It should not come as a surprise to many that our system of policing and incarceration in the United States is deeply flawed. Brutality runs rampant, officers are shielded from the consequences of their egregious actions, our laws are tailored to reinforce ideas of Black and Brown criminality, and those branded ‘criminals’ are forced to perform slave-like labor in prisons with horrific living conditions. This is all public knowledge, yet still, our country shows remarkable resistance to meaningfully changing our system and doing away with these destructive processes. Phrases like ‘defund the police’ are met with staunch opposition. Why is that? Where is this resistance to change, this attachment to the police, coming from? 

In seeking to understand those who feel so emotionally tied to the police, I have come to understand that the majority of Americans who feel this attachment are simply very scared. On the most basic level, a strong police presence appeals to people because it offers to sate the foundational desire to ensure safety and protection for ourselves and our loved ones. It can be comforting to feel like there is a structure in place that won’t let us get hurt; and if we do get hurt, this structure will impose ‘fair’ consequences upon the wrongdoer.  Unfortunately, pro-police political circles have become echo chambers of fear-mongering rhetoric, convincing impressionable people that their safety is constantly being put at risk by the ‘dangerous’ people ‘on the streets.’ 

Race and class have always been deeply tied; in America, we have a deep-seated fear of impoverished people and a concurrent fear of Back and Brown people. We are taught from a young age that hard work pays off and that everybody is given a fair chance at success. In other words; if you are poor, you must simply be lazy, and it’s your fault. This is basely untrue; the reality today is that somebody can have a job or even two jobs and still be living in poverty. It is simply not possible to be both unhoused and lazy; it is an extremely taxing and demoralizing experience that forces one into a state of hypervigilance. But besides that, there is a distinct correlation between wealth and race. We can see that White people are significantly less likely to become unhoused than people of all minority races, with Black Americans making up an extremely disproportionate 40% of the homeless population. Again, this is no mistake. We can also see that Black and Brown people are severely overrepresented both in drug arrests and media portrayals of dangerous drug use, further entrenching ideas of Black criminality and drugs as a great evil. 

The widespread fear of drugs and those who use them is a very important piece of this puzzle. The Nixon administration’s “War on Drugs” was carefully orchestrated to create more fear of Black and Brown people and thus appear more justified in incarcerating them in droves, and it did just that. This fear has since stuck around, even though those who are addicted to drugs do not pose a present danger to the majority of the population. Drug addiction can indeed destroy the lives of those who become addicted, but the everyday American is unjustified in feeling such hatred and fear of people under the influence who they pass on the sidewalk. Drug addiction ought to be treated as an illness, not a crime, and there are myriad reasons why it makes no sense to punish drug addiction with imprisonment. Becoming incarcerated does not always stop a person from using drugs, symptoms of sudden withdrawal take an enormous toll on the body, prisons are not equipped to properly treat substance addiction, and the rate of relapse/recidivism and/or overdose following release from prison is devastatingly high at up to 95% within 3 years of release (BioMed Central).

It is a fact of life that crime does occur, and one’s safety can never be 100% guaranteed, but the mild baseline of fear resulting from this fact has been exploited and inflated time and time again by politicians and activists who seek, either consciously or unconsciously, to continue oppressing minority populations under the guise of ‘keeping us all safe.’ Pro-police Americans have been conditioned to fear impoverished and unhoused people, people who use recreational drugs, and perhaps most importantly, Black and Brown people. Those in favor of the police have been convinced that every person who fits into one or more of these groups poses a threat to the safety of themselves and their families. This fear-mongering has proven to be successful, with approximately 28.4 million American adults (11% of the population) in 2022 believing that no change to our criminal justice system is necessary, even though that view is completely incompatible with the facts of police brutality and mass incarceration in our country (Gallup).

Having taken the time to understand the processes at work in the mind of a pro-police American, I challenge you now to put yourself in the shoes of one of these people. You feel deeply that your safety is at risk, in large part due to ‘violent’ and ‘unclean’ addicted people living on the streets. The facts are on your side; in 2019, 26.6% of violent crimes were perpetrated by African Americans even though they only made up 12.2% of the population (FBI UCR). Thus, it makes sense that they are incarcerated at rates so much higher than White people, and you feel your fears are all justified. You are glad to see these dangerous people arrested or kicked off of street corners, because now one less criminal is out in the world to potentially hurt or kill your children. Hearing calls to fire and disband the brave people who serve as your only line of defense against the criminals would be terrifying, right? 

Americans who oppose any form of police abolition or police reform often mistakenly believe that nothing would then take the place of the prison/policing system. This is an enormous misconception; the basis of the abolition movement is to replace prisons and police departments with organizations filled with resources for drug addicts, impoverished people, mentally ill people, and anybody else who might need assistance of any kind. The base idea of abolition is to address the root causes of crime, rather than try to improve upon our current systems of punishment. I assert that the widespread use of the term ‘abolition,’ similar to the aforementioned ‘defund the police’ slogan, has agitated oppositional movements and given rise to this misconception. Using such charged and absolute language provokes a more outspoken and indignant response from the opposition, and indeed leads to further delays in progress that could be made. People tend to retreat quickly into fear when confronted with absolute language and are unwilling to discuss rationally. 

Abolitionist theory is filled with beautiful ideas of lessened surveillance and true safety, but the majority of modern abolitionists understand it is impossible to fully retire our policing and prison systems tomorrow. As previously stated, I think the downsizing and eventual replacement of prisons is a morally sound and noble goal to have, but I simultaneously acknowledge that there are several barriers to actually achieving structural change on this level within any of our lifetimes. The fact of the matter is that change needs to start as soon as possible. We do not have time to waste focusing on some hypothetical future dream scenario. We do not have time to waste using intentionally divisive language that alienates those who might otherwise be convinced through fair discussion. We do not have time to waste arguing about if abolition or reform is the right way to go about things. Abolition must begin with reform, reform ends in abolition if proven effective and prolonged sufficiently.