Policing not the only option

The three front-page articles on police accountability in your August issue are important. But I couldn’t help noticing the assumption unstated in each: that there is no alternative to policing.

Stories of police misconduct, brutality and murder are never ending. Yet we act as if the institution itself is as natural as the sun and earth.

Modern policing has its origins in slave patrols. So when we speak of accountability, we should address not just individual officers, but the roots of policing in domination and oppression. Cam Gordon wrote that, “In general, we are served well by the large majority of police officers.” However, the “We” he refers to is most often the so-called mainstream: white, male, upper class and gender/sexuality conforming. And “We” is especially people like Gordon in positions of authority—authority protected only by police.

A society without cops may seem utopian. But we could begin with community members taking on “Officer Friendly’s” more benevolent functions; organizing to decriminalize nonviolent offenses like drug use; and tackling the root social and economic causes (e.g. capitalism) of alleged crime. We can also start by calling our neighbors first and the cops last whenever possible, and by refusing to snitch when a behavior calls for community accountability but not abuse and imprisonment.

For more alternatives, I recommend www.criticalresistance.org.

It’s true—most officers do their job well. Their primary job is to protect the systems of the rich and exploitative. Let’s get rid of the police and set about protecting the rest of us.

Sincerely,
Jaime Hokanson
Bancroft