Nah, it's me that mis-understands.
Certainly, the police act to preserve the status quo, which means that they act to maintain all the idiocies and injustices of the present system.
"Around the world and throughout their history, the police are the first troops of violent repression. They obey their masters and if their masters change their minds, or if new masters usurp the old, the police will enforce new, opposite laws with the same vigour as the old." - merrick, why I hate the police
In a society based upon possession, police are needed to keep the things possessed out of the hands of the dispossessed.
If society was organised differently, where would be the need?
In a society that restricts the supply of addictive substances, police are needed to stop users from stealing to pay for their habit. A big proportion of non-violent crime - burglary, shoplifting, etc, and some violent crime - mugging - is commited by herion addicts. If heroin was available on prescription, where would be the need to steal?
This has been borne out by the Swiss experiment of supplying heroin to users. It's generally been a success, and looks like being adopted in other European nations.
Some details here:
http://www.lindesmith.org/library/tlcnr.cfm
Here's what Merrick has to say on the Swiss experience...
"For heroin users, there is a programme of treatment that includes prescribing medical-grade heroin. Amongst the addicts on the programme health has improved, the number of deaths has halved, unemployment has more than halved and, perhaps most significantly for us non-users, the number involved in theft to fund their habit has gone from over 70% to under 10%. You’d think our government would want to replicate these results."
But I think that the damage caused to society by the users of illicit drugs pales next to that caused by alcohol. I dont know what percentage of violent crime is caused by people under the influence of alcohol, but I suspect the majority. Ask a nurse at A&E.
I know I become more aggressive when I'm pissed.
So where do the police fit in there?
Back to Merrick!...
"...having to cram a week's worth of good time into one night. I don't want to have a good time in the few hours allocated between work and closing time, I want to have a good time when I actually feel like it, rather than having to fit it in at a prearranged time no matter what mood I'm in. No wonder there's so much violence in city centres at weekends when people with a weeks worth of work stress are given their only time to let off steam, and get full of a depressant drug like alcohol."
Also, we're treated like children. Whenever I've been in Amsterdam, I've been struck by the behaviour of many British people, when confronted with a more liberal society. Ugh. If you're ever over there, and you encounter a British stag-party, cross over the street and go somewhere else.
I have a couple of thoughts in my head, that I want to get out, and I'm just struggling a little bit to formulate them, so in any old order, here goes...
Law = repression. full stop.
a progressive and enlightened society doesn't consider the following to be criminal...
homosexuality
drug use
suicide
free expression of political opinion
A repressive society proscribes behaviour, and requires a police force and judiciary to impose codes of behaviour upon its populace.
In utopia, there would still be violent crime. Kids will still smash windows, because they're immature and testosterone laden. There will still be crimes of passion.
But so much of what I see around me is just the worst sort of snide.
So many people have fuck all, yet we're surrounded by the things we need. To criminalise "theft" only makes sense under a system that deliberately restricts the supply of what humankind has produced.
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