Ive been following the BLM UK demos thread. But not this one.
See Defunding the police has come up in US with occupation in Seattle.
Watched this a few nights ago. Interview with Vitale who has written a book supporting defunding the police.
His book is free to download on Verso. Watched the interview but have not read the book yet.
The massive uprising following the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020--by some estimates the largest protests in US history--thrust the argument to defund the police to the forefront of international politics. It also made The End of Policing a bestseller and Alex Vitale, its...
www.versobooks.com
Written before these protests its now topical.
He is saying that policing is recent invention. It was brought in to police the new working class who flocked to towns in early days of industrial revolution, In USA also to police the black slave who worked in towns in the south and to help subjugate colonised people. Both US and UK brought it in.
So from its inception policing was about social control of Black people, people in colonies and the new working class.
This developed over the years but this is it reason for being.
He knows more about the US than here.
In US he argues that policing is where the Neo Liberals and social conservatives found common ground. The Neo Liberals didnt want to blame social ill on the market , the social conservatives believed that individuals were responsible for crime/ anti social behaviour.
This came together in the "Broken Windows" policing ( was imported here). Instead of inequality causing more crime its was low level anti social behaviour that if ignored led to more serious crime. So standing on its head idea that reforms like redistribution of wealth would cut crime ( as people would not need to steal to survive) to individualising it to working class /poor communities need to be controlled more.
He says the claims for success of this strategy dont hold up.
He is critical of liberal reforms of policing. The if only police get better training , get more Black officers and have community meetings.
He says a lot of this was done under Obama and in local States/Cities. It does not work. Having more Black officers makes no difference. They are part of a repressive organisation whose reason for being is social control.
His view iis that the Liberal reformist view of policing does not want to acknowledge the origins and history of this recent invention. Which is social control of the working class and Black people.
So what he says is "defund" the Police. As is being said in Seattle- cut the police budget by half, turn the police station into community centre and invest the money from police budget into the poor communites.
So in summary:
Policing is about social control and repression. That is what it was set up to do
Liberal Reforms make no difference.
The police/ prison budget should be cut and the money put into poor communites.
Beyond that the social ills that cause crime woud start to be dealt with real redistribution of wealth, decent secure housing for all and decent secure work for all.
Plus decriminalising drugs.
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Starbucks for about thirty years ......... 
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