Prison and Police Abolition Resources and Discussion OT

[Necromanti]

How would you imagine a "ruling family" even establish itself though? Genuinely curious. Do you think that this family of say racists would not be recognized by other neighborhoods and not be placed in rehabilitation settings or just tossed from society? To assume that racism would somehow overcome the will of hundreds or thousands in a neighborhood or surrounding neighborhoods would probably fall into the belief that racism is inherent to humans, rather than socially taught. Since these neighborhood protectors live within the neighborhood, they are themselves subject to the neighborhood itself. Someone could be removed from the position or removed from the neighborhood entirely.

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Without regulations, there will always be some natural (or artificially induced) imbalance of resources. Maybe it happens for religious reasons (e.g. a self-proclaimed prophet). The greedy always find a way. Of course, the state of the other aspects of said society would also need to be considered. But those details are important, as where we are today arose from much smaller communities.

I think people succumb quite easily to tribalism without the education and training to effectively manage those thoughts. Depending on the community, I believe that kind of societal conditioning and programming could be all the strong. If the community becomes a white supremacist pseudostate, the neighborhood protectors would most likely fall along with the majority or be ousted themselves. There's a level of artificial selection and maintenance needed (by people with a common ideology) to prevent something like that from happening given how commonplace things like racism, homophobia, etc. are. I guess it's hard to avoid the circular loop of, "who watches the watchmen?"

 

[Quzar]

Without regulations, there will always be some natural (or artificially induced) imbalance of resources. Maybe it happens for religious reasons (e.g. a self-proclaimed prophet). The greedy always find a way. Of course, the state of the other aspects of said society would also need to be considered.

I think people succumb quite easily to tribalism without the education and training to effectively manage those thoughts. Depending on the community, I believe that kind of societal conditioning and programming could be all the strong. If the community becomes a white supremacist pseudostate, the neighborhood protectors would most likely fall along with the majority or be ousted themselves. There's a level of selection and maintenance needed on some level (by people with a common ideology) to prevent something like that from happening. I guess it's hard to avoid the circular loop of, "who watches the watchmen?"

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The video addresses the idea of reactionary and racist citizens being placed in rehabilitation. Also, yes you would have to restructure the economic system from what it is right now, granted the USA is definitely rich enough to do so but would never think to do it. You'd have to believe that the majority of people are just inherently racist, and I don't ascribe to that belief at all, in order for white supremacists to take over a place as large as the USA from neighborhood to neighborhood. Again, citizens in society are the ones who hold power over these social workers and investigators, they are not an institution given power by the state. As servants to the people, whom have the right to collectively dismiss them, they have no power over said people unlike our current system.

 

[Icolin]

No More Cop Unions

Abolishing police unions should be part of the broader fight to defund, demilitarize, and ultimately dismantle the U.S. police force.

newrepublic.com

It's also not as though the police unions' leaders are taking any pains to show solidarity, or even sympathy, with their fellow workers. Rather, police unions have a long, wretched history of doing exactly the opposite: playing on public fears and misconceptions to push damaging "no angel" narratives about the victims of police violence, while also howling about the "bravery" and "sacrifice" their employees make to "protect" fellow citizens.

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[Icolin]

The Long Arm of the Law | Lyle Jeremy Rubin

In Badges Without Borders, Stuart Schrader demonstrates how the nightmare of American imperial war grew up alongside a parallel despotism stateside.

thebaffler.com

 

[Icolin]

 

[andrew]

idk for sure if this is the right place for this, and I don't mean to self-promote, but this thread seems more fitting than the general MPLS Protests one.

I'd been seeing the Campaign Zero 8 Can't Wait project going around, and remembered it was the exact same one I was excited about in 2016 before I'd done more research and was looking for something to latch onto after Ferguson. This time with them promoting it it seemed weak and watery to me, but I kinda pushed it aside until I started to see people writing about how it was based on misstated data. I study data science rn so I spent my lunch looking into it. I admit I went into this with a preformed opinion about what the right way forward is (i.e. abolition of unions and defunding) but I think I was fair to the study that 8 Can't Wait is based on. and in being fair I found a LOT of issues. maybe someone would be interested in this, or lemme know what you think.

Why 8 Can’t Wait?

As we all search for ways forward that will prevent the continued killings of black and brown people like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor…

medium.com

 

[Terra Torment]

 

[FliX]

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I love these. 💚

 

[Haribo]

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I think it's worth quoting this in here.

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yep this book is in credible, highly recommend

 

[Shevek]

Fantastic thread, definitely bookmarking this. Thanks OP!

 

[Deleted member 6230]

idk for sure if this is the right place for this, and I don't mean to self-promote, but this thread seems more fitting than the general MPLS Protests one.

I'd been seeing the Campaign Zero 8 Can't Wait project going around, and remembered it was the exact same one I was excited about in 2016 before I'd done more research and was looking for something to latch onto after Ferguson. This time with them promoting it it seemed weak and watery to me, but I kinda pushed it aside until I started to see people writing about how it was based on misstated data. I study data science rn so I spent my lunch looking into it. I admit I went into this with a preformed opinion about what the right way forward is (i.e. abolition of unions and defunding) but I think I was fair to the study that 8 Can't Wait is based on. and in being fair I found a LOT of issues. maybe someone would be interested in this, or lemme know what you think.

Why 8 Can’t Wait?

As we all search for ways forward that will prevent the continued killings of black and brown people like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor…

medium.com

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I've actually seem some criticism on the data myself. Not gonna hold my tongue but I think Campaign Zero is being shitty by pushing this and claiming it's based on data when that data is faulty.

 

[andrew]

I've actually seem some criticism on the data myself. Not gonna hold my tongue but I think Campaign Zero is being shitty by pushing this and claiming it's based on data when that data is faulty.

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There're more posts from folks smarter than I digging into the nitty gritty of the data, going deeper than the questions on experimental design and interpretation I raised and actually pointing out calculation errors or misunderstandings. this is a great one


In the meantime Campaign Zero has responded to critiques of the data and from that response while it remains clear to me their hearts are in the right place the clarifications don't really do anything to address the issues being raised. For one, they're continuing to use terms like "predict" when this data is purely correlative—Sinyangwe says in one tweet that the study proves these policies "predict" harm reduction then 2 seconds later says they don't prove causation. Which is it? They suggest part of the reason the data is imperfect is that it was hard to get from departments, but they don't explain why old data from before many of these policies were put in place is being used to make claims and raise funds now. They don't explain why they're still using the 72% figure that's baldly incorrect. They don't explain the errors in calculation of effect size per policy.

And most of all, they don't really make any concrete argument for why these policies should be pursued as a first step. Sinyangwe says this is the first step on the road to defunding and abolition and that their campaign doesn't draw away from those efforts. Except, if that were true, why not make that a blatant part of their goal? There's a lack of clarity that at this point can only be said to be intentional, because they've admitted it's not clear. As a result I don't agree with the argument that their project doesn't pull away from efforts towards abolition, because you can see so many laymen interpreting these policies as the ultimate goal precisely because Campaign Zero doesn't underline that they're a stopgap measure. When you falsely tell everyone that these policies would reduce police violence by 72%, a lot of people are going to think these policies are a hugely consequential step and put their money and efforts there despite they resulting improvement being nowhere close to that. I find it irresponsible, frankly.

 

[Poodlestrike]

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These are great because they highlight the multi-layered nature of what police abolition looks like. Not "replace the cops with a new organization," replace them with many.

I think that a couple might be over-optimistic, but eh, that's okay.

 

[Deleted member 6230]

There're more posts from folks smarter than I digging into the nitty gritty of the data, going deeper than the questions on experimental design and interpretation I raised and actually pointing out calculation errors or misunderstandings. this is a great one


In the meantime Campaign Zero has responded to critiques of the data and from that response while it remains clear to me their hearts are in the right place the clarifications don't really do anything to address the issues being raised. For one, they're continuing to use terms like "predict" when this data is purely correlative—Sinyangwe says in one tweet that the study proves these policies "predict" harm reduction then 2 seconds later says they don't prove causation. Which is it? They suggest part of the reason the data is imperfect is that it was hard to get from departments, but they don't explain why old data from before many of these policies were put in place is being used to make claims and raise funds now. They don't explain why they're still using the 72% figure that's baldly incorrect. They don't explain the errors in calculation of effect size per policy.

And most of all, they don't really make any concrete argument for why these policies should be pursued as a first step. Sinyangwe says this is the first step on the road to defunding and abolition and that their campaign doesn't draw away from those efforts. Except, if that were true, why not make that a blatant part of their goal? There's a lack of clarity that at this point can only be said to be intentional, because they've admitted it's not clear. As a result I don't agree with the argument that their project doesn't pull away from efforts towards abolition, because you can see so many laymen interpreting these policies as the ultimate goal precisely because Campaign Zero doesn't underline that they're a stopgap measure. When you falsely tell everyone that these policies would reduce police violence by 72%, a lot of people are going to think these policies are a hugely consequential step and put their money and efforts there despite they resulting improvement being nowhere close to that. I find it irresponsible, frankly.

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That was the twitter thread I was referring to. I'm not much of a data scientist so I can't offer any unique insights on the studies they presented but I gotta say this is all pretty embarrassing on Campaign Zero's part

Also, it's pretty interesting that they're saying they don't want to take away from defunding the police but DeRay gave an interview last week in GQ and he said this:

 

[Deleted member 7130]

That was the twitter thread I was referring to. I'm not much of a data scientist so I can't offer any unique insights on the studies they presented but I gotta say this is all pretty embarrassing on Campaign Zero's part

Also, it's pretty interesting that they're saying they don't want to take away from defunding the police but DeRay gave an interview last week in GQ and he said this:

Click to shrink...

Wasn't camp zero tied to Obama's police reform task force or something like that?

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

idk for sure if this is the right place for this, and I don't mean to self-promote, but this thread seems more fitting than the general MPLS Protests one.

I'd been seeing the Campaign Zero 8 Can't Wait project going around, and remembered it was the exact same one I was excited about in 2016 before I'd done more research and was looking for something to latch onto after Ferguson. This time with them promoting it it seemed weak and watery to me, but I kinda pushed it aside until I started to see people writing about how it was based on misstated data. I study data science rn so I spent my lunch looking into it. I admit I went into this with a preformed opinion about what the right way forward is (i.e. abolition of unions and defunding) but I think I was fair to the study that 8 Can't Wait is based on. and in being fair I found a LOT of issues. maybe someone would be interested in this, or lemme know what you think.

Why 8 Can’t Wait?

As we all search for ways forward that will prevent the continued killings of black and brown people like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor…

medium.com

Click to shrink...

Many people have been pointing out this campaign is bogus not just in data but in its actual ideas. Many of the police institutes that have killed people in the last 5-10 years already followed some of these suggestions and STILL violated them

 

[andrew]

Many people have been pointing out this campaign is bogus not just in data but in its actual ideas. Many of the police institutes that have killed people in the last 5-10 years already followed some of these suggestions and STILL violated them

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that's a whole nother ball of twine: it's not as if making these things capital R Rules will stop police from doing them anyway, they've shown that. So on top of the fact that all their (bad) information was gathered and processed after Ferguson and most police departments implemented the majority of the policies, implementing them doesn't actually stop cops from doing those things. I get that CZ is pushing for "harm reduction" and incremental steps, but when there's evidence staring us in the face that those incremental steps aren't enough, idk why you would put your organizational energy behind them. (I do actually know why of course—grant money—but we all know Deray will never admit to that)

That was the twitter thread I was referring to. I'm not much of a data scientist so I can't offer any unique insights on the studies they presented but I gotta say this is all pretty embarrassing on Campaign Zero's part

Also, it's pretty interesting that they're saying they don't want to take away from defunding the police but DeRay gave an interview last week in GQ and he said this:

Click to shrink...

yeah I mean sorry to them but it's so fucking disingenuous to say their project doesn't take away from other more progressive projects. Factually their presence and publicity means some eyes will only come across their proposals. And some of those eyes are celebs, people with large platforms who will then share about campaign zero but not abolition/defunding. People only have so much fixed bandwidth, and if you're occupying it with incrementalist ideas based on bad data you are factually taking away from other progressive endeavors.

 

[Ogodei]

My armchair analyst thought is that you keep SWAT teams for cases with suspects armed with guns, cops intervening in violent crimes have pistol sidearms but aren't allowed to deploy them unless there's suspicion that the suspect is armed with a lethal weapon.

Nonviolent affairs are not intervened with by the cops, unless it's an issue of selling hard drugs due to the high possibility that well-armed drug cartels are involved. Or at least a different branch of officer, similar to parking patrol, who aren't armed but are trained in self-defense.

One big thing is to ban the charge of "resisting arrest" unless there's another charge applied alongside it that doesn't have to do with the arrest itself or the arresting officer. It's bullshit that you can be arrested for... being arrested.

 

[blackw0lf48]

Here are two great resources for police abolition.

Police Abolition | The Record

The best criminal justice reporting tagged with "Police Abolition," curated by The Marshall Project.

www.themarshallproject.org

The Reader guide to police abolition - Chicago Reader

Our reporting on envisioning and organizing a city less reliant on cops to keep us safe

m.chicagoreader.com

 

[FliX]

John Oliver succinctly stating what defund the police means

 

[Terra Torment]

Intercepted Podcast: Ruth Wilson Gilmore on Abolition

Guest host Chenjerai Kumanyika speaks with abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore in a special two-part episode.

theintercept.com

 

[Terra Torment]

Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop

I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were.

medium.com

Great medium post. It's called confessions of a former bastard cop. It's about how all cops are bastards from the perspective of a former police officer. He talks about how police officers are socialized into being bastards. He then transitions into talking about police abolition.

 

[Terra Torment]

New Thought Slime about Crime and Legitimacy

Crime and Legitimacy

Ad revenue for this video will be donared to 70+ Mutual Aid, Racial Justice Orgs, and Bail funds: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd S...

www.youtube.com

The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime.

 

[Scottt]

There's a live panel going on right now that will be saved for later viewing:

 

[Scottt]

This is a nice and succinct article by Mariame Kaba:

New York Times: "Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police"

And a similar, Canada-oriented one by Sandy Hudson:

Huffington Post: "Defunding the Police Will Save Black and Indigenous Lives in Canada"

 

[Terra Torment]

 

[phonicjoy]

European here, so take this with a grain of social democracy, but to me it seems like on of the drivers of all this shit is the need to keep prisons full to do low paid labor and make money off the backs of inmates

would abolishing work programs and private prisons make the whole structure collapsin on itself?

suddenly inmates cost the states money, there is pressure to decriminalize and reduce inmate population. Just a thought.

 

[Terra Torment]

Behind the Police

Listen to Behind the Police on Spotify. How did American police get so violent? The answer to that question goes back centuries, to the earliest days of this nation. On this special podcast miniseries hosts Robert Evans and rap artist Propaganda (Jason Petty) draw a straight line from the...

open.spotify.com

Robert Evans has a new podcast about the history of policing and how it evolved from, in the south slave patrols, and in the north, street gangs that got recruited to bust the heads of striking workers.

If we're going to have police, what I would expect from them is that they be law enforcement: fair, impartial, stoic, professional, enforcing all the laws equally and against everyone. They should be investigating and arresting the wage thieves managing the store as much as the shoplifter. They would go after the Jeffrey Epstein's of the world as much as they go after working class wife beaters.

That ain't what we got though.

And it is not what we will ever have given the dynamics of power and material conditions of power.

The origin of policing is in carrying out the will of those with power: the wealthy, the connected, the ones in office. Jesus said, "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." They are are a bad tree and look what fruit they bear. They can no more be reformed than a slave plantation can be made woke. Drone pilots bombing funerals cannot be reformed by putting more women of color behind the controls. ICE concentration camps aren't made better by having the staff be from the same neighborhood as the inmates. The HR department isn't going to diversity train away the racism of a guy with swastika tattoos. The police and prison are an inherently oppressive institution. It doesn't matter where you recruit the cops from, what the demographics of the police are, how much sensitivity training you give them. Policing appeals to people with authoritarian personalities, who want to do violence towards targeted populations. They are not going to be fair, impartial, stoic, or professional. They were created not to be any of those things. They were created to be the pigs that all of them are.

People of the 19th century couldn't see a world without slavery. We must imagine a world without class, without prisons, and without police.

​

 

[Terra Torment]

Why Some Cops Think They're The Punisher

This is a brief video on why cops are wearing The Punisher's logo. I had wanted to go into a few other things, such as how a certain right wing militia also ...

www.youtube.com

Why Some Cops Think They're The Punisher

The Punisher emblem is a symptom of a dark mindset that is inherent to police. It is absolutely vile. it shows that their profession appeals to people who want to hurt and kill people, as part of a revenge fantasy. It is an authoritarian personality symbol. Its for people who want to hurt targeted people. This is a symbol for thugs, not lawbringers. Remember that skit about the nazis who realize they are the baddies because their uniforms have skulls on them? No one who is good would use the fucking Punisher logo. I see that logo and the blue lives matter stripe on it as more evidence that the pigs cannot be redeemed.

 

[Terra Torment]

Coronavirus VIII: Prisons & Jails: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

As US prisons and jails see an alarming spike in COVID-19 infections, John Oliver discusses why the virus has spread so rapidly behind bars and what we can d...

www.youtube.com

The absolute abomination of leaving inmate populations to die from Coronavirus in our prisons.

 

[Thordinson]

Coronavirus VIII: Prisons & Jails: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

As US prisons and jails see an alarming spike in COVID-19 infections, John Oliver discusses why the virus has spread so rapidly behind bars and what we can d...

www.youtube.com

The absolute abomination of leaving inmate populations to die from Coronavirus in our prisons.

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Our firm has quite a few people in jail because they cannot afford bail and they won't be let out due to Coronavirus. It's terrible.

 

[Thordinson]

I've recently joined a clinic at my law school to reintegrate formerly incarcerated peoples and the ultimate goal of our clinic is that it won't exist in the future. I was amazed that the entire leadership is for prison abolition and are actively working towards it. It's good to find people willingly to challenge the system.

European here, so take this with a grain of social democracy, but to me it seems like on of the drivers of all this shit is the need to keep prisons full to do low paid labor and make money off the backs of inmates

would abolishing work programs and private prisons make the whole structure collapsin on itself?

suddenly inmates cost the states money, there is pressure to decriminalize and reduce inmate population. Just a thought.

Click to shrink...

It wouldn't. It would hurt the system but most prisons aren't private in the U.S. Last I saw it was only 8% or so. Politicians and police are happy losing that money to appear "tough" on crime. Recently, a county near here, had a big unveiling of a county jail. The way it was covered by the local news was that it was a really great thing. They even have isolation cells for prisoners with Covid!