@noemon @AFAIK @Unthinking Majority
Origins of the PoliceInitially, I voted for the second option of "reforming" the police. However, after reading up on the history of the police
here in the United States from a reliable source the origins of the police are pretty interesting. According to Dr. Gary Potter of Eastern Kentucky University, the origins of the police are rooted in social control and
not in response to any sort of "crime wave" anywhere (Dr. Gary Potter, 2013) . In the Northeastern U.S. the merchants wanted the police to ensure an "orderly work force" as well as ensuring a "good environment to conduct business" and they sought to transfer the cost from them (the merchants in private industry) to the taxpayers or the state (Dr. Gary Potter, 2013) .
In the Southern U.S. the origins of the police is rooted in the slave patrol (Dr. Gary Potter, 2013) . They were also used as an organized form of terror against African American slaves to deter slave revolts (Dr. Gary Potter, 2013) . Of course, most people also know that the slave patrol was used to capture run-away slaves too and return them to the plantations in the Southern United States. This police force was used to meat out discipline to slaves outside of law when they broke plantation rules (Dr. Gary Potter, 2013) . Given that slaves didn't have rights, such discipline and harsh punishment could be meated out to these slaves without legal repercussions to the "slave patrol" or "police" or to slave owners.
How Would Serious Crime Be Dealt with in the Absence of a Police Force?However, that all being said, something to consider is even if you defund police and transfer money over to mental health and social programs to invest in the community; there will still be things like murder. Murder isn't going to stop just as some criminal activity isn't going to stop just because you defund the police. How would those who support defunding and dismantling the police propose to deal with
those particular problems? You can't just have mob justice either or how things were in the "wild west" where mobs angry over a murder or a particular crime would lynch a murder suspect (these lynchings were of white murder suspects and not just racist lynchings of blacks). People do have a right to a fair trial and to be found guilty
before they are legally punished.
Reference-
Dr. Gary Potter. (2013, June 25). The history of policing in the United States, Part 1 | Police studies online | Eastern Kentucky University. Retrieved June 8, 2020, from
https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/hi ... tes-part-1
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