| August 23 2019, 8:46 pm
There is an idea that public safety cannot exist without the presence of police and law enforcement; however, the history of policing will show a different story. The concept of police officers was established by Europeans who immigrated to Turtle Island (later known as the United States). Federal law enacted these white people as vigilantes who were required to report, catch and punish any enslaved people who ran away from plantations during slavery. As police forces became more established, officers included property crimes into their repertoire, where “property” included enslaved people. Even after the abolition of slavery, Black people were policed by federal and state laws that restricted both their movement and rest. With private police forces protecting corporations and landowners from workers’ revolts and prospective Black renters, harsh policing was always forced onto the everyday lives of Black people.
Historically speaking, police have actually brought in more violence because they were originally intended to be an enforcement of racist laws and practices. According to Mapping Police Violence, there were only 23 days in 2018 where people in the United States were not killed by police. Black people made up 25% of those killed, even though they make up only 13% of the U.S. population. In today’s world, community members know their neighbors and neighborhoods better than law enforcement, and recently, there have been more instances of neighbors banding together to take care of each other in the face of police violence. For example, when ICE started raids to deport undocumented folks, there were reports of neighbors physically blocking entrances to prevent ICE officers from entering. After the resistance, officers had no choice but to drive off without capture.
Read more here; https://blavity.com/blavity-original/we-dont-need-police-in-our-neighborhoods-heres-how-you-can-stay-safe-without-them