Do we even need police?

[Paddy O Fernature]

A rather interesting argument in favour of abolishing police, but I do think your sentiment is one many anti-police advocates feel.

No. The advocates want freedom from consequences. I am the immediate consequence.

Well said as per usual Jim.

[Big Jim P]

No. The advocates want freedom from consequences. I am the immediate consequence.

Well said as per usual Jim.

Most execute power, yet they do not know, they have power.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

There would be no violence in the world if Cyberpunk was improved and made an actually good game. Therefore we would not need police.

Why would anyone murder or rob someone when they can do that instead?

[Ifreann]

A rather interesting argument in favour of abolishing police, but I do think your sentiment is one many anti-police advocates feel.

No. The advocates want freedom from consequences. I am the immediate consequence.

It's a shame that you don't understand that people have legitimate grievances with and objections to modern policing.

[Paddy O Fernature]

No. The advocates want freedom from consequences. I am the immediate consequence.

It's a shame that you don't understand that people have legitimate grievances with and objections to modern policing.

Swing and a miss.

[Lanoraie II]

Well, as someone who only has the police as a barrier between her and her violent abuser, I'm gonna go ahead and say yes, yes we do.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, please do not respond to my post if you're so privileged to have never needed police to protect you.

Edit: And yes I am VERY well aware that there are plenty of police officers who should not have been hired. I have met them and had firsthand experience myself. I have also met two officers in particular who are literally the reason I am as safe as they can make me right now, who listened to me and believed me when I told them I had been assaulted, and one in particular who has taken it upon himself (it's not required) to call me everyday and make sure I'm okay.

[Lanoraie II]

There would be no violence in the world if Cyberpunk was improved and made an actually good game. Therefore we would not need police.

Why would anyone murder or rob someone when they can do that instead?

I take it you've never met someone who uses and abuses people because they think they're entitled to something. Privileged, lucky you.

[Ifreann]

Well, as someone who only has the police as a barrier between her and her violent abuser, I'm gonna go ahead and say yes, yes we do.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, please do not respond to my post if you're so privileged to have never needed police to protect you.

We can have institutions that protect people without giving those institutions the kind of unaccountable powers that the police currently wield.

[Asherahan]

Yes but they should be held accountable for their actions and receive the proper funding and etc etc.

How is this hard to comprehend?

I suppose we could go for the all the police becomes the secret police too route.

[Sanghyeok]

Well, as someone who only has the police as a barrier between her and her violent abuser, I'm gonna go ahead and say yes, yes we do.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, please do not respond to my post if you're so privileged to have never needed police to protect you.

Edit: And yes I am VERY well aware that there are plenty of police officers who should not have been hired. I have met them and had firsthand experience myself. I have also met two officers in particular who are literally the reason I am as safe as they can make me right now, who listened to me and believed me when I told them I had been assaulted, and one in particular who has taken it upon himself (it's not required) to call me everyday and make sure I'm okay.

First, let me say I can empathise with your desire for safety, especially given your personal experiences are something nobody should live through. Regardless of our opinions on policing itself, we can all agree that people should have the right to live, work, and leisure in a safe, violence-free, prosperous community. Your unfortunate encounters with your abuser- and, if I'm not wrong, the police response- led you to believe that police are the mechanism that serves as law enforcement and peacekeeping. While I applaud the individual officers in your circumstance who displayed excellent behaviour, I also want to mention that this is rarely the case for many other people like you who have been assaulted, abused, or worse.

As Kowani noted elsewhere:

Because police do even worse. The true clearance rate (crimes where a formal charge is laid) has been 10%. For the past 30 years. And the arrest rate, exactly the same. 10%. And it gets worse. When you take convictions into account, 41% of murderers got away scot-free, as did 88% of rapists, 96% of robbers, 93% of assailants, and 97% of burglars. Larceny was particularly bad, with the conviction rate not even reaching a full percent.
It's not for lack of effort, either. After all, the police only spend 4% of their time on violent crime. Most of their time is spent on either non-criminal calls or traffic work. And despite these objectively terrible numbers, the amount of money America spends on policing continues to balloon, expanding year after year without stopping."

After all, according to the police themselves, 62% of them don't always report serious criminal abuses by other cops, and 52% of them thought it was normal for police to outright ignore misconduct by their colleagues.
How can we expect them to police the streets when they can't even police themselves?
And even the rare case of an officer getting fired for abuses or criminal behaviour doesn't stop them-they'll just get a job at another department.

In other words, police- who most people see as able solvers and deterrers of crime- fail to do so in many cases. Furthermore, many police officers themselves are responsible for abuse both on the job and at home, some sources claim anywhere from 25% to 40% and above. In many cases, those same police officers we trust to apprehend abusers are actually abusers as well. As Kowani mentioned, those crimes by police officers are rarely reported, and if they are, leads to few if any consequences. Doesn't that sound counterintuitive if our goal in creating police is to protect people from criminals and abuse?

Furthermore, as Kowani also wrote:

But does it make us safer? No. Not at all. In fact, just the opposite. The more the police focused on seizing property and collecting fines, the worse they got at actually solving crime.

In other words, police have been focusing less and less on solving crime- due to financial incentives (not that they needed them, by the way, as police departments across the United States and other nations are funded extremely well in the tens to hundreds of thousands per officer)- and more on actions like unlawfully seizing property that make them more like criminals. So, "what is to be done?"

Of course, when we say "abolish police" we do not mean that protection for people like you will disappear. That would be counterintuitive, and "abolishing police" in no way means "removing order" or "causing chaos." Please see my below post for my previous thoughts on this topic.

Thus far, most of my arguments have been on why I see police as faulty due to their identity as a servant of the state, and not as much regarding what occurs to ensure the reduction of crime in our post-police setting. One reason is I feel some other posters here, particularly Ifreann and Cordel, are far better at pushing their claims there. Your post regarding many people's worries on certain problems- in particular, "what do we do with crime and social stratification?" after police cease to exist- does however remind me to write about my own opinion on how to prevent those issue- ie, the progression of events before police as they exist now join feudalism and slavery in their rightful place: history books - as well as clear up misconceptions.

Some people seem to believe I wish to see police done away with instantaneously, having police at sunset and the entire institution abandoned by sunrise, with the prisons cleared and officers having found employment elsewhere. That is not so. As I've mentioned since my OP, I see the eventual abolition of police as a process lasting many years as opposed to an instantaneous change. There will be some periods when this process speeds up: initial reforms that shift away policing budgets, and the very end when police are abolished as a system. There will be some periods when this process slows down: when welfare is completing its work through education and prevention programmes to lower and deter crime, when minor offenses become legalised, when prisoners are rehabilitated so they are ready to make a return to society and prisons are no longer needed. But overall, there is a step-by-step movement towards our final goal. Much like the dessert chef understands we cannot make tiramisu before acquiring ladyfingers; we police abolishment advocates understand police cannot be abolished before prisoners are released, that prisoners cannot be released before they are rehabilitated, etc.

Now, what happens to "crime" throughout this process? Many argue that police prevent crime. Some note that crime may exist following our abolishing of police. Those are natural and entirely understandable concerns. Many people argue that without police we will have crime, but I urge them to ask themselves: why does crime still exist at such high rates even after police have existed for so long? Indeed, the claim that "police help prevent crime" or "police solve crime" has been debunked time and again, particularly by Kowani's excellent post, which I encourage everyone to read if they haven't yet. As for the second claim, that crime may still exist in our new society, we acknowledge such an argument. However, we believe it will be at low enough rates so that an alternative to policing is entirely feasible. I offer some ideas of how to reach that goal below:

As mentioned, our idea is gradually decreasing crime to extremely low levels throughout with continued improvement. Evidence tends to suggest that crime tends to decrease with increased education, which is one of our proposals- to shift budgets away from police and towards education. Similarly, our proposed increase in welfarehas been effective thus far in preventing all sorts of criminal offenses, and an increase would again be greatly effective by improving people's lives and genuinely decreasing incentives for crime (not to mention morally correct). Combined with mental health treatment to assist those at
elevated risk of violent activity especially since 40% of people in certain prisons are with psychiatric issues, lesser rules on drugs, helping nonviolent offenders, and other policies, the overall crime rate should be lowered even further. In time, police may be replaced entirely with unarmed intervention teams, further deterring crime with increased emphasis on community responsibility, and lower level volunteer forces.

Abolishing police will not be easy, but I do believe that with time it can be accomplished and bring us into a new and better society freed from policing by servants of capital and the state.

(Thanks to Cordel for offering me some grammatical and style edits)

I hope what I've written so far is at least understandable, if not entirely persuasive. I can understand where you're coming from, and I'm more than happy to discuss further as you see fit.