Abolition is shorthand for the growing movement and idea of removing policing entirely as a solution to many problems such as police brutality, unequal treatment under the law, wrongful arrests, and the subsequent social issues that arise out of this.
In addition, it also often includes the abolishing of jails, prisons, the death penalty and any kind of forced detention or violence as punishment as well as the subsequent loss of rights and opportunity that comes with being an ex-convict on release
The other and more important part is in providing people with non-violent forms of self defense, simply realizing the problems with policing and punitive justice does not help the people who currently need it. The secondary goal of the project is thus to ensure everyone has access to a plan of interaction with the police, as bystander or victim, that best ensures freedom and safety.
Why abolition, why not reform?
For starters reform has never shown to practically work in America. It often has the opposite effect, as more spending is allocated to the police for this reform. This essentially rewards the police system, it also assumes the issue is a lack of resources when it is in fact systemic. Recent events have particularly shown having access to less-lethal weapons and training on using them does not stop police from killing people. We say less-lethal as it certainly does not stop violence either; stun guns, pepper spray, rubber bullets, LRADS, and other so called non-lethal weapons frequently cause permanent injury and disability, sometimes even death
The second reason is that reform still treats issues that should be outside of police jurisdiction and are outside of their experience as matters of policing. The solution to injustice and bias against those of a certain race, of a certain income status, of those who are mentally ill and of those who are houseless is classes and education under reform. The reality is twofold as for one this education often becomes just something to get through and is also taught by the very system in need of it. Second these are complex topics people who don't have actual lives in their hand spend their whole lives learning about and can not be taught in a way that could be internalized in a simple training course. Would you have faith that someone is no longer racist because they took a mandatory training course in not being racist taught by a historically racist institution? Would you trust that person to decide the fate of peoples lives without bias?
Lastly it has always been a bandaid solution, and it always has been a tool not to defend people but to defend the state from it's own people. Sometimes this is in alignment with our morals and safety, people not being allowed to murder others benefits all of us. However the state still reserves the right to murder people. Other times it isn't in alignment with our safety at all; drug laws, anti-homeless laws, and many vandalism type charges are not about someone being hurt but it being detrimental to the state and the ideals it rests upon for validity We readily recognize in other countries that locking away dissidents and those that don't fit the mold as a way of maintaing stability is an endeavor doomed to fail. Locking people up for abusing drugs does not solve the problem of drug abuse it simply hides it and drives it beneath the surface. The solution is getting people to not want to abuse drugs, and the way to that solution is investing in resources and rehabilitation for people not police
What would abolition look like?
Often times we surprisingly already have institutions for issues we assume we need the police to call. Often times we assume we need the police as said institutions are not invested in enough and do not have hundreds on standby and the latest fastest cars to get to us in time. In the case of say someone with PTSD having an episode and putting those near them in danger, a therapist is far beter equipped and educated in how to calm this sort of person down. The very arrival of police and all that comes with them (sirens, noise, guns,) is immediately going to escalate the situation, regardless of any training they may have had. This sort of thing is often true for all crimes that are a result of mental illness (including chemical dependency), and unlike police having trained emergency responders educated in psychology and social work have a path to reform that isn't arrest and jail
Other times the crime is a failure of our own institutions. Somebody stealing is usually in need of something. Expecting someone whos hungry or maybe at risk of not being able to pay rent to not do anything they can to survive is far less realistic than a future with abolition. Someone stealing for money to get drugs is not all that different, just stigmatized. For all intents and purposes their brain sees itself as needing those drugs just as much as food or water or shelter. Treatment centers in some european countries and even some here have actually found great success in simply providing people with chemical dependency issues their drug of choice. When the person is not constantly in a state of needing to seek the drug and facing danger at every corner they have more time to consider if this is really what they want to be doing. Any group dedicated to helping people abusing drugs will tell you if the person does not decide for themselves they want to quit using, they will eventually relapse. In addition people with addiction issues do not commit crimes when they have and are using drugs but when they do not have them.
The issue with these things is not their efficacy it's that universal access to things like food, shelter, transportation, healthcare, therapy, and medication are not in the states interest. The idea of universal access to anything directly is an affront to capitalism. It attacks it both directly by removing an institution previously subject to the market, and idealogically by admitting capitalism is not inherently the best system or even good. A need for government healthcare for example or universal housing access challenges the idea that free markets naturally work in the interest of the people. People losing faith in capitalism means losing faith in the state, as our country since it's inception has capitalism written into it and it's claim to legitimacy, sovereignity, supremity, and existence rests on people having faith in it's version of capitalism.
Who will take care of the murderers, sex offenders, serial violent offenders etc.
There is no one taking care of them now, there is simply a proposed solution and a guide on what to do if it happens. Police and our legal system are not concerned primarily with the stopping of murders, violence, or sex offenses but in punishing someone once it's already happened. This is not even considering their efficiency at that job itself, which is where the idea that without police violent evil criminals would run rampant starts to truly fall apart. Here are some statistics to consider.
These numbers can be even worse across the board depending on your race, skin color, income, job status, state, city,housing situation, or even just where you specifically live within a city or town. In addition when you factor in amount unreported and do the math the numbers look even more dismal. The most prominent reasons for not reporting are usually either the person is worried they wont be believed, or they do not want the perpetrator to get in trouble. For something like sex offenses that means people either do not have faith in the police or do not want punitive justice. And looking at the amount of sexual assaults convicted it isn't unreasonable to not have faith
What would abolitions solution be for these sorts of criminals?
This is of course still a difficult question. Because of the fact that we know a neighborhood or cities income level correlates to these crimes still, we can assume the solutions proposed earlier for solving other less extreme crime would have an impact. In addition unreported crimes still go reported to someone. If people had more control over the sort of justice they seek and not the police, if they felt like they were being taken seriously, and if they didn't have to worry about the inherent threat of bringing police into the equation it's likely far more crimes would be able to be "solved" at all in the first place. Likewise clearance rate would be about someone getting justice as they see it, not justice being enacted in ways that lack regard for if anyone is getting closure and peace from it.
Investing in therapy and psychological treatment would also likely reduce these numbers. Someone prone to violence has a far better chance of not repeating the incident after attending therapy. Rarely do people wake up and decide they want to be evil that day, instead people do bad things in weakness and then find a way to rationalize it as okay or not think about it. A therapist can readily break this process down and clearly expose it to them to a point where they can no longer rationalize the offense in question. This is also far more likely to reduce repeat offenses by getting to the root of the issue, while incarceration has a horrible record with this and often times someone entering a jail has already seen the inside of one. We can see from the statistics listed above that this is important, as currently a person can repeatedly engage in violence likely several times before statistically they are likely to get caught.
It's likely too that investing in healthcare,psychology, and therapy holds the key to the the pathology of these people that we don't currently understand. As is we don't want to, you will often hear people somewhat proudly claim "they don't understand how someone could do something like that" in reaction to a crime. A future with abolition would make that question paramount as it holds the key to actually preventing violent crime.
If all of this still doesn't seem like it would create a better alternative to policing, if you still can't see how those numbers provided earlier would likely get better without police, I invite you to take a look at some of the resources provided on this site. There is many different ideas about what abolition could look like, some even that are not inherently opposed to the idea of policing but rather who with community based solutions. Some are not opposed to policing at all and just arrest and incarceration. When one removes the current justice system from the equation there is an endless possibility for new and better ideas. As is it's a sinking ship we patch up and then decorate and dress up in different ways, never actually addressing why the holes keep appearing in the first place.
