"Abolish the police": what does it actually mean?

June 13, 2020

In recent weeks, the systemic racism and never-ending cases of police brutality throughout the world (but namely the USA) have been brought to the attention of the general public, leading to generally positive conversations between friends, family, and online. The spike in the Black Lives Matter movement is very evident on the Internet specifically; in the past day, searches on Google for "Justice for Breonna Taylor act" in the US have increased by 1,550 percent, and following the murder of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks by a police officer, "Rayshard Brooks" has been the number 1 search topic on Google today.

The surge in the publicity of police brutality has meant that many are speaking up regarding their opinions on the matter, ranging from thinly veiled racism through the phrase "blue lives matter" to a demand you've likely heard by now: "abolish the police".

the basic definition

The most common misconception about this phrase is that abolishing the police is synonymous with anarchy. What's being proposed with the idea of abolishing the police is putting effort into alternate forms of order. Although the concept is a bit different to everyone, much of the movement is based around investing in communities (with increases in more just systems, health care, social workers, etc.) to create conditions where police aren't needed.

defund vs. abolish vs. reform

defund - lowering the budget for the police force and putting it towards communities/public services. Supporters' hope is that this lowers the need for police.

abolish - still defunding the police, but with an end goal in mind of completely getting rid of them. The idea that the police force can never be fixed, not that defunding will fix it. Supporters hope to, after defunding the police, give police's duties to specialists since the duties police are currently required to fill are broad/unreasonable.

reform - improving (but not getting rid of) the police force by introducing things like more training, technology, etc. This would require more money going into the police force, instead of less. Supporters generally agree that the system is flawed but not flawed beyond repair.

why?

Many of us (especially non-Black people) have grown up being told over and over again that police are kind, just, people fighting against criminals, and that although racist cops exist they're few and they're rare. In reality, although some cops may have good intentions as people, the occupation is inherently problematic. To illustrate the racism in the system, Black people are over 2x more likely to be killed by police than white people (not because Black people commit more crimes, but because of cops' biases and how over-policed Black communities are). Another important point to make is that reform has been proven not to work. In Minneapolis—where the murder of George Floyd occurred—police had already been given extensive anti-bias training, de-escalation training, and more—the full package that would be implemented with police reform.

as always...

Remember to stay informed! This is an incredibly current topic and new information comes out about it every day.