{"id":16143,"date":"2019-12-26T12:47:01","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T17:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/2019\/12\/26\/how-socialists-view-cops-and-prisons\/"},"modified":"2019-12-26T12:47:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T17:47:01","slug":"how-socialists-view-cops-and-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2019\/12\/26\/how-socialists-view-cops-and-prisons\/","title":{"rendered":"How socialists view cops and prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dec.By LUCAS ALAN DIETSCHE<\/strong><\/p>\n

The past three years have seen more hunger strikes, riots, and national prison strikes since the 1960s and 70s, producing a great deal of commentary even in the mainstream media. But through the years, revolutionary socialists have never stopped our participation in defense cases and in prisoner solidarity actions.<\/p>\n

Socialists have a knee-jerk response toward these cases, working to build the kind of \u201cunited-front\u201d solidarity actions that are needed to free political prisoners or to stop state violence against people of color.\u00a0We have worked to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, members of the Black Panther Party, water-protector Red Fawn Fallis, hunger striker Cesar DeLeon, and Kevin Cooper\u2014who has languished on\u00a0death\u00a0row for almost four decades despite indications that police manipulated the evidence against him.<\/p>\n

Since the U.S. has the largest prison, jail, and probation population in the history of the world, campaigns for incarcerated or formerly incarcerated persons are of the highest importance.\u00a0Arrest and jail time are traumatic, mentally fragmenting, demeaning, and abusive experiences. We must say no to the\u00a0building or sustaining of jails and prisons.<\/p>\n

The police also must be abolished. Both the Republican and Democratic parties, no matter how \u201cprogressive\u201d some of their politicians might wish to appear, are responsible for the suppression of working-class, people of color,\u00a0and LGBTQIA+\u00a0people,\u00a0and their struggles, through police batons.<\/p>\n

Police brutality\u00a0and the\u00a0murder of people of color by cops are nothing new; they extend back to the early history of police forces. Police in the U.S. sprang from the ranks of slavecatchers, strike-breakers, defenders of white supremacy, members of white supremacist organizations, and instigators of bourgeois law and bourgeois order. While the police ranks include people coming from working-families, when they put on the copper badge, they transcend the blue line as class-traitors (Williams, 2007).\u00a0And now that police forces have entered a\u00a0more militarized stage, their potential for violence has become even greater.<\/p>\n

Socialist and leftist groups have a wide range of positions on the police.\u00a0Some socialists characterize police as merely misguided \u201cworkers in uniform,\u201d call for \u201cpolice unions,\u201d and express the desire to have open an dialogue with police, which might induce them to become answerable to the working class and oppressed communities. Similarly, many radicals urge reforms such as \u201ccommunity control of the police,\u201d or petition the police to protect the masses from white supremacists and fascists (Kirby, 2011).<\/p>\n

It is important to recognize, however, that the police are hardly neutral referees between social forces in conflict. The major role of police forces is to serve and protect capital and private property, which means repressing any dissent against the capitalist state. There are no good cops and bad cops; there are only cops. Leon Trotsky said it best in 1932: \u201cThe worker who becomes a policeman in the service of the capitalist state, is a bourgeois cop, not a worker\u201d (\u201cWhat Next: Vital Questions for the German Proletariat\u201d).<\/p>\n

It is impossible to merely \u201creform\u201d the police or any other portion of the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state. Instead, socialists should struggle alongside working people, people of color, people with disabilities,\u00a0formerly incarcerated\u00a0persons,\u00a0LGBTQIA+ people, and all of the oppressed to create alternatives and anti-policing spaces.<\/p>\n

Socialist Resurgence\u00a0is for:<\/p>\n