro- and anti- groups screaming at each other.
“Abolish the police” is about the worst messaging you can use, it makes people vehemently reject you. It became a laughingstock thing in the midwest after BLM protests, “Can you believe those crazy Minnesota liberals think we shouldn’t have police.” We do actually need police, as you’ll discover if you’re robbed. We just need them to be completely different, in a way that no one’s quite figured out yet. The discussion about what they should actually do (and not do) is the conversation we need to start.
Civilian review boards. Abolishing qualified immunity. Abolishing the practice of cops getting fired for some fuckery but then getting new cop jobs in a different district. Abolishing civil forfeiture. Disarming cops except for highly specialized and carefully managed units. Training in de-escalation and enforcement of its use. Employment of mental health crisis agents when armed cops aren’t warranted. Abolishing no-knock raids.
These are just the policies I could think of off the top of my head that would go a long way to improving the police problem. I imagine there are tons more. We could try to implement any or all of them and see immediate improvements. But instead people go straight to “abolish the police / ACAB,” and suddenly there’s no such thing as a discussion anymore, just pro- and anti- groups screaming at each other.