The Police have become quite a hot topic lately. On the left, one of the more prominent slogans is to abolish the police. But on this, like a lot of ban efforts, I'm a bit hesitant on. I don't mean this in some reactionary way, but am pretty worried that its electorally non-viable, but more importantly, even if it did get through, I'm skeptical it would work out as desired, and think it would backfire into private police. In short, this is because (A) the main force animating and exacerbating conflict is class conflict (like it or not, it's a fact of our social reality as much as oxygen is a fact of our physical reality) (B) the de facto role of law (and thus police) is to defend capital but (C) this is not due to inherent flaws of democracy or government, but due to corruption of government by the interests of the wealthy. And finally, in synthesis (D) government police would be replaced by police which are NOT democratically accountable in ANY way (yes, they barely are now, but I believe it would be far worse), who would defend capital with far more prejudice. I believe the problems with police are systemic, they are in part aberrations endemic to these institutions' particular histories, but what sustains this momentum is the animating force of class war. The power of government currently is wielded by the wealthy, and abolishing police will not mean abolishing police, so long as this configuration is maintained. The interests of capital exists everywhere in our world - it is a capitalist world - and thus it will always find a way to muster defense. If it were true that abolishing the police would fix the problems, I'd be totally down. As it is though, it seems like an electorally suicidal platform that wouldn't work anyways.
Police, as they are, are not simply a construct of constitutions and legislation, but an emergent shield for the powerful forces of capital. Some will point to southern police having roots in runaway-slave catchers, and there you go - police are an emergent shield in defense of the ruling class interests. Today, a lot of the immanent concerns with police can be categorized as (A) they conduct themselves recklessly, violently and arrogantly, to the detriment of often-BIPOC and poor communities, and (B) they suffer virtually no consequences for this conduct, often protecting one another. It's a pipe dream to think these problems will disappear if police departments are abolished and reconstituted as private security forces mirroring their government counterparts, a la UPS/FedEx to USPS. Except in this version, any thread of accountability to 'the people' has been cut. For a glimpse of how well they might be regulated, look to for-profit prisons (ie, there isn't much regulation, perhaps little difference between public and private), or Blackwater (operators of which recently pardoned by Trump for their massacre of civilians in Iraq). Yes, there isn't a lot accountability as it is, but reconstituting police as a private security force (which they will do - it is even a rising trend in the United States right now, and has nightmarish consequences, as seen in South Africa) is not a solution.
In a charitable interpretation of the police today, they are cogs in an extremely unjust system. This system has elements of justice to it (ie addressing abusers, murderers, etc. - 'cop stuff'), but these are confounded with extremely unjust elements. What is this system? The 13th amendment makes slavery of incarcerated persons legal, and the current War on Drugs disproportionately targets minority communities and has destabilizing consequences for Latin American nations, which results in both organized crime with tentacles in the US and mass displacement which drives immigration into the US. Basically, the United States institutes laws which drive phenomena which we then go on to say we need law enforcement to defend against. So we end up with the DEA and ICE, and police defense of and collaboration with such agencies. We have a vicious confluence of social, economic, political, and cultural (ie police culture, the strengthening of reactionary attitudes amongst law enforcement) factors that result in an 'endless war' which both provides, ostensibly, purpose to the police and their burgeoning power, yet also their actions and the laws they enforce perpetuate this conflict. It's what HR would call a 'conflict of interest'. But would abolishing the police solve these issues, rather than create a vacuum to fill?
As right-wing militant groups are on the rise, there is concern that the vacuum would be filled by such groups. These groups already have an influence in law enforcement, and abolishing the police would cede this space to such groups. 'Law enforcement' is the pretense to their role as defenders of capital. 'Law enforcement' is not the animating existential feature of police, it is it's facade - again, the true animating feature is defense of capital, and capital will make sure there is a contingent of enforcement do defend their interests. Furthermore, such militant groups could easily monetize themselves as private security groups. They already have the organization, already have the auspices of preparation and training, and many have law enforcement or military background. That is, these groups would have all of the 'perks' of law enforcement, without the government accountability part, and could easily be enterprise nuclei which attract former police, or vice versa. In either case, there is very little 'red tape' or democratic mechanism slowing this diffusion down.
In my view, it's quite clear that police are highly problematic. But we have to be wise with fixing problems. First, police abolition is not an electorally popular idea. It won't win elections. As it is, right wing groups and the armed forces of the United States government (including the police) have a lot more organizational and logistical capacity than the left. Even if 'popular unrest' occurs, the alt right has a very good chance at exploiting this for their own benefit. They talk the talk - they hate big corporations, big tech, etc etc - you can even listen to good ol' Jimmy Dore sings his praises of Tucker and alt-right militants! So abandoning an electoral strategy, in favor of more 'direct action', is, at best, extremely risky. An electoral strategy provides our best route. Electoral victory could work in tandem with unionization and cooperative formation to ween government off of corporate influence and diffuse power by empowering the working class. Throughout this effort, the institution of law enforcement will probably not be an ally. But as they say, better the devil you know than the devil you don't. This tandem legislative and grassroots work would also, via the betterment of the working class, strengthen the leftist position. In such a process, police departments can be de facto 'defunded', because winding down homelessness, the War on Drugs, and the 13th Amendment (among other issues) would decrease the scope of policing, both legislatively (winding down how many laws to actually enforce) and effectively - less dark activity will occur which would merit addressal by armed law enforcement.
The police are first and fore-most defenders of capitalism, and an essential cog at that. Law defends the interests of capital, and so this defense is baked into police work (and further exaggerated as corporate influence in government grows). The deep-rooted issues they represent cannot be disappeared with simple legislation. Instead, we can address the fundamental issues that propagate the police and the problems of poverty and conflict through legislation and worker organization. This won't be easy, but of course it won't - the problems of the police are fueled by systemic pathologies, and we can address these issues by addressing those pathologies over time. Today, corrupt and problematic as it is, the federal government is one of the greatest shields of disempowered groups. We shouldn't aim to sabotage government agency, so much as break the link between capital and government. This requires unionization and forming co-ops, and also requires legislative efforts. We aren't going to defeat capitalism in triumphant victory - we must wage 'guerrilla warfare', metaphorically speaking. By that I mean we must work to make these efforts popular, we must cultivate class consciousness, and we can't expect to win this fast (and thus seek quick legislative 'blitzes' and hope that it works). Capitalism didn't kill Feudalism, it slowly replaced it. Whatever follows Capitalism, it hopefully will be a bit faster, but we can't put all of our eggs into a blitzkrieg basket. We need to strengthen the position and awareness of workers - this is the fertile soil in which a just economic system can emerge. The issues of police are a symptom of this all, and we can't hope to fix the issues of police under capitalism, as it is.
This doesn't mean 'do nothing about police or right wing influence in the police'. We have to do a lot to address this, and we can most effectively do so as the-defenders-of-capital are extensions of our government. Once they go private, these problems will be exaggerated as its role in defending capital is put in stronger relief, as they become for-profit, and as there will be few levers to control the influence of right-wing politics in these groups. Recall - wealth is concentrated with white people, and is concentrated in, well, the wealthy. A post-abolition police force will be further removed from the interests of marginalized communities, will be populated more openly by reactionary right-wingers (see Blackwater for a reminder), and will be further motivated to do 'what is profitable', and they will more nakedly have the power of capital to defend them. Especially with the 13th amendment loophole in full force, a conservative government (particuarly a conservative judiciary - which we have), combined with privatized police, nakedly acting in the interests of capital, could be an absolute nightmare. It is not my belief that most cops today, even most police departments, act with the explicit goal of increasing the carceral slave work force - I believe there are people with these goals in mind, and these are systemically reflected in legislation and federal administration of prisons, etc., I do not believe it is an explicit goal of most actual law enforcement departments.
We should remember some lessons of the past of company police. If police are directly privatized, if they directly serve the highest-bidder - some capitalist who exploits labor - there arises a serious issue here; the gloves come off, there emerges a direct connection between number of arrests, police income, and capital interests in more legal slave labor. Obviously, fixing this loophole is paramount, but that requires a constitutional mechanism which is impossible to activate right now (3/4 of the states need to approve a Constitutional ammendment). This is a reflection of the sort of issues that arise from privatizing the police (the natural consequence of abolishing police under capitalism). We can't cut the police loose right now, things will only get uglier. We can glimpse this already - public police are being paid for by private, foreign fossil fuel corporations to defend their interests. But these mechanisms are embedded in the government - it is possible for democratic reform to change this. If it was totally privatized, this possibility would not only be closed off, but the idea itself (cops paid for by big corporations) would be the rule.