Musings on Total Abolition: An End to all Body-Policing Systems
Tessa Stapp, Staff Writer
Over the summer, Black Lives Matter protests sparked national discussion surrounding police reform and abolition in response to the ways policing disproportionately affects BIPOC communities. This call to abolition led city governments to ask: what would we replace police with? The San Francisco Examiner reported that San Francisco, among other cities across the United States, has developed plans to expand their fire department response teams to be composed of a paramedic, a licensed clinical social worker, and a peer advocate. However, this call to replace police with a social worker, family counselor or psychologist is not nuanced enough to uplift our communities. The answer for protecting our community is community fostering policies.
Modern day policing in the south is rooted in “slave patrols” formed to enforce the Fugitive Slave Acts passed in 1793 and 1850. The goal of these patrols was to capture runaway slaves and to squash potential rebellions. Law enforcement in the United States today continues to enable oppression through the over policing of predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods. This form of systemic oppression leads to a higher proportion of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Persons of Color) being imprisoned, as shown in recent data from the U.S. Department of Justice. To combat this injustice, many have called for social workers as a community centered alternative to law enforcement.
This change is not far fetched, but there is more to be done. The call to replace police with social workers ignores the reality of the moment we live in. Social work allows for the criminalization of poverty and addiction. Children are removed from homes when the issue is not a lack of care but rather basic needs insecurity. Thus, we must focus our resources differently.
Naomi Klein, a prominent feminist theorist explained, “in moments of crisis, people are willing to hand over a great deal of power to anyone who claims to have a magic cure”. She was writing in response to the recession after hurricane Katrina which allowed modern robber barons to corrupt school systems for fiscal profit. However, a lot of Americans are now in an emotional crisis. The spotlight that Black Lives Matter, as a global movement, has continued to shine on police brutality has brought the biases of our justice system into the forefront. Therefore, it makes sense for individuals in the midst of this crisis to call for solutions that already exist, such as calling for social workers to replace the police.
The issue with turning to these preexisting systems, is that they are rooted in the same historic systems of oppression. Social workers are a component of the prison-industrial complex. The overlapping interests of the United States governing bodies and that of industry combine to create a surveilling body that seeks to regulate the movement of bodies within the state.
We cannot simply stop at removing the minotaur terrorizing us in order to move towards true freedom. We must also escape the labyrinth itself. Police are the most visible of these policing systems- but the effects of body policing are seen in many spaces, and moving towards increasing social workers on police and firefighter task forces is just a way to exchange the minotaur for a new mythic beast.
Dorothy Roberts, a professor of Law and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the changemakers guiding the discussion on what the call to abolition looks like. She argues that the child welfare system and the justice system are both in the business of punishing Black and other marginalized bodies.
Like the Prison Industrial Complex, the Foster Industrial Complex is also one which profits off of the criminalization of poverty, basic needs insecurity, and addiction. Liberation does not come easily, it comes with reimagining. The call to replace cops with social workers is a call to transform the police state’s visceral bloodshed into one of slower violence, like that of environmental racism- the murder of livelyhoods made invisible.
The state wishes to make invisible the way Black, Indigenous, other Persons of Color, and working poor families are discriminated against by the state. This discrimination comes at the hands of the states’ inability to support people’s basic needs and the narrative that it is the fault of the laborer within capitalism when they cannot provide as compared to the inadequate wages.
Instead, there must be a more nuanced conversation, one that realizes social workers continue the criminalization of families that are facing drug addiction and basic needs insecurity. They continue the traumatization of low income children as they remove them from loving families experiencing poverty and place them in the foster-care complex.
Abolition is the answer- but this leads to a question of how to use these reappropriated funds to best serve community interests. The follow-up answer is to create community-led, community-centered programs to secure basic needs for those in the area and to set-up committees within neighborhoods in charge of specific aspects of communal care. An end to judgement, and policing of different lifestyles all together with a focus on holistic support for families and individuals is the only way to dream of a world outside of the slow violence these systems rooted in hatred create.
The answer is also about more than simply doing away with the police- it calls for an interrogation of all institutions today to identify the ways they disadvantage BIPOC families and communities. Tony Platt in 1982 wrote Crime and Punishment in the United States: Immediate and Long-term Reforms from a Marxist Perspective; which outlined seven policies to address injustices by our government. These are the start of a dream for a better, safer, community centered future.
Bring equal justice to the bail system
Platt is calling for equal justice in the bail system. This is something tangible on the California ballot in 2020. However, ballot justice is not found in replacing the cash bail system with risk management as Proposition 25 claims. This proposition would institute an even more racist form of jailing, where judges can discriminate against individuals they characterize as flight risks. Voting No on Proposition 20 is essential for protecting criminal justice reform.
Abolish Mandatory Sentences
Mandatory sentences are predefined lengths of imprisonment time which Judges are bound to. These laws do not prevent crimes, and use too broad of a scope which overlooks the complexity of every individual casse.
Restore Indeterminate Sentences
Twelve states, including California, do not utilize indeterminate sentencing. Restoring indeterminate sentences recognizes the humanity of those imprisoned, and allows for changes in the duration of jail time, and can move individuals towards parole faster.
Combat racism in Criminal Justice Professionals
The racism Platt recognized in 1982- serves as the foundation for pretrial detention and sentencing racial disparity today. Longer sentences for BIPOC are compounded from simultaneous biased use of discretion by prosecution, and policies that directly disadvantage POC and low income people.
Prosecute Corporate Crime and Racist Violence
There is proof that racist crimes go under reported in the US by police forces and white collar criminals receive preferential treatment within the prison system. To foster community care the punishment must fit the crime of undermining community health.
Increase Employment to Lower Incarceration
Platt frames this idea as unemployment being one of the causes of crime- but the truth is that basic needs insecurity causes crime. That is why there exists a need for securing basic needs for all peoples instead of punishing people without basic needs security.
Restore Funding for Community Alternatives to Imprisonment
Investing in community projects will allow for more food sovereignty in low income communities, and foster the investment needed to move outside of policing each other.
These points made in 1982, are more accessible now than ever before. Platt outlines a clear path towards abolition centered in radical incrementalism. Through us getting out and voting on propositions 17 and 18, marching for community funding, and phonebanking to raise awareness of local city initiatives we can radically change the future set before us. Abolishing the police doesn’t look like a one-for-one swap for social workers- but rather all of us putting in the effort to support each other, and changing the entire system away from aggression and towards compassion.