โWhat does it mean when people say that all cops are bastards (ACAB)?โ
If it were an individual thing, youโd give them the benefit of the doubt, but it isnโt; itโs an institutional thing. the job itself is a bastard, therefore by carrying out the job, they are bastards. To take it to an extreme: there were no good members of the gestapo because there was no way to carry out the directives of the gestapo and to be a good person. it is the same with the american police state. Police do not exist to protect and serve, according to the US supreme court itself, but to dominate, control, and terrorize in order to maintain the interests of state and capital.
Who are the good cops then? The ones who either quit or are fired for refusing to do the job.
While the following list focuses on the US as a model police state, ALL cops in ALL countries are derivative from very similar violent traditions of modern policing, rooted in old totalitarian regimes, genocides, and slavery, if not the mere maintenance of authoritarian power structures through terrorism.
police shoot people twice as often as previously thought. Keep in mind that this was self-reported, so we have no way of knowing if these numbers speak to the actual number of shootings in the US. Many of these people are completely unarmed. Police kill far, far more people than terrorists in the US and have killed over a hundred people more than mass shooters did in 2019 that we are aware of. Mass shooters are easily tracked. Police killings are not. 1 2
Oh, and cops also killed more people in 2019 than school shooters did in all of US history.
And if they donโt shoot you, they might just airstrike your block and burn your children alive.
They also shoot one dog every hour, every day. At the absolute least.
Once youโre in jail, be prepared to sit there for weeks -or months or years. Itโs so bad that people constantly plead guilty just so they can get out. Itโs so bad and so common, in fact, that over a third of all exonerations come after an individual has pleaded guilty. So much for the right to a speedy trial, huh?
And getting arrested is easy - tens of thousands of people yearly, in fact, thanks to lowest bidder garbage that police departments use in order to test for illicit substances. Field drug tests are about as reliable as lie detector tests or horoscopes. They just donโt work. They just donโt.
Think youโre safe if you just follow directions? Yeah, no. And if they donโt just outright kill you, they could make their instructions so arcane and hard to follow that theyโll kill you for not following them, and theyโll usually get away with it. He got away with it, by the way. Surprise!
Theyโll prosecute you for even knowing about crimes cops have committed.
Think youโre safe in your home? lmao nah. Not even your 7 year old is safe from getting her brains blown out. check out this horrifying megapost on no-knock raids
Being a taxi driver is literally more dangerous than being a cop.
cops are more of a danger to themselves than anyone else is to them
theyโve admitted to stealing as much -or recently more- than burglars through โasset forfeiture,โ and the rate of their thefts has been climbing yearly. Keep in mind, these numbers only articulate whatโs been reported. Itโs probable that theyโve stolen far more than just this.
police are literally allowed to rape people on the job in 35 states, as they have the power to determine whether or not you consented to sex with them while in their custody.
up to 50% of the people police murder are disabled
the police are being trained to kill as if theyโre an occupying army and weโre an insurgency. this is an inevitability, as the military-industrial complex needs to keep expanding into new markets.
Eugenics was still alive and well in the prison-industrial complex up until very recently, and could very well be continuing for all we know, as it was forcibly sterilizing inmates as late as 2010. I honestly donโt see a reason to believe itโs stopped.
The US surveillance state is massive (and while this post primarily focuses on the US, other countries are just as bad), though much of our surveillance is privatized. This doesnโt stop the police from partnering with private companies, however. This will only get worse as time goes on. Also, we canโt forget about the Patriot Act and Snowdenโs PRISM leaks.
the police, as an institution, are so completely steeped in violence, that up to 40% of them commit acts of domestic violence and other forms of domestic abuse. Most citizens are not even allowed to own firearms if found guilty of domestic violence, and these guys are expected to handle military-grade equipment.
Police exist to control and terrorize us, not serve and protect us. Thatโs only their function if you happen to be rich and powerful.
the police as they are now havenโt even existed for 200 years as an institution, and the modern police force was founded to control crowds and catch slaves, not to โserve and protectโ โ unless you mean serving and protecting what people call โthe 1%.โ They have a long history of controlling the working class by intimidating, harassing, assaulting, and even murdering strikers during labor disputes. This isnโt a bug; itโs a feature.
The justice system also loves to intimidate and outright assassinate civil rights leaders.
The police do not serve justice. The police serve the ruling classes, whether or not they themselves are aware of it. They make our communities far more dangerous places to live, but there are alternatives to the modern police state. There is a better way.
(all links are to free versions of the texts found online - many curated from this source)
white nationalists court and infiltrate a significant number of Sheriffโs departments nationwide
Kropotkin and a quick history of policing
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. (2013). Let Your Motto Be Resistance: A Handbook on Organizing New Afrikan and Oppressed Communities for Self-Defense.
Rose City Copwatch. (2008). Alternatives to Police.
Williams, Kristian. (2011). โThe other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing.โ Interface 3(1).
Williams, Kristian. (2004). Our Enemies in Blue: Police and power in America. New York: Soft Skull Press.
Source: Watch large group of officers protecting George Floydโs killerย (reddit user american_apartheid)
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