Anthology edited by Koshka Duff and published by Dog Section Press in 2021. Illustrated by Cat Sims.
CONTENTS
- Glossary 6
- Introduction - Koshka Duff 7
- Martial politics, police power: abolition, war and the arms trade - Chris Rossdale 29
- We are all police now: resisting everyday bordering and the hostile environment - Arianne Shahvisi 39
- Why borders and prisons, border guards and police? - Tom Kemp & Phe Amis 52
- Defending the ‘liberal-democratic order’: the strategic-political logic of counter-subversion - Connor Woodman 69
- From the colony to the metropole: race, policing and the colonial boomerang - Tanzil Chowdhury 85
- Statues and gangs: fascist panic and policing - Becka Hudson 95
- Black lives and the state of distraction - Eddie Bruce-Jones 107
- Police abolition and radical democracy - Daniel Loick 117
- Policing and coercion: what are the alternatives? - Guy Aitchison 133
- Practising everyday abolition - Sarah Lamble 147
- Theorizing transformative justice: comparing carceral and abolitionist selves, agencies, and responsibilities - Melanie Brazzell 161
- Beyond policing, for a politics of breathing - Vanessa E. Thompson 179
- Notes 193
- Bibliography 221
More resources – including an audio version, teaching resources, and glossary – can be found at the Abolitionist Futures website.
Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public Licence.
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Comments
Scribbled notes from when I…
Scribbled notes from when I read this:
Same publisher as the 12 Rules For What one, which also means full marks for design and illustrations. You can read the whole thing online at the Dog Section website too.
The majority of the book is taken up with why the police - and policing - is bad, with some contributors expanding the readers' view of the police to include border controls etc. This is fine, as far as it goes, but I'd venture that people who pick up a book called "Abolishing The Police" are already not massive fans of the police. In fact, loads of people have criticisms of the police, especially now, which makes the book quite timely. It's just that there is a gulf between criticising the police and calling for their abolition that I think could have been given more focus here.
The vast majority of contributors are academics of some sort and there is a tendency to get a bit word-soupy and ultra intersectional. But having said that, a lot of them also seem to be doing useful work in communities, which is more than I am at the moment. The editor was assaulted by Hackney police for giving a kid who was being arrested a bust card - and was hauled over the coals by the tabloids for her efforts into the bargain, including an especially foul piece by Jeremy Clarkson iirc. (I contributed to her crowdfunder fwiw.)
Perhaps it is this lecturey/footnotey profile of the contributors that made a lot of the material a bit abstract for me. I am sure that someone in the book would say this abstractness is because I am a cis white middle class bear who is not a sex worker or mad* or a bunch of other things, which would mean that I am more likely to be on the sharp end of policing in my daily life. Despite these privileges, I would like to abolish the police. And I am aware that there are times and places where this has happened in some ways, or where practical steps have been taken towards doing that. So perhaps the book could have been strengthened by including some more concrete examples of that.
There are some very useful chapters later in the book on transformative justice (as opposed to restorative justice) which I would recommend. And mentions of other sources to go for further information. The glossary in the book is a link to the related Abolitionist Futures website, which seems a lot more practical and readable. So you might want to start there.
*Mad is the term used in the book, as in Mad Pride, reclaiming "queer" etc.
The Police and judiciary are…
The Police and judiciary are canny, in the English sense. For a cis white middle class bear policing will likely take a "softly, softly approach", as the Judge said to the rabbi. To the true proletarian, due to material circumstances, the relations will more likely be violent and brutal. This is a conscious manoeuvre by the mercenary vindicators of the bourgeoisie.
Mad Pride is the bastard child of the Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression, which rightly point out that both judiciary and psychiatry, and anti-psychiatry, are instruments of Borg class rule.
A concrete example of the police being abolished occurred somewhere in the Far East in recent years. Insurgent proletarians captured a whole police brigade and made them strip naked. The biggest man was once a baby, naked.
Thanks both for uploading…
Thanks both for uploading this and giving us your thoughts, Fozzie!
Also, I have only just now realised why you are called "Fozzie"
The enigma is shattered! :-D
The enigma is shattered! :-D
Fozzie lays bare? Maybe if I…
Fozzie lays bare? Maybe if I stick around for 20 years the enigma will reveal itself. It's a possibility. I once saw Steven prostrated on a couch.