Abolish the Police!

A contribution to a discussion that does not (yet) exist in Luxembourg

Summary: The police embody the power of the state and makes him real and touchable. Thereby, the police is the legitimization of the monopoly of violence, which the state grants to itself — otherwise the legitimization would be merely imaginary. The primary purpose of the police is its own self-preservation: growth, more power, and that ad infinitum. If you go there and compare the different governments and states (all of which have a police force) you come to the conclusion that the monopoly of the police is not exercised by the means of the use of force, but by the lawfulness of the use of force. But if the police have the right over life and death, then this has nothing to do with justice. If one tolerates that the cops have weapons, then one tolerates that they can always be used…. But the right to kill someone can’t belong to anyone, it can only be legitimized by a reprehensible legal basis. If, as an example, in most countries the death penalty is abolished, this did not lead to the abolition of the police as well — which bring the risk of killing people by cops. And that is exactly the case: the police kill! And when they are not killing, they are beating, torturing, discriminating and humiliating people. So now, if you ask, how to live without the police and deal with problems and conflicts, then this is a question, how to live without structural and organized violence? The question of how to abolish the police, to seriously discuses and experiment it practically, unfortunately, always arises too late, only after someone has been killed by the police again.

Last year, in response to the killing of George Floyd by a cop, there was discussion about how to defund the police or even completely abolish the police. The police have been repeatedly criticized (not only in the U.S.) for being racist, discriminating, using disproportionate force, and killing (unarmed) people. Despite all this, police power is expanding globally. The Luxembourg state, which relies primarily on repressive methods to solve social problems, is no an exception. The current discussions in this country are about reforming the police; expanded and strengthened them. We propose another way: Abolish the police!^[1]

Probably some people have already stopped reading this text, because they can’t imagine a world without cops. Or one imagines this world as a world where “murder and manslaughter” rules. But it is somehow understandable that people think or believe that without a “legitimate” violence, people would not be able to live together, but, at the first opportunity people would bash each other’s heads. Because the lie that people could not live without police is (re-)produced everywhere. The police itself and the rule it needs to maintain a certain world order feeds this belief (or lie), that without the police we would live like in the film “the purge”. If one wants to seriously discuss the abolition of the police, then one must destroy this lie. If one not only assumes, but takes as an undiscreditable principle, that the police are the only ones who can make a meaningful contribution to justice and the public good (which they claim to serve), then the police are first and foremost fulfilling an end in themselves. Their power is based on and extended by this axiom, rather than asking whether one would not be better off without the police.^[2]

Etymologically, police goes back to the Greek word “polis” (city-state). And thus this describes well the roots of the police: the guardians of the state order. Their work activity refers, if you like, to the (state) control of its own population. The existence of the police is based on power, more precise, on the legal monopoly of the exercise of executive and legal force. It is this power which is authorized by the state so that it can enforce respect for itself and its laws. At the same time, the police sees itself not only as a guardian of the law, but also as a guardian of justice. This gives rise to the cops’ subjective feeling that they never have enough power. Even if the cop himself thinks he or she is serving justice and not just the law, this conclusively shows that policing is totalitarian. The cop, with his uniform, is in a way the total embodiment of the state, because from the state’s point of view he has no freedom that doesn’t establish his legitimacy completely from the state. The cops are a means for the state to extend its rights by all means where it is not yet (sufficiently) present. Totalitarian also in the sense that the cop and also the citizen, assume that justice and public good is dependent on the work of the police. This is more a fiction than reality, however, by propagating this as true, the police themselves can trigger an endless quest for power: The myth of “More police, more justice”. This needs to be problematized and turning to the state in this regard is contradictory, because the police are the embodiment of the state in its most real — most tangible — form. Or, in other words, the power and violence of the state (whether democratic or not) to enforce its laws is manifested in its most tangible and visible form through the presence of the police in everyday life. It is the click of the handcuffs that is the most unadulterated and direct touch for someone between reality and the state. Other contacts that the state thinks it has with reality are more imaginary and symbolic (taxes, state support, services, etc.). Real in the sense that the state directly attacks the body and not just, for example, the money from someone. State violence in the form of the police (as well as prison) is primarily a physical reality.

The police not only personify the state, but also the defense of private property — which is fundamental to capitalism. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the roots of the modern police lie in the beginning of the capitalist system. The police gave a reality to the idea of the modern state and capital, it made everything visible and above all touchable! Without an executive and legitimate force, the state and its laws, as well as property relations, would be merely fictitious or based on a free will — state rule would thus not be possible. It is only through the threat of force that the police makes a law “real”. In this, shall we say, practical palpability from the state, the police perform two functions: On the one hand (well known) a repressive function, on the other (less known) a general violence aimed at destroying the individual and creating the citizen. As I said, the state must force the individual his role as citizen, that the latter internalizes this role. Now, if we talk about the danger of police power being ignored by the state (in the case of massive use of force by a cop, for example) this is self-evident – this is also the case with the citizen. The citizen ignores the danger unless he or she is a victim of police violence him- or herself. If we look at the current discussions, it is actually even worse, because: the danger of massive police power is considered a necessary evil, since the task of the police is to exercise law and order. Accordingly, it seems paradoxical to recognize that the police themselves contribute to the perpetuation of social injustice (e.g., property relations, the gap between rich and poor widening, etc.).

The state also has other possibilities to manage its population, however, whenever the state appears weak or actually is, the call for more police is made (and not, for example, for a more equal society). As with the discourse around crime, which is not only led by the political right, there is always a call for more police and more powers, because the state alone would not be able to get the problem under control. As is currently the case in the main-station district in Luxembourg-City, the current discussion revolves around the fact that the state is not taking action there (against crime, prostitution, drug trafficking and consumption) and that more police or private security companies are needed. And what the situation is portrayed worse (or actually is), what the police is more defended by the government and the “good” citizens, even when the police beats over the legal framework, a cop hits someone, etc.

The discussions about police and “crime”, which are led by the government, are about the fact that the police department does not have enough resources to solve the problems. It would need more cops in the street and in the office, more legal possibilities, more and better technological equipment. But even if the recorded crimes decrease, the force and the power of the police will not decrease. It must be specified that not only the crimes themselves are considered, but the reports and interventions by the police or what was seized from them. The numbers and the resources of the police become the only criterion. If the numbers (of arrests, drugs seized, reports, …) are too low, then according to the government, the Ministry of Interior or the Police Directorate, it is because there are not enough resources for the police to work effectively. And if, as is currently the case in Luxembourg-City, the police cannot be increased quickly enough, then private security companies are sent into the streets.^[3] The discussion about private security companies in the city is merely a questioning of the monopoly of individual police activities, but not a questioning that the police stand for justice. The slogans one hears from the U.S., France, and other countries from people who take to the streets against the police, such as “No Justice, No Peace — Fight the police” “Police partout, justice nulle part” hit an important point, namely that the police do not stand for justice, but the opposite. The bourgeois belief, the state fairy tale, the fiction or whatever you want to call it, that the police stands for justice, goes so far that there are armed cops running around all the time without anyone seeming to mind. Not only the violence, but also the presence of armed people who can always control you, is tolerated by the population in the name of law and order. The very fact of giving a monopoly on weapons to one group of people and not to the others produces an injustice, even before the judge: a policeman can “get away with” more; or a cop is believed more in court than a “normal” citizen.

Violence plays a central role in the police, and it does not matter whether the violence is used or “merely” threatened. For the police, and for all those who call them (and want more police), social problems are to be solved with violence. A police reform then seems absurd, because in the end it means a reform of violence. But it would be better to ban violence: Abolish the police. And that would mean taking violence away from those who use it. In fact, police is the only violence that can be effectively fight, because it is the most organized association (perhaps together with the mafia?) that uses violence. For comparison and just as an example, domestic violence cannot be fought head on and certainly not by the police. On the other hand, violence or reaction against the police is always justified! Because the police uniform hides a lie and crime that makes every person who wears it inhuman himself. Therefore, slogans such as “ACAB”, “pigs” or others, carry a truth in themselves. The statement that “police officers are only doing their job” hides the fact that the individual abandons his or her humanity as soon as he or she puts on their uniform. It is not a question of whether someone is a good or bad person, this is irrelevant because the (violent) structure is above the individual police officer. Therefore, a discussion about good or bad cops is moot….

Police reform is also always an attempt of the state to appear more “human” — the Minister of Interior likes to talk about being closer to the citizens. Yet it is a global development that control is becoming more and more sophisticated (“smarter”). It is certainly to be welcomed if there are fewer deaths by the police than in the past, but it is an illusion to think that, in general, fewer people die or are injured by repression (e.g., in jail). The development that the state no longer uses excessive and frontal force to enforce its laws is a development in the interest of capital. On the one hand, excessive violence destabilizes the state itself, and on the other, it risks losing manpower.^[4] The state considers other, more subtle means more adequate and efficient: Surveillance, prison, state terror, etc. Technology plays an important role here because it not only makes control more subtle, but also gives the police/state more options. Through the technological expansion of control, which the Minister of the Interior, among others, is striving for, “being closer to the citizens” means making control more invisible to the citizen.

It is necessary to say and express why the police can’t protect the population. Or rather, that the police do not want to protect the whole population because they act in the interest of the state and capital. In a capitalist society, the individual is measured and evaluated according to the interest, what role and how useful someone is for capital and state. And as already explained, the police is the most visible expression of domination. In all social problems and conflicts, the police have only one goal: to demonstrate the existence of the state!^[5] The citizen plays a large role in determining what is considered a problem for the state and that the police are seen as the solution to almost all problems. To understand this one must keep in mind that the police are the state’s answer to complex problems, such as poverty, rape, drug addiction, prostitution, disputes between neighbors, traffic, murder, pandemic, etc. If we want to abolish the police, the first thing we need to do is see what needs to be solved as a social problem in the first place. Then we have to propose solutions that don’t need the police or similar. These “police-free” solutions always exist, because, as I said, the primary purpose of the police is to demonstrate the existence of the state. Whether there is a direct solution in each case, or whether a problem is structurally intrinsic to the system, must be considered on a case-by-case basis. Even if probably many social problems are (re-)produced by the existing unjust system itself, one cannot and must not think that with the end of capitalism also all social problems and conflicts disappear — the social revolution is not a “cure” for all problems. For oneself, in one’s circle of friends, community, neighborhood or village, one can think about how to resolve conflicts without the police (if they need to be resolved) while practicing a “police-free” life. Nevertheless, in order to even think about finding solutions without police and thus argue for the abolition of police, one must see and agree that the police, just like all repressive measures (including prison), are not a solution to social conflicts and problems, but parts of power and domination.^[6]

One must be able to think a possibility, perspective, and necessity that there can be a life without police. Theoretically, the abolition of the police is not so complex. If you look at the many proposals that were discussed globally last year in the wake of the protests against the police, approaches such as: the cops must be offered a new job; recruitment must be reduced or stopped; police salaries must be drastically reduced and temporarily a large part dismissed; or other measures to make the profession less attractive; until the police are slowly defund and then disappear.

The police are not independent. As we have tried to show, the police are closely rooted to the modern state, and they serve each other. If either were to fall away, it would significantly weaken the other. This explains why no ruling party wants to abolish the police (even if the same party in opposition would still be sympathetic to “abolish the police”). Because even if there are sometimes more, sometimes fewer cops in a government, there is no difference in the state itself. There is little that is granted to the state by its population merely by law, there is much more that is not granted to the state. That is why the state needs an executive, a police. It is a fact that laws are more real (or more effective in the sense of the state) when the police practically ensure that laws are observed than when a law is merely written down on paper. Thus, if the state were to limit the power of the police, it would be limiting its own interests and power. In fact, by limiting the police, the state would be limiting its power to act and its direct points of contact with its citizens (where they feel physically the state). Accordingly, a government, like the state per se, has no interest in weakening itself by abolishing the police. The cops more or less compensate for the “loss of reality” of the idea of the state in people’s minds. The presence of the cops is a reminder to the population: the state exists. And depending on how much the state is present in the minds of the people — who believe the statement that the state exists — the state needs more or less cops. Or in other words: If the state needs less cops, it means that the people (or much more citizens) have internalized the cop themselves: the cop is in their own brain.

To abolish the police means: to abolish the state, to want to destroy it.

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[1] We must specify that this also means the private security companies that are currently being used more and more in Luxembourg-city, harassing people who do not fit into the “city of the rich”.

[2] There are so many myths about the police. For example, that the fear of the police and punishment would deter criminals from committing a crime. But this is a lie. Or who would like to live in a country where the only objection of the inhabitants to rape or cannibalism would be a fear of a legal punishment? It turns out to be false that society and also people don’t commit acts only because of the fear of sanctions.

[3] Thereby the demand of the police to get more power is infinite. By the created fact that the police appears as the legitimate guarantor of justice and that, more justice, more protection and punishment of criminals, are all things that know no limit — or when is there (whether subjectively or objectively) enough justice, enough security?

[4] That the cops use shots against demonstrations or strikes used to be the case in Europe. Today, or at the moment, this is not the case in this country, but globally, it is often the case.

[5] This stands above all (even before a solution, if there is anything like a police solution). A thought on this: If the police solve all problems, do they make themselves obsolete? It becomes clear that the police can never have a fundamental (or radical, in the sense of going to the roots) solution to social problems or conflicts. They manage social problems and have only temporary or symptomatic solutions, if any.

[6] In the U.S., during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, you could read on the walls “Who do you call when cops murders?” This phrase was also seen during the protests in Hong Kong, where cops brutally beaten down any anti-government protest. In these cases, the question of how to live without police arises with a sense of urgency. Especially in the U.S., in the black community, this is a necessary question because black people are repeatedly victims of police (violence). This results in self-organization and interesting proposals to develop “police-free” solutions.

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