Prisons, who are they really for ?

This has been something which i've toyed with in my head for a while now. Are prisons a thing for good in society in locking up violent and often horrific criminals and this will make society a safer place. or do they do more harm than good. An excellent blog over at http://propertyistheft.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/abolish-the-prison-system/ Details alot of my current thoughts on the matter i quote below. "As with borders, the prison system is an element of state structure deemed to be beyond question. Debate rages on whether it is “too soft” or “too tough,” on whether it needs reform, and on how it can be made to work better. However, the idea of its abolition remains unspeakable, indeed unthinkable. There simply must be a prison system, the argument goes, or society would rapidly descend into chaos. Criminals would run rampant on the streets, anti-social behaviour would spiral out of control, and society would be gripped by a culture of fear and lawlessness." This is the popular thinking to why we need prisons and why we must lock away the bad people in society who those we percieve to be a danger to the stability of everyday life. "In response, I argue that prisons do not serve justice but the dominance of established power. That all the claimed consequences of lacking prisons exist already precisely because of their existence. And that their abolition would pave the way for a system of popular justice that would allow communities to safeguard themselves against crime, violence, and coercion without the institutionalised servility to power that serves only to make victims out of the poor, minorities, and the marginalised." Of course this is not something that can just happen over night or next year its a mentality thing more than anything. We seem to think the best place for those who've sinned is to be locked away out of harms way and out of sight out of mind. Any sort of rehibilitation program is something which we hear very little of and even then is it garunteed to help people reconnect back into society or would the time spent behind bars leave long term mental and sometimes physical scars of their time inside. "Incarceration as a form of punishment and retribution is, in fact, a relatively new and revolutionary idea. Before Jeremy Bentham first developed the idea of the modern penal system in the 19th Century, prisons were usually used to detain criminals until trial or the administration of punishment. However, the idea that – in their modern format – they serve to reform criminals, deter crime, or offer reconciliation to the victims of crime can and must be challenged. The idea that prisons serve to reform criminals is a nonsense. In Anarchism: its Philosophy and Ideal, Peter Kropotkin made the argument that the result was in fact the opposite; And in our every-day relations with our fellow-citizens, do you think that it is really judges, gaolers, and police that hinder anti-social acts from multiplying? The judge, ever ferocious, because he is a maniac of law, the accuser, the informer, the police spy, all those interlopers that live from hand to mouth around the Law Courts, do they not scatter demoralization far and wide into society? Read the trials, glance behind the scenes, push your analysis further than the exterior facade of law courts, and you will come out sickened. Have not prisons-which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any other spot of the globe-always been universities of crime? Is not the court of a tribunal a school of ferocity? And so on. When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions! This critique was, of course, written in 1896, when society as a whole was arguably far more brutal than it is today. However, modern statistics do seem to confirm Kropotkin’s analysis from over a century ago. According to the Howard League for Penal Reform, “in the ten years to 2003, the [UK] prison population increased by 66%, in the case of women, 191%” whilst “Home Office data reveals that about 78% of people sentenced to immediate custody in 2003 had committed non-violent offences.” Moreover, in a penal system overwhelmingly populated by perpetrators of non-violent or marginal offences, the brutalisation evident is overwhelming. “During 2004, 95 people killed themselves in prison service care. This included 50 people on remand and 13 women. In addition, a 14 year old boy took his own life in a Secure Training Centre in 2004.” And “data shows that in 2003, 30% of women, 65% of females under 21 and 6% of men in prison harmed themselves.” So, a century after Kropotkin wrote of prisons “which kill all will and force of character in man,” we still see an overwhelming brutalisation of human beings within their walls. And the result? “61% of all prisoners released in 2001 were reconvicted within two years” and “73% of young male offenders released 2001 were reconvicted within 2 years.” The brutal conditions of incarceration offer up one reason why recidivism is so high in Britain, which serves as a typical example of Western justice systems (with the United States as an extreme which magnifies the problems a thousand-fold). The treatment of children is a particularly poignant example of this. Reporting to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Children’s Commissioner for England found that “the protection of children in custody remains a fundamental concern. There are high incidences of mental health problems, self-harm and bullying with a significant proportion of children feeling unsafe. There are high levels of intimidation, violence and abuse, not only from other prisoners but also from staff.” The Howard League, once again, draws the statistics on children together to paint a shocking picture; Facts and figures on children in prison Since January 2002, 6 children have died in penal custody. This includes 4 children in prison and 2 children in secure training centres. The youngest child to die was 14 years old. One child died following restraint by staff Children in prison are 18 times more likely to commit suicide that their counterparts in the community (The Lancet, 15 Sept 2005) Restraint is widely used in prisons and secure training centres. Between 2004 and 2006, 27% of boys and 19% of girls in prison had been physically restrained by staff (Young People in Custody 2004-2006, HMIP and YJB 2006) The Howard League recently slammed a government decision to allow private security companies running child jails to continue using pain on children. Between January 2005 and October 2006, restraint was used on 676 occassions on boys at Huntercombe prison. On 134 occassions it resulted in injuries to the child (HC deb, Col 416W, 27 Nov 2006) A survey by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of Prisons and the Youth Justice Board found that 31% of the boys in prison had been insulted or assaulted by other young people. 22% had been insulted or assaulted by a member of staff (Young People in Custody 2004-2006, HMIP and YJB 2006) The strip searching of children is routinely carried out on all children in prisons on reception and frequently before and after visits. Between January 2005 and October 2006 a total of 6,832 strip searches were carried out on boys at Huntercombe prison (HC deb, Col 416W-417W, 27 Nov 2006) Between January 2005 and October 2006, 100 boys were forcibly strip searched in 5 prisons. (HL deb, WA56, Jan 8 2007 and HL deb, WA 108, Jan 10 2007) Children in prison are being held for days and even weeks at a time in segregation. Between January 2004 and January 2007, 276 children had been held in the segregation unit for more than 7 days and 21 children had been held there for more than 28 days at the privately run Ashfield prison (HC deb, Col 1684W, 23 Jan 2007) And, as the Howard League states, “the treatment of children experienced by children in prisons would in any other setting, be considered abusive and trigger a child protection investigation.” Clearly, such a system is nothing short of barbaric, and still “it is ineffective in terms of reducing offending.” This makes a nonsense of the argument, often found shrouded in overly-emotive language in tabloid newspapers, that the reason crime and anti-social behaviour is so high is because we are “too soft.” An approach that favours violent coercion over rehabilitation isn’t the only reason for high recidivism, however. Another important one is that what is on offer to convicts once they leave prison, even after brutalisation, can often be much worse. An overwhelming amount of prisoners, upon release, face homelessness, illiteracy and lacking education, mental health problems, and addiction." Clearly, then, the prison system does nothing to reduce recidivism in ex-offenders and in fact "exacerbates matters in most cases. Further to which, I would argue, prison as an institution is part of a much wider societal malady which increases and encourages crime overall – the state-corporate structure. As the Anarchist Black Cross, a major anarchist abolition movement, explain; We live in a society where a tiny minority own the wealth, the land, run the big companies and live in luxury on the backs of the working people who produce everything. They try to control our lives and keep us in line by every means possible – schools, the media, the DSS, drugs, Disneyland. If we obey orders, work hard, don’t answer back, we can live a reasonable life – until the next recession. We can help our bosses keep others down, like the police or bailiffs do, and get our rewards: power, wealth, security. But for those of us not willing to work to keep our rulers in luxury, or those who try to take back any of the wealth that we have made, there is the justice system. Strike for a decent wage, steal to stay alive, resist the control and abuse in our lives, or break the bosses’ laws in any way and we face police, courts, prison. Prison is the bottom line in control – their ultimate weapon. Prison means isolation, bloody punishments, divided families. It drives people to despair and suicide. The whole system is to split us up and isolate people who could set an example to the rest of our class. Likewise, if we step outside so-called normal behaviour, such as women who refuse to accept the role of wife and mother, anyone whose sexuality is so-called deviant, we may be stigmatised, tranquillised and ultimately imprisoned. On the outside, fear of prison is built up to stop us from fighting back against the injustice in our lives and myths are created about prisoners to divide us from them. Most people are inside for trying to survive. In Britain, 94% of recorded crimes are against property. About one third are inside for non-payment of fines or taxes. Thousands are on remand. Many others are guilty of nothing more than being working class, irish, black, framed by the police. Full prisons give us the impression that the police are ‘cracking crime’ and reminds us who is in control. Most prisoners are working class people, just like the rest of us. They are not all the mad beasts the papers would have us believe." "The press hype up stories of ‘violent crime’ to give the existence of prison some justification and to divide us from prisoners. But the fact is that only a tiny percentage of crimes are violent or anti-social. It is also true that such crime is not prevented by prisons. The system we live in encourages competition, power relationships and self-interest. This system is also anti-social; while it remains intact there will always be violence. Calling the shoplifter, the person on the picket line and the rapist all criminals as if there were no difference between them, uses most people’s horror of anti-social violence against the vast majority whose offences are to do with property and resistance." "We live in a system of entrenched privilege and injustice fostered by the marriage of state and private power and the insitutions of private property. Immense wealth and immense poverty often exist side by side, further illustrating the divide that exists in our society. Within such a system, crime is almost inevitable as a result, as Emma Goldman noted in Anarchism: What it really stands for; The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation. Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. What does society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the poverty, the horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass on its way to crime and degradation. Who that knows this terrible process can fail to see the truth in these words of Peter Kropotkin: “Those who will hold the balance between the benefits thus attributed to law and punishment and the degrading effect of the latter on humanity; those who will estimate the torrent of depravity poured abroad in human society by the informer, favored by the Judge even, and paid for in clinking cash by governments, under the pretext of aiding to unmask crime; those who will go within prison walls and there see what human beings become when deprived of liberty, when subjected to the care of brutal keepers, to coarse, cruel words, to a thousand stinging, piercing humiliations, will agree with us that the entire apparatus of prison and punishment is an abomination which ought to be brought to an end.” "The link between poverty and crime should be no mystery to anyone who has witnessed the increase of crime in this or any prior recession. The Thatcher era in Britain also saw this link demonstrated beyond doubt. As the number of jobless rose to 3.6 million by 1983, and homelessness increased from around 57,000 households in 1979 to around 127,000 in 1989, crime rose by about 124%. The connection between poverty and crime is even more stark when you consider the fact that we live in a society that perpetuates and entrenches both extreme poverty and extreme wealth. A report by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) tells us that “intergenerational income mobility” saw a “sharp decline” for “for children born in 1970″ and reaching employment age under Margaret Thatcher “compared with those born in 1958″ which has “stabilised,” or remained constant, “for children born in the period 1970-2000.” The birth of the neo-liberal economics that today dominate the globe, then, saw social mobility grind to a halt." There are a multitude of reasons for this. One is education. The Ofsted report, Educational inequality: mapping race, class, and gender shows that “there is a strong direct association between social class background and success in education: put simply, the higher a child’s social class, the greater are their attainments on average.” Moreover, “there is evidence that the inequality of attainment between social classes has grown since the late 1980s. For example, in relation to the five higher grade benchmark, between 1988 and 1997, the gap between children from ‘managerial/professional’ backgrounds and ‘unskilled manual’ groups grew from 40 to 49 percentage points.” At the same time, educational inequalities also exist on an ethnic basis whereby “inequalities of attainment in GCSE examinations place African- Caribbean, Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils in a disadvantaged position in the youth education, labour, and training markets, and increase the likelihood of social and economic exclusion in later life.” And there is no evidence whatever to suggest that ethnic minorities or poorer people are naturally less intelligent or capable. Rather, the imbalance is systemic; Research in both the United States and Britain overwhelmingly concludes that Black pupils and their working class white peers are likely to be over-represented in lower-ranked teaching groups, for example, where schools adopt ‘setting by ability’ or other forms of selective grouping. Their disproportionate concentration can be mapped by tracing the process of selection inside schools. Research has documented how these processes are significantly influenced by differential teacher expectations, which tend to be markedly lower for these groups of pupils. The pupils’ subsequent placement in lower ranked teaching groups, in both primary and secondary schools, institutionalises these differences and can create additional barriers to achievement. Even in schools that do not embrace setting, some form of selection is increasingly common. The structure of the GCSE examination itself now requires most subject areas to enter pupils for one of two different ‘tiers’ of exam, where the highest grades are only available to pupils in the top tier." It is no surprise that this group of people are more likely to fall into povety and into a trap of struggle which they will find it hard to get out of. "If we accept, then, that prisons are merely another facet of the state-corporate system and serve not to punish or diminish crime but to remove those who do not serve the interests of power from society, what do we put in its place? So in place of prisons what should we we look to be an alternative and how could we get t here this is brilliantly summed up by Phil Dickens again over at Propety is theft "In a world of anarchy, where poverty and inequality are removed through the abolition of private property and the control of capital by labour, crime will be greatly reduced. People will not be forced to turn to theft, prostitution, or racketeering in order to make ends meet. Local communities organised on the basis of mutual aid will resist organised crime as readily as the domination and coercion of the state or capital. Such as drug use will be seen, properly, as a social problem rather than a crime, with addicts treated and rehabilitated, and farmers free and organised so that they do not have to grow illicit crops in order to make a living. Dissent and independence will be encouraged rather than criminalised, and the crimes of war and state will be eradicated. But there will still be crime. Anarchists do not envision a utopia. We do not imagine human beings more perfect than they are, merely recognise the dramatic negative effects of violence, coercion, and hierarchy upon society and the increase in disorder that results from our atomisation in the name of profit. No, though it will be greatly reduced, there will still be crime in anarchy. The question is, if the prison system is such a brutalising instrument of state, how do we deal with it? The answer to this question – as well as useful summation of the argument for the abolition of the prison and state-justice system – is offered up by the authors of An Anarchist FAQ. As such, it is worth quoting at length; We are not saying, however, that anarchists reject the concept of individual responsibility. While recognising that rape, for example, is the result of a social system which represses sexuality and is based on patriarchy (i.e. rape has more to do with power than sex), anarchists do not “sit back” and say “it’s society’s fault.” Individuals have to take responsibility for their own actions and recognise that consequences of those actions. Part of the current problem with “law codes” is that individuals have been deprived of the responsibility for developing their own ethical code, and so are less likely to develop “civilised” social standards (see section I.7.3). Therefore, while anarchists reject the ideas of law and a specialised justice system, they are not blind to the fact that anti-social action may not totally disappear in a free society. Therefore, some sort of “court” system would still be necessary to deal with the remaining crimes and to adjudicate disputes between citizens. These courts would function in one of two ways. One possibility is that the parties involved agree to hand their case to a third party. Then the “court” in question would be the arrangements made by those parties. The second possibility is when the parties cannot not agree (or if the victim was dead). Then the issue could be raised at a communal assembly and a “court” appointed to look into the issue. These “courts” would be independent from the commune, their independence strengthened by popular election instead of executive appointment of judges, by protecting the jury system of selection of random citizens by lot, and by informing jurors of their right to judge the law itself, according to their conscience, as well as the facts of a case. As Malatesta pointed out, “when differences were to arise between men [sic!], would not arbitration voluntarily accepted, or pressure of public opinion, be perhaps more likely to establish where the right lies than through an irresponsible magistrate which has the right to adjudicate on everything and everybody and is inevitably incompetent and therefore unjust?” [Anarchy, p. 43] In the case of a “police force,” this would not exist either as a public or private specialised body or company. If a local community did consider that public safety required a body of people who could be called upon for help, we imagine that a new system would be created. Such a system would “not be entrusted to, as it is today, to a special, official body: all able-bodied inhabitants [of a commune] will be called upon to take turns in the security measures instituted by the commune.” [James Guillaume, Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 371] This system would be based around a voluntary militia system, in which all members of the community could serve if they so desired. Those who served would not constitute a professional body; instead the service would be made up of local people who would join for short periods of time and be replaced if they abused their position. Hence the likelihood that a communal militia would become corrupted by power, like the current police force or a private security firm exercising a policing function, would be vastly reduced. Moreover, by accustoming a population to intervene in anti-social as part of the militia, they would be empowered to do so when not an active part of it, so reducing the need for its services even more. Such a body would not have a monopoly on protecting others, but would simply be on call if others required it. It would no more be a monopoly of defence (i.e. a “police force”) than the current fire service is a monopoly. Individuals are not banned from putting out fires today because the fire service exists, similarly individuals will be free to help stop anti-social crime by themselves, or in association with others, in an anarchist society. Of course there are anti-social acts which occur without witnesses and so the “guilty” party cannot be readily identified. If such acts did occur we can imagine an anarchist community taking two courses of action. The injured party may look into the facts themselves or appoint an agent to do so or, more likely, an ad hoc group would be elected at a community assembly to investigate specific crimes of this sort. Such a group would be given the necessary “authority” to investigate the crime and be subject to recall by the community if they start trying to abuse whatever authority they had. Once the investigating body thought it had enough evidence it would inform the community as well as the affected parties and then organise a court. Of course, a free society will produce different solutions to such problems, solutions no-one has considered yet and so these suggestions are just that, suggestions. As is often stated, prevention is better than cure. This is as true of crime as of disease. In other words, crime is best fought by rooting out its causes as opposed to punishing those who act in response to these causes. For example, it is hardly surprising that a culture that promotes individual profit and consumerism would produce individuals who do not respect other people (or themselves) and see them as purely means to an end (usually increased consumption). And, like everything else in a capitalist system, such as honour and pride, conscience is also available at the right price — hardly an environment which encourages consideration for others, or even for oneself. …Therefore, by reorganising society so that it empowers everyone and actively encourages the use of all our intellectual, emotional and sensuous abilities, crime would soon cease to be the huge problem that it is now. As for the anti-social behaviour or clashes between individuals that might still exist in such a society, it would be dealt with in a system based on respect for the individual and a recognition of the social roots of the problem. Restraint would be kept to a minimum. Anarchists think that public opinion and social pressure would be the main means of preventing anti-social acts in an anarchist society, with such actions as boycotting and ostracising used as powerful sanctions to convince those attempting them of the errors of their way. Extensive non-co-operation by neighbours, friends and work mates would be the best means of stopping acts which harmed others. An anarchist system of justice, we should note, would have a lot to learn from aboriginal societies simply because they are examples of social order without the state. Indeed many of the ideas we consider as essential to justice today can be found in such societies. As Kropotkin argued, “when we imagine that we have made great advances in introducing, for instance, the jury, all we have done is to return to the institutions of the so-called ‘barbarians’ after having changed it to the advantage of the ruling classes.” [The State: Its Historic Role, p. 18] …However, there are psychopaths and other people in any society who are too dangerous to be allowed to walk freely. Restraint in this case would be the only option and such people may have to be isolated from others for their own, and others, safety. Perhaps mental hospitals would be used, or an area quarantined for their use created (perhaps an island, for example). However, such cases (we hope) would be rare. So instead of prisons and a legal code based on the concept of punishment and revenge, anarchists support the use of public opinion and pressure to stop anti-social acts and the need to therapeutically rehabilitate those who commit anti-social acts. As Kropotkin argued, “liberty, equality, and practical human sympathy are the most effective barriers we can oppose to the anti-social instinct of certain among us” and not a parasitic legal system. [The Anarchist Reader, p. 117] with quotes and extracts taken from the excellent blog at propety is theft you can read more at http://propertyistheft.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/abolish-the-prison-system/

The socialist Party and the police

I am long since a member of the Socialist party which has if I like it or not formed a lot of my politics to date. Yes they did many good things and I can say I gained my class politics from them to understand things in Marxist terms if good for me or not. I do think the bits I learnt much of it off my own back too to be honest as the education the SP gave out was hugely patronising and really basic stuff meant for primary school kids I’d say rich bad poor good we need to change this, join our party etc etc. Well I don’t need anyone to tell me I found myself frequently at odes of what the party put out and said as time went on. If not visibly then certainly in my head. One of my first bones of contention was the party’s relationship and views towards the police and the state as a broader identity. I joined in 2011 after the student mass demonstrations of the year before maybe this formed a point of which I wished to join a revolutionary organisation after being a labour party member for a few months before and after the general election which on class lines was a really big one when it came to class. For me even as a very timid and partly non educated political thinker I could still tell that the general election of 2010 was a very political one and a deep sense of unjust that the ruling class were back in power via the Tories and their lackies the Lib Dems and this was not right. I somehow thought labour was for the people and they would be my natural ally in the coming months to years. How wrong I was…. So I joined the SP in hope of better answers. For a while they gave me that but in time I began to question things as I’d always been brought up to do. One of the things that did stand out for me was the Socialist party’s line on the police and whether we should stand in solidarity with them or not. For me the SP was firmly behind the police and many instances can back this up sadly. This for me while students were getting beaten back by the police and riots were happening sparked off by a policeman attacking and killing an innocent black man in Tottenham in 2011 sent me into wonder how the SP could square having solidarity with these people who clearly had it in for our class. In recent years when the police have gone on strike or protested about their pay and conditions we in the SP were urged to support them. This stuck in my throat and I could never bring myself to supporting these agents of the state and lend them solidarity from our class when only weeks before they had attacked students fighting for a better future. It never sat well with me. It is a scene workers are all too familiar with. In a bid for savings, the "gravy train" of rank-and-file pay and benefits is being slashed by the highest earners who remain unaffected. However, sympathy may be muted by the fact that the workers in question are the police. While at first it is understandable to many to have solidarity with the police after all don’t they work for a wage and need to work for their living?? Their role when it comes to the working class and when we fight back is very very telling for me. , "the idea that police neutrally uphold democratically-decided laws has been exposed as a fiction." In the words of Fitwatch; It’s time to wake up –these institutions do not exist to protect us but to subjugate us. They give us enough to believe we live in a free and democratic society whilst protecting capital and those who defend it. What is the use of having rights if the state determines when and where we can exercise them? We are given the right to protest when we’re no threat, but refused the right to even assemble when it’s most critical. If public anger over the government's attacks on the working class ever emerges as anything even remotely radical, the police are the ruling class's first line of defence. Their job is to act against their class interests and either keep us in line or lock us out of the way. Until they decide to spurn that role, they should expect no sympathy. Working class solidarity should not be reserved for those who exist to smash it The SP clearly think that supporting the police and helping them split the state will in some way help the workers movement. The fact workers decide to join the police is lost on them and that workers do not always fight for their own class instincts. The fact that some feel drawn towards the police and the wider state should make us ask questions of why and how this is so. As @piercepenniless from twitter once wrote at http://piercepenniless.tumblr.com/post/19795478930/on-police-strikes “ I’m happy for the police to strike, but the right to strike is taken and retained, not granted, and we should ask why police don’t strike, that is, what police think they do, what they actually do, and so on. ) Extending an abstract defence of the power to withdraw labour into an argument that activists should defend police against funding cuts is logically questionable. It relies on a notion of police as a subsection of a greater set of ‘public servants’ that elides some fundamental differences. If they are so, we should ask, which public, and served how? We defend against cuts because they involve dismantling things like the NHS and welfare services, not because the organs of the state are inviolable goods. Hence this tautologous argument that anti-cuts activists ought to oppose cuts because they are anti-cuts activists elides the reasons that people oppose cuts. This elision is significant. The arguments put by serving police officers as to why they shouldn’t be cut largely involve their subsequent inability to afford water cannon, tasers, routine arming, &c. They also often extend to their need to exist to keep scum (etc) ‘off the street’. This is not benign civil work: it is racist, it victimises the poor, the inconvenient and the vulnerable. Any argument that we attain a moral victory by defending their working conditions and thus enable them to further fulfill their structural role seems to me rather weak. ) Should we not consider the work the police do as obviously and qualitatively different from the work of other portions of the public sector, and should they really fall under this rubric at all — in other words, what kind of work is this work?” Every time there is talk of police marching, striking or in any way protesting, liberals and leftists have put out calls for solidarity and support. This makes me feel very uneasy and now more than ever with events in Ferguson in America and lots and lots of attacks on black people by the police who we are told are there to serve us this is clearly not the case but a illusion to keep the mass’s where they are and in order. There some in the anti cuts movement who have written that "those of us in the anti-cuts movement should be protesting alongside them." Their reasoning is that although there are "the few nasty police," who "we want out," at the moment "our fight is elsewhere." The police who will take place in any march "are ordinary people with families and rents and mortgages," and we should "do for them what they wouldn’t do for us." My train of thought goes off in a somewhat different direction. Unlike these leftists , I don't see the behaviour of the police as an abberation. The fact that they are more aggressive in handling protests now, and are actively seeking to clamp down on dissenters by releasing footage and seeking "suspects," is not just something that happened. You can see it every time there is a serious threat to the established order, from events like Bloody Sunday back in 1911, through the Miners' Strike, Hillsborough and the Poll Tax Riots, to the G20 and, of course, the more recent student protests. In between, there are a myriad of other incidents, such as the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. Not to mention the Forward Intelligence Teams, DNA databases, arresting people simply to be able to take their details, and other "illiberal" tactics Sumpter cites. As an article in The Commune points out; “Fair-minded people are against “disproportionate”, “provocative”, or “brutal” policing; and presumably in favour of a polite push and shove. This is an appealing message (and it may make sense to accentuate it to the cameras), but is more or less a fiction. Of course, there are incidents here and there where we can say that particular police could have been less brutal. But if the direct action we defend has any content at all, it must mean we supported, and support, concrete attempts to stop the law being passed, up to, including, and beyond the invasion of parliament – and we are in support of people trying as hard as possible to do that. And it is a fiction that the police could have tolerated that, or that preventing it could ever have been done gently. If it could have been, we wouldn’t have really been trying. If the police hadn’t been at parliament square during the student demonstrations of 2010, and if they hadn’t been prepared to act brutally, parliament would have been stormed, and legislation to triple top-up fees and abolish EMA would not have been passed. The brutality of the police is not incidental to the nature of the state, it is essential to it. So you have to pick: the state, and horse charges against children who object to having their pockets robbed; or against the state (which means: against capitalism, for social revolution); and against the police too; brutal or otherwise. Polite fudges are polite – but more or less part of the continuous stream of liquid nonsense which constitutes the news media. This is not a matter of a "few nasty police." If we support the police against cuts to their numbers and their services, then we actively support the institution of the police. That cannot mean anything except the state's monopoly of violence and the cracked skulls of working class activists and their repression. The Police Federation's own propaganda underlines this. The image before us is a line of riot police blocking a road, presumably less able to do their job because their numbers are cut. If you choose to support or join their march, that is what you are standing in solidarity with. Remember that. Every baton swung at the head of a protester just for being in the way. Every horse charge to keep the crowds in line. Every kettle because people wanted to cover their faces. Every taser that kills or paralyses somebody. Every stop and search of youth simply for being youth. Every Ian Tomlinson, Jean Charles de Menezes, Smiley Culture or Mark Duggan. It's on your head as well as theirs. Because you marched to defend it. Yes, the police are working class. They have to sell their labour for a living in order to feed their families this is not the end of the matter though . Nobody made them choose, or stay, in a job which exists to subjugate the same class that they come from - to smash picket lines, choke off dissent, and maintain the dominance of the ruling class. I was once told of a police officer who refused to attack picket lines - and was shuffled around the country until he ended up the constable of a quiet and inoffensive area. He is no doubt not the only one. So, if police can be persuaded to side with the workers and against capitalism, then it is clearly a choice that sees their career either go down the toilet or end altogether. Those still on active service, in the big cities, and marching to preserve their jobs, will be those with no qualms being on the other side of the class war. Thus, I still have no sympathy for the devil. I maintain that "working class solidarity should not be reserved for those who exist to smash it. so lets be clear, the police and their hangers on are not our comrades or on the same side as us and should be treated as such

Cops off campus

Last week, London’s village-like Bloomsbury area became a battleground between students and police. In two days, 43 arrests were made, and several videos appearing to show police brutality are now circling the internet. It was the latest, most violent episode in a crackdown on student protest in the city which began in the summer. Amid the chaos of last week, the University of London – the capital's biggest, which includes Goldsmiths, SOAS and UCL – got itself a High Court injunction forbidding protest on its site until next June. Those who disobey it, the order warns, might find themselves in contempt of court. “The university started filming demonstrations from the balconies of Senate House, with few missing the irony that the building inspired the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four" It goes back to Wednesday evening when University of London security forcefully evicted 30 demonstrators staging an occupation of its premises at Senate House. Some 50 police were on hand, but only, the university said, “to prevent a breach of the peace”. However, footage appears to show them doing a lot more than that. One officer can be seen punching a man in the face. In another clip, two police slam a woman, screaming, to the pavement and then walk off. There were seven arrests that night but, the police were keen to point out, no formal complaints were made against them. Still, both people at the demonstration and those who had seen it reported online were furious, appalled by what they considered police violence and intimidation. That anger could be felt at a Cops Off Campus protest, promoted anonymously on Tumblr, which took place the next day. Some protesters brought homemade shields (not a bad idea, since the police definitely made use of their batons), while others let off red smoke bombs amid clashes between officers and students. This time, 36 people were arrested, including a man with a crutch. An eyewitness said he “was walking near the police when they pushed him, and as he fell backwards the police kicked away his crutch before jumping on him”. After officers moved away from where his arrest took place, a red blood stain could be seen on the pavement. Oscar Webb, the editor at the London Student newspaper, was one of those arrested. He was there covering the protest and can be seen in a video holding up his press card just before being handcuffed. He spent the night in isolation in a cell in south London, and although he wasn’t charged with any offence, he now has bail conditions that prohibit him from going in Senate House. If police were already clamping down on student protests, they now appear to be getting heavy-handed with those who report them too. As far as the students were concerned, these were two especially brutal days. But the crackdown goes back months, when in July a 24-year-old philosophy student was arrested for writing in chalk on a University of London foundation stone. It’s alleged she caused £600 of criminal damage, even though, as one person was quick to point out: “Chalk can be washed off. That’s the whole point of chalk.” Student occupiers barricade the doors in Senate House in an attempt to keep out police Oscar Webb The list of ten demands issued by the those who occupied Senate House gives a pretty good idea of why the students are feeling the need to do so much protesting. They want to see outsourced staff and lecturers, who they consider the backbone of universities, given fair working terms and pay. They don’t want their halls of residence run by private companies who will charge extortionate rents. And they’re fed up of having the police, who unsurprisingly they don’t trust, allowed onto their campuses. They’re also angry at the planned closure of ULU next year, which the university wants to take over. It’s a flawed body, but also considered an outlet for some of the grievances of London’s students. The National Union of Students, according to most of the activists, is useless. They see its leadership as careerists using their roles as a step on the way to a safe Labour seat, not an institution that can help them effect the change they want. On Friday, a day after the mass arrests, a second Cops Off Campus demonstration took place. Again, there were hundreds of students and police. But it mostly just consisted of running around in the streets, getting in the way of motorists, with a police helicopter hovering above. A small group of anarchists, waving red and black flags, climbed a fire escape and were keen to find a way into University of London’s campus, which had been sealed off. But the demonstrators decided to call it a day and hold a sort of debrief meeting in the students’ union. That wasn’t, I think, because their anger at the police had subsided. All around, you could hear protesters urging each other to “save it for next week” (this Wednesday, a national Cops Off Campus protest is planned). In other words, in Bloomsbury’s battle between students and police, things look likely to intensify further. With thanks to James Burley for the article above Follow James Burley on Twitter here @JWJBurley http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/18110/1/cops-off-campus-university-of-london-protest-ban

UK border agency and the role of borders for capitalism

The UKBA have been in the news quite a bit of late be that for immigration raids on people who they deem have over stayed their welcome in the UK not that many people feel welcome in the UK these days and also their so called failures and missing various targets. "There have been lots of stories in the British press recently related to immigration, and these have made it clear that a sentiment still exists that is opposed to the familiar xenophobia with which the topic is usually discussed in the UK. For a moment it has seemed that perhaps not everyone around us is okay with the detention, deportation and ultimate killing of people on the grounds that they are not from here, were born somewhere else, or have a different skin colour and are deemed ‘undesirable’ because of it. However a liberal anti-racism that seeks small changes in immigration policy – a fine-tuning of just how it is we execute the barring of entry to and forced removal from this country – does nothing to end the violence of that system, but is rather a position that chooses to participate in it with a sense of moral acquittal. This sort of response to stories like the Home Office’s racist van – driven around parts of London with a message to the black population that read ‘In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest’ – and the attention drawn to the routine harassment of that same population by the UK Border Agency’s immigration officers often comes in a form that appeals to ‘diversity’ as the ideal to be upheld, instead of the enforcement of legislation regarding lawful status to remain in the UK. Yet if we are to properly bring to an end the situation where a person can be deemed to be illegal, we must abandon the notion of diversity that is itself racist. Choose to defend the presence of ‘illegal’s’ not because they’re just nice to have around, but because you appreciate that the suffering borders inflict is intolerable. No one is illegal, full stop. It is a good moment to be reminded of the race and class based analyses of post-war British immigration policy by writers such as Ambalavaner Sivanandan, who describe the state’s changing tolerance towards different groups of foreign labourers as linked importantly with economic interests. The argument that immigration legislation since the Nationality Act of 1948 – which gave British citizenship to the citizens of the colonies – has been aimed at achieving control over the import of labour from the (ex-)colonies is a convincing one. How Black people came to be policed – as those who slip most easily into being judged ‘illegal’ – when they did move to the United Kingdom and, later, during the sixties and seventies crisis, when ideas changed regarding how much Black labour was necessary, has also been analysed in the work of writers such as Sivanandan, Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy. Whilst we have witnessed an intervening history that led to a remoulding of the earlier immigration acts, the discussions and observations from these thinkers remains germane given that the form of oppression has changed little. In order to keep up with what is deemed acceptable regarding racism for the liberal state, as well as the changing role of government’s guardianship over the market, the relevant laws and policing have adapted. Yet in the run up to the 2015 general election we see the UK Labour party is still able to promise another immigration act to ‘put an end to workers having their wages undercut illegally by employers exploiting migrant labour.’ Even in the language of progressive anti-exploitation we can see clearly the effect Labour’s policy will have on those who would like to work here but are not allowed and how this is a continuation in the same spirit as all previous immigration bills. Invariably it is concerned with the maintenance of a profitable economy. One change is clear however: whilst previously the language of race relations was used as a justifier, that ideology is now stripped away and the fact that economic dramatis personae are the main concern — rather than humans, and especially Black humans — is plain to see. The state as ever is a machine designed to protect and uphold capitalist morality and maintain structures of order and control. The UKBA are no different and probably contain some of the worst element of the police and the prison officers with fewer restrictions. As the old saying goes who polices the police? Today immigration removals are undertaken by UK Border Agency (UKBA), an outfit that is hard to distinguish from the police. During their ‘spot checks’ and searches for ‘immigration offenders’ they wear similar uniforms and carry much of the same equipment that police do. Yet, despite repeated findings of ‘institutional racism’ and their clear structural role in policing Black communities, the constabulary has found it easy to reject allegations of entrenched racism. It isn’t as easy for their partners-in-policing at the UKBA to hide behind such claims as they target Black people throughout the country each day. The findings of the inquest into the death of Jimmy Mubenga have made it even harder for the immigration industry to feign respectable non-racism. Last month an inquest jury found that Jimmy, a father of five ordered to leave his family and return to Angola following a prison sentence for his involvement in a nightclub scuffle, was ‘unlawfully killed’ by the guards escorting him on his deportation flight. After prolonged restraint the three guards had suffocated him to death as they tried to muffle his cries for help from passengers and staff on the British Airways flight. Through the inquest it came to light that some of the G4S Deportation Custody Officers contracted to remove Jimmy from his home and family, those that became his killers, had racist text messages saved on their phone. Evidence was heard that the texts were shared widely amongst UKBA staff and their hired police from G4S. Some of the “jokes” were read out in court by G4S guard Terry Hughes: “Did you know that the words race car spelt backwards says race car? That eat is the only word that if you take the first letter and move it to the last it spells its past tense ate? And have you noticed that if you rearrange the letters in illegal immigrant and add just a few more it spells out fuck off and go home you freeloading, benefit-grabbing, kid-producing, violent, non-English speaking, cocksuckers and take those hairy-faced, sandal wearing, bomb-making, goat-fucking, smelly raghead bastards with you. How weird is that?” FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT; ALT=" The racist texts are thoroughly unsurprising given the conditions of immigration laws that come to judge Black people as less than human and the policing violence that subsequently comes to confirm that they are indeed less than human. Jimmy was to be removed as he had committed a crime for which he had served time in prison, allowing the Secretary of State to classify him as no longer ‘desirable’ in the UK. A similar fate currently awaits Trenton Oldfield who was imprisoned for ‘public nuisance’ after an aquatic protest during the Oxford v. Cambridge boat race in 2012. He committed a crime that in the eyes of Theresa May marks him out as a threat to public order, again allowing her to deem him ‘undesirable’ and to muster the state’s capacity to police public order to send him ‘home’ – away from his partner and new-born baby in London. Trenton is white and will likely face a qualitatively different violence than his Black counterparts, but the ‘go home’ message resonates clearly. The racist van that has upset so many only serves to restate and clarify what we have known for decades – ‘if you want to live in peace, go home’. But this is all in the name of another ‘peace’, that of British order and capital’s continuing ability to exploit. That there has been a small awakening to the racism of immigration control so close to the second anniversary of the August 2011 riots is opportune. It allows thinking of immigration policing in the same continuum as the state violence that brought about that disorder. Our response to UKBA should thus take the same form: No Justice, No Peace." Quite clearly the UKBA is not fit for purpose for anyone who believes in upholding equality and liberty. This is a capitalist institution through and through with many aspects of racism inbeded deep into their mindset. There can be no solidarity with these organisations. Of course we would support workers in action if they were to but we would weigh up each action on its own merits we would not uncritically give support to the likes of the Police, Prison officers and the UKBA unlike some on the left do today misguidedly believing they are simply workers in uniform. With extracts in quotes from http://libcom.org/library/will-uk-ever-give-its-racist-immigration-policy-wail-qasim

The role of the police in 2013

Now I’ve always been one to question the role of the police and their role in society. For myself I have not had any negative experiences with the police I must admit but I have heard a lot and read a lot about them and the role they play in a liberal democracy that we apparently live in. There is a commonly held assumption that the police are a necessary presence in a civilised society, one that ensures the preservation of social order. And yet this assumption is deeply ideological, blurring the distinction between the act of policing with the existence of an institutional police force. I am myself increasingly suspicious of the role of the police in 2013. But looking back at history at which a article I will publish below will demonstrate looks aback upon and tries to draw conclusions and ideas from this institution of capitalism . “While anthropologists have found policing to be a common feature of all societies, studies have shown that the founding of a police force only occurs in conjunction with the development of class and monetary systems (Reiner, 3-7). The establishment of an institutional police service is thus a manifestation of an ascending dominant class securing their interests against those inhabiting a society’s lower strata. What Adam Smith says of ‘laws and government’ is thus equally true of the police force: “Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence.” This political role of the police was well recognised by the working classes of the UK, with their formation met with much hostility. Indeed much of what is quintessential to the ‘British bobby’ was in fact carefully constructed in an attempt to depoliticise the service – thus the British police were set up as unarmed, low key and legalistic, authorised only to use minimal force and to stand accountable under the same laws as the general public. Despite this, the deaths of the first two police officers killed on duty were ruled ‘justifiable homicide’ by juries. The police were also to be non-partisan, and, most importantly, they were to fulfil a social function, i.e. crime prevention and detection, and it is this role that allows the obscuring of their mandate for repression. However, the legitimacy achieved by these policies would not have been successful was it not for the circumstances of the time. The gradual incorporation of the working classes into the social, economic and political institutions meant the majority of citizens were able to share in economic growth (though unevenly and not completely); thus the societal structure that ensured opposition to the police was ameliorated just enough to facilitate their acceptance (Reiner, 77). Let us now look in more detail at these legitimising practises of the police, and consider the extent to which they have changed over time, the level of their success, and the effect social unrest has upon the public’s acceptance of the institution. Minimal Force The initial opposition to the police necessitated a softly-softly approach in order to gain acceptance; unarmed was sold as non-repressive. While police were given truncheons, they were at first to carry them concealed, and were very much restricted to use as a last resort – even then their use was closely scrutinised and, if found to be unnecessary, likely to end with the police officer’s dismissal. This model of policing, with its strict regulations on force, does not however demonstrate a lack of state oppression: during this time the army were available as back up, and were regularly deployed against civilians in the late 19th and early 20th century. As the police gained acceptance, the use of the army was scaled back – and police use of force was gradually scaled up, now with apparent legitimacy (Reiner, 72-73). Of course the fact that the police were, right from their beginnings, permitted only to use minimal force does not account for those who broke these rules. While accountability will be discussed next, it is important to note that incidents of complaints against the police have never been accurately recorded. From the 1960s onwards the British Police began to militarise. Special units were formed in order to deal with public order and terrorism (the state’s linking of the two already evident), developing paramilitary tactics and formations, and trained in the use of weapons. In the 1970s Police Support Units were founded; whereas these specially trained officers were used in day-to-day policing they could now be called upon to deal with crowds, specifically strikes and demonstrations, and thus purposely formed to be used against the working classes in their struggles against bosses and the state. Police dressed in riot gear became a common sight during the unrest of the 1970s and 1980s (prior to 1977, police at the Notting Hill Carnival used bin lids as makeshift shields), and police tactics proved to be far more than that of minimal force: cars, driven at speed, were used to disperse crowds, and CS gas was used for the first time on mainland Britain. Prime Minister Thatcher also gave government support for the police to use plastic bullets and water cannon, should Chief Constables deem them necessary (Reiner, 85-86) The potential for such tactics to damage the legitimacy of the police was recognised by the more liberal chief constables, with one stating: ‘There has to be a better way than blind repression’ (Reiner, 86). While day-to-day policing in Britain remains unarmed save for the truncheon and CS spray, police access to and use of firearms (and other weaponry) has risen dramatically. Each force has an armed response unit, tasers are now used with increasingly frequency, and the presence of Police Support Units is a common sight at any public event (Reiner, 87-88). The rise of middle class protesters in the 1990s, predominantly around single-issue causes such as animal rights, anti-roads and the free party/rave scene, increased problems of police legitimacy, as lines were drawn between the police and those from their traditional support base (Reiner, 87). This has continued to be problematic in recent years. In 2011 nationwide protests against student fees, and UK Uncut’s actions against tax avoidance, have been met with hard-line policing, and the police have faced much criticism from the liberal press and demo participants who would otherwise support the police role. The increased militarisation of the police undermines the assertion of a non-oppressive, civil force – the facade of social function falling away to many of those on the receiving end of public order policing, revealing the repressive state body beneath. Accountability The original emphasis on police accountability helped ensure that officers were perceived to be subject to the same legal scrutiny as other citizens. The necessity for the institution to obscure its coercive role meant that initially the police were not only held accountable, but actually done so to the detriment of their ability to perform much of their mandated functions. By the mid-19th century however this had changed significantly, with police evidence heavily relied upon and accusations against them readily dismissed (Reiner, 72). In 2008, over one hundred lawyers, employed by an advisory body to the IPCC to handle complaints, resigned, citing the IPCC’s failure to handle complaints effectively and, most notably, the IPCC’s “pattern of favouritism towards the police with some complaints being rejected in spite of apparently powerful evidence in their support”. In 2009, even The Economist opined that “the IPCC is at best overworked and at worst does not deserve the “I” in its name.” Last year Smiley Culture died of a single stab wound to the heart when police raided his home. The police claimed, and the IPCC accepted, that this wound was self-inflicted. All four of the officers present at the house were treated as witnesses rather than suspects, meaning none were formally interviewed – this includes the officer who witnessed the incident and who refused to give a formal interview. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which any other citizen, witness to a violent death, would be spared the formality of a police interview, indeed who would not be considered a suspect at least until s/he could be eliminated from enquiries. Though the coroner gave evidence stating that such a wound would result in death within a few minutes, Smiley Culture was handcuffed, the police say after sustaining the wound. Why such restraints were necessary has not been answered. The case of Smiley Culture is far from unique. Civilians dying in controversial circumstances at the hands of, or in the presence of police, is a common occurrence. Jean Charles de Menezes; Ian Tomlinson; Mark Duggan – these are only the most prominent of cases, given extra significance within the press due to the extraordinary circumstances that surrounded their deaths. Between 1998 and 2010 there were 333 deaths in police custody; not one police officer has been convicted. Interestingly the IPCC have raised this issue, arguing that juries are reluctant to convict police officers. While this may be the case it is evident that the IPCC have a habit of sweeping complaints, misconduct, and potentially police criminality, beneath the carpet, ensuring they never reach court. At the founding of the police service accountability was not simply considered in legalistic terms, the police were also expected (hypothetically if not in practise), as ‘civilians in uniform’, to be held answerable by their communities. Towards this principle, there was much recruitment among the working classes and promotion granted on merit; indeed since the Second World War, the majority of Chief Constables have been from working class backgrounds and entered the service as PCs (Reiner, 74-75). Such recruitment assists in obscuring the repressive role of the police, aspirant members of the working class may view the police force as a route to a professional and secure career, and the presence of relations and friends within the service is likely to increase trust in the institution as a whole. Legitimacy that has been gained by accountability through association is apparent in the idea of the police as ‘workers in uniform’, as espoused by the Socialist Party. It is also evident in the Occupy Movement of the last year where, despite many arrests, police brutality and no suggestion that the police share their aims or are on their side, individuals within the movement have repeatedly expressed that ‘the police are the 99% too’. Such belief in the police as part of the community is perhaps now a bigger force for legitimacy than accountability before the law. With stories of police brutality and hard line tactics almost ever present during a time of austerity, a person’s link to an individual police officer may grant greater credibility to the police than is warranted by reports of their behaviour. In much the same way that citizens may ‘support the soldiers not the war’, many of the working classes, many of those suffering because of a state protected by the police, are granting credibility to a whole institution based on maybe only a minor personal relationship – the level of accountability to the community is miniscule, but it may just be enough to grant institutional legitimacy at a time when the behaviour of the institution is overtly oppressive. Non-partisan It is important to note that this oppressive behaviour of the police is not related to the incumbent government, but is inherent in the very foundations of the service. At the establishment of the force the police were formed as a non-partisan institution, once again in an attempt to gain acceptance from the working class (Reiner, 74). At the time of the founding of the police this would have had more relevance than it does now, with each party notionally aligned with the interests of a particular class. Yet though the police may not be partisan to any political party, the extent that this helps their legitimacy is highly dubious. It is not the police support of the Tories or of Labour, or any other political party that is of relevance, but of their support for the state that all of these parties seek to uphold. Not being party-politically partisan is irrelevant – the police support the incumbent government, every government supports the interests of the ruling class. The police can never be politically neutral. And this becomes immediately apparent whenever class conflicts flare up. The pro-state establishment credentials of the police hardly need describing, yet it is perhaps worth noting how the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of the Met are appointed by the Queen, on the recommendation of the Home Secretary, and knighted, firmly making them part of the ruling class, not simply employed to be on their side. The role of the Commissioner and his Deputy is also worth mentioning – they are the key individuals responsible for counter-terrorism and threats to public order, with the potential for the line between them to blur. In the 1980s the police became more explicitly political, campaigning for more funding for law and order, and against the liberalisation of penal and social policy. Criticism of this political campaign was rejected by the Police Federation, justifying their stance with the question, “What is ‘political’ about crime?”(Reiner, 89). The campaign was met with Conservative party support, establishing themselves as ‘the party of law and order’. Labour, wary of appearing ‘soft on crime’ by comparison, supported Conservative policy that itself was dictated by the Police Federation’s campaign (Reiner 89-90). Such a question is then, at best, disingenuous. The police actively support political policies that strengthen the ruling class against the rest of the population; the Conservatives just happened to be the Government to implement them. In the past two decades, incarceration rates have soared; 60% of those imprisoned are functionally illiterate and/or innumerate, they are also more likely to be homeless, and more likely to be unemployed (and to be so in the long-term). Of petty offenders who have homes, one-third lose them whilst in custody. Two thirds lose their jobs. 95% of those imprisoned are male, and two fifths lose contact with their families. Any suggestion that such figures are not political, that the campaign for more stringent penal and social policy has not had a disproportionate affect on those most socially and economically vulnerable, is a deceitful distortion of reality. Aside from the socio-economic breakdown of crime and punishment, the definitions of what constitutes a crime (or as unlawful) are also political in nature. So a protest is unlawful if the organisers do not give six days written notice, and it must adhere to restrictions on its time and route. The police may ban or restrict a protest if it poses the potential for “serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption” (Public Order Act 1986, Sections 11-14). By increasing the associations of protest with criminality the state can act against its detractors with apparently legitimate force. Hence in the past year the Occupy camps have been frequently associated with crime and disorder, student protests have been said to have been infiltrated by “hardcore activists and street gangs”, and the Met have aligned anarchism with terrorism. Trade Unions have also been warned that should they use their right to strike, they may face more stringent laws to prevent them from doing so in future. The use of effective action quickly becomes defined as unlawful action when the state feels threatened. Crime prevention and detection By the mid 19th century the police were perceived by the middle and upper classes as an effective law and order service. While members of the working classes also called upon the police they did so with less regularity, the majority of their contact with them unsought and unwelcome. This did not begin to change until political, social and economic reforms gradually allowed many of the working classes to gain a stake in society. Proportionally however inequality has remained pretty much the same and, since the beginnings of neoliberal policies in the 1980s, has actually increased (Reiner, 77). Still, the legitimacy of the police has been found to depend upon the perceived fair conduct of their work, ‘bad’ policing having a greater effect upon this perception than ‘good’. It is notable that police legitimacy is judged to be greater among those who have had no direct contact with them (not just as a suspect but also as a witness or victim); approval is therefore dependant on the citizens’ inexperience of the institution’s practises –for this reason legitimacy is generally perceived to be greater to those higher up the social ladder (Reiner, 69-70). The effectiveness of the police in tackling crime is difficult to measure. Though statistics are available they are notoriously unreliable; they do not account for unreported crimes and are liable to be distorted in order to reflect a desired picture. However it is safe to assert that crime has risen greatly over the past 50 years, as has fear of crime, while faith in the ability of the police has declined (Reiner, 93). The clear-up rate of crimes is, as of 2010, at 28% (though again it must be noted that the figures are imprecise). For specific crimes the police’s effectiveness in dealing with them varies hugely. For example, while murder cases are solved 92% of the time, for other violent crime the figure is a much lower 47%, and for burglary only 13%. The use of the word ‘solve’ is also problematic: “If adequate information is provided to pinpoint the culprit fairly accurately, the crime will be resolved; if not, it is almost certain not to be” (Reiner, 153) The work of the detective as vaunted in television dramas is detached from reality; two thirds of “solved” crimes are in fact self-solvers, i.e. the culprit is either still at the scene or witnesses are able to name and/or provide a full and accurate description. In cases where the crime does not solve itself there are two main tactics of investigation, both of which rely on stigmatising vulnerable groups; the police may “round up the usual suspects” of regular offenders, or rely upon stereotypical notions of what perpetrators of particular offences may be like. A high number of arrests made by foot patrol units conform to the latter tactic, suspicion based upon stereotype (Reiner, 152). This may go some way to explain why stop and searches are disproportionately carried out against ethnic minorities, with black people seven times more likely to be stopped than white people; institutional racism continues to be endemic. It must be recognised that neither of these tactics of investigation are effective, with the majority of cases remaining unsolved. Cases that do not present with likely leads are regularly dropped (Reiner, 152-3). The main social function of the police then seems almost administrative in form; while particular specialists may be required to gather forensics, the majority of an officer’s work appears to be processing self-evident information. The primary justification for a police force is thus effectively made obsolete; the assumption that a civilised society needs a police force is shown to be motivated by ideology, a facade created to conceal a state’s coercive power. Conclusion The depression of the 1930s saw public order become a key issue, with much criticism levied at the police for their brutal suppression of the National Unemployment Workers’ Movement marches (Reiner, 75). Then, like now, the economic situation resulted in a renewed awareness of the political nature of the police. While the state continues to feed us the line that we need the police, that the police are impartial, people are becoming aware that they are not on our side. When the police call for water cannon to be used against protesters, when they threaten to deploy rubber bullets, they do so to defend a status quo, a status quo that protects the interests of the ruling class against the mass interest of the people. However the exposure of the police as political actors damages them; when coercion supersedes consent state legitimacy begins to fall. In the past year coercive policing has been exacerbated by the courts, with individuals convicted following protests and riots receiving significantly harsher sentences than the same offences would usually warrant. The repression of dissent is thus at the heart of the justice system, the appeal for ‘social order’ used to assist in securing the interests of the state and its ruling class. Historically the police have been successful in allaying the fears of the working classes by following the legitimating policies and practises as described above (Reiner, 70-75). However once such acceptance was achieved the necessity to continue in this vein waned, and in times of social unrest the political nature of the police becomes increasingly apparent. While the social role of crime prevention and detection continues to be the principal justification for a police force, the evidence does not bear this out. As the socio-economic circumstances continue to deteriorate in 2012, more people will gain direct experiences of the coercive role of the police, experiences that may serve to delegitimize both their existence and that of the state they seek to protect. Sources Robert Reiner The Politics of the Police Attachment Size Attachment Size The police the case against.pdf 349.55 KB Posted By Ramona Jan 6 2012 19:54 “ With article and thanks to libcom.org at http://libcom.org/library/police-case-against

Why the police should have the right to strike

This is a contentious issue among the left do we support the police and are they workers in uniform or simply agents of the state. Strong arguments can be made for both case’s I’m still indifferent to the debate myself I have never really found the police to be an issue but I’m yet to experience how they can act. We all know the police’s record of attacking pickets during the miners strike and their role in the Wapping dispute and the police violence we hear about a lot. But if there is the chance we can win some of them lower ranked layers to the labour movement then I don’t think we should turn our nose up at it.

With the half a million out on strike on Thursday the 10th of May a little less known demonstration was going on too. Up to 35 thousand off duty police officers were marching in central London.

Their issues included 20% cuts to the police service, which is leading to redundancies, opposition to the Windsor Report on the Police Service, which includes cuts to pay levels and conditions on top of a two-year pay freeze and increased pension contributions, and opposition to privatisation of core police functions.
Socialists who went to intervene in the police demo were wondering what the response would be. The answer surprised us.
An estimated 35,000 off-duty officers marched, fuming with the government over the above issues. So much so that they snatched all the leaflets from the handful of Socialist Party members there - we underestimated the response we would get! - And over 50 copies of the Socialist were sold.
Many officers politely declined to take leaflets or buy our paper. Some said they were non-political and were surprised to learn how many of their colleagues had bought a copy.
But there were very few hostile responses. And we made it clear to those who wanted to talk that we have strong criticisms of the policing of demos, picket lines and communities [see articles: Grim toll for hidden police racism and After the Riots from the socialist)

But we welcome any action that brought the Police Federation and ordinary police officers closer to the trade union movement if they are going into conflict with their employers, the government and police authorities.
We supported their call for the right to strike, which they may ballot for soon and will have to fight for if they win the ballot.
But this is truly the sign of a government and capitalist society on the rocks when sections of its state feel the need to demonstrate against it! The police are used by the government to frighten people off from demonstrating, as brutally experienced by students in 2010, but developments like this could help to weaken their use against strikers and demonstrators in the future.

Ordinary police officers are still bound to the wage labour system that keeps capitalism afloat and as such should like other workers have the right to strike. The fact that it is still illegal for the police to strike is a key tactic in protecting their state for the capitalist system to survive if police did strike this could split the state and if not careful could be drawn into the ranks of the labour movement. I think we’re still a long way away from that it may never happen but we cant rule it out or turn our backs when the police yes the police are protesting against this government we must stand with those who do wish to protest and campaign against cuts it could be another feather in our cap in building the movement against all cuts.

The role the state plays in politicising workers

A DEFINING feature of Marxism, which sets it apart from other political trends, is its theory of the state and its programme and policies for dealing with it.

Throughout the years workers have been found to have come up against the state in the class struggle be that coming up against the police on the picket lines or facing arrest on a public demonstration eitehr way this act by the state quickly teach's workers that the state is not your friend and the role of the police and army at times is there to protect private propety not its citizens as bourgeois media likes to tell us.

The state is not simply there for security . The capitalists use such provision to discipline workers, for example, by withdrawing benefits from strikers.

They also use different wings of the state to uphold their capitalist ideology. For example, the government attacks on single parents or the continual harassment and implication of laziness in relation to the long-term unemployed. In this way they attempt to deflect blame from themselves onto the victims of their system and undermine the confidence of those who campaign for better benefits.



However, the main sense in which Marxists use the term 'state' is to describe the institutions by which class rule is maintained. We live in a class society where the ruling class does not represent the interests of the whole population, where a minority maintains its power and privileges by exploiting the majority. They have to persuade the majority to accept this situation.

They do this partly though their control of ideas, for example, through their ownership of the mass media, their general control of education and other institutions. They try to persuade people that their system is the only and best way of organising society, almost to the extent of being "natural".

But their ideas and system clash with the interests of working class people. For example, if the working class believed the news and political commentators they would never go on strike. But workers find that without organisation and a willingness to take action, they cannot maintain living standards.

So, when propaganda and conditioning fail and working-class people and even sections of the middle classes oppose the ruling class, the ruling class use the police, the courts, the law and sometimes the army to defend their profits and power. They did this, for example, in their efforts to defeat the 1984-85 miners’ strike and during the anti-capitalist marches in Genoa (where a protester was shot and killed).

They need a special apparatus to ensure that their class rule continues. The core of the state, the part which it falls back on to ensure its rule when all else fails, is the repressive apparatus - the police, the army, the courts and the various intelligence agencies like Ml5. (Engels described the state as ultimately being "a body of armed men"). Carrying through the transition to a socialist society inevitably includes major strategic and tactical problems in defeating these agencies which exist to defend capitalist class rule.


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Has the 'state' always existed?
IF YOU never read another work of Marxism again, you should read Lenin's brilliant booklet 'The State and Revolution'. Lenin explains that the state arose when society first divided into antagonistic classes.

For centuries humans lived in egalitarian societies, what Marx and Engels referred to as 'primitive communism', where all people were dependent on one another and co-operation was the guiding principle of society. However, as labour became more productive, society produced a surplus beyond its immediate needs.

This created the conditions for class society - the minority who came firstly to administer and then to control and own this surplus protected their right to it by force. The class with economic dominance and power, the ruling class, created the state to protect itself, hold down its adversaries and guarantee that its will was done. This is a very important point because the reverse is also true. When classes themselves disappear, as a classless socialist society comes into being, that same force will no longer be needed.

In a famous phrase of Marx, the state would begin to 'wither away'.

Class society based on the private ownership of the means of producing wealth has taken different forms. When the capitalist class began to develop, they had to wage a Civil War in the 1640s against the existing feudal state to establish a new state that would serve their own capitalist, class interests. They became the new ruling class.


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Different Forms of Capitalist State
THE ‘TYPICAL’ form of state in the ad


Different Forms of Capitalist State
THE ‘TYPICAL’ form of state in the advanced capitalist countries today is capitalist ('bourgeois') democracy. Governments are elected by general election, and there are wide democratic freedoms - although in many countries these are under threat. Bourgeois – that is, capitalist - democracy hasn't always existed: the labour movement has carried out long struggles to win democratic freedoms such as the right to vote, to organise and the right to strike. Women also had to fight for the vote.

In many ways bourgeois democracy is more convenient for the capitalists, enabling them to maintain their domination without risky and unpopular dictatorial measures. In the last 60 years, the capitalist class has had some nasty experiences with non-democratic forms of rule - for example, fascism in Germany and Italy cost a world war and massive destruction.

In the last analysis however, if the capitalists feel threatened by the growing power of the working class, they will resort to other forms of capitalist state. In the 20th century typical alternatives to capitalist democracy have been military dictatorship (such as existed in Greece after the colonels' coup in 1967, or Chile after the military coup in 1973) and fascism, such as existed in Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini. In both military dictatorships and fascist regimes, democratic parliamentary rights, trade union and political rights, are abolished and the ruling class gives power to a small group which governs by coercion and terror.

The type of regime which emerges in each historical period depends on how confident the bourgeoisie feels to grant democratic rights.

But every ruling class will revert to authoritarian forms of rule if it has to. The ruling class in Britain is no exception. In a revealing insight in his book, Inside Right, Tory MP Ian Gilmour (now Lord Gilmour and a former member of Thatcher's cabinet) stated: "Conservatives do not worship democracy... For Conservatives... democracy is a means to an end and not an end in itself. And if it is leading to an end that is undesirable or is inconsistent with itself, then there is a theoretical case for ending it."

There have been many occasions when the British ruling class discussed whether or not military intervention was necessary. In 1977, The Observer carried the following report: "Field-Marshall Lord Carver was chosen as Britain's Commissioner in Zimbabwe because he is a man the government knows it can trust. Carver's proving time came three years ago when he was the focus of tensions in right-wing army circles that gave rise to talk of military intervention in a political emergency.

"This time the trouble was over contingency plans for a breakdown in public order after a clash between the government and the trade unions... The Army Council decided that such plans were unnecessary - and indeed that to make them would be politically unwise. Their absence became a talking point in the Army when the 1973 miners' strike and state of emergency precipitated a general election." (Observer 4 September 1977).

It's obvious from the language here that the option of military intervention was not dismissed out of hand, considered outrageous, illegal or treacherous - just "unwise". Elaborate plans are in place to revert to dictatorial government if necessary.


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Is capitalist democracy really democratic?
PRO-CAPITALIST POLITICAL theorists say there are two forms of state - 'dictatorship' and 'democracy'. Both of them are ways of ensuring that the ruling class stays in control. Marxists defend democratic rights but say that real democracy cannot exist so long as economic and social power is in the hands of a ruling capitalist class.

Capitalist ideologues say the system is 'democratic' because of the right to vote, and (within limits) there is the right of free speech and of political organisation. A typical argument is that 'if you want to change things, you can always stand for parliament.' In reality things are a bit more complicated. Under bourgeois democracy, the capitalist class keeps its power in the following ways:

It controls the economy:

This, of course, is the basic, most important source of capitalist power, giving it vast resources to ensure the continuation of its rule. Through their control of the workplaces and financial institutions they can decide, for example, that thousands of workers are put on the dole, destroy communities and evict thousands from their homes.

It dominates ideologically:

As Marx said:"The ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class". The means of communication (newspapers, television etc) are either directly owned by the capitalists or controlled by their political representatives. Capitalist ideas - although sometimes challenged by Marxists - are reproduced in the universities and many other institutions.

It controls the judiciary and the civil service:

Leading civil servants – the Whitehall ‘mandarins' - are not elected, but career officers who earn vast salaries and have the same lifestyle as many capitalists. They often commute between industry and government.

In 1990, 373 Ministry of Defence officials and officers in the armed forces left to take jobs in industry, most of them with arms contractors. (Pallister and Norton-Taylor 1992). The tops of the civil service stay in office whoever is elected. They decide what information is presented and what options are available to politicians. They are recruited from the same public school and Oxbridge background as leading capitalist politicians, and of course the judges.

Law in Britain is not just made by Parliament; it is also made by unelected judges, who are overwhelmingly elderly males from a privileged background. This doesn't mean that groups necessarily take a uniform view.

For example, the whole justice system is held in open contempt by most people because of cases like the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, the M25 Three, Winston Silcott and Oliver Campbell. A special division of the Home Office looks at about 600 "miscarriages of justice" a year.

Some judges are concerned about the credibility of their system and are therefore prepared to admit to some mistakes and release some people. They hope that in this way the idea of "impartial justice" can be recreated, the better to use their powers against more fundamental challenges to the capitalist system.

The capitalist class controls official politics:

In fact the whole 'democratic' structure is designed to keep working people out. Politics for most people is confined to voting once every few years. Most leading politicians are professionals - lawyers, journalists, doctors, company directors etc - and many Tory politicians are themselves capitalists.

Using the 'democratic' system is much easier if you have power and money, if you have access to the press and television. This makes it much easier for the capitalists than for working-class organisations - although, as we discuss below, socialists try to take advantage of every democratic opening that capitalism allows.

Parliament has been referred to as "the best club in the world" where there is a tendency to absorb any working class leaders or reform-minded MPs through its conventions and privileges. A large number of MPs, including Labour MPs, become directors of companies especially ex-public sector companies. Even the wages and expenses of MPs allows them a lifestyle far above what most people can afford. In this way they are insulated from the effects of their policies.

That is why we adhere to the policy of a workers’ MP on a worker's wage for those who claim to represent the interests of the working class.

There can be no real democracy without economic democracy, no real democracy without ordinary people having access to decision making. The only real democracy is socialist democracy.


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Repressive apparatuses of the State
EVERY FORM of class rule, every form of capitalist rule, involves various forms of coercion. Even under bourgeois democracy, where there are lots of formal democratic freedoms, the bourgeoisie utilises repression, sometimes in vast quantities. A good contemporary example is the penal system in the United States. Of nearly two million prisoners 60% are black, overwhelmingly young men: the system is, at least in part, an instrument of repression against the black community.

Here, we shall briefly look at the different repressive branches of the British state:

The legal system.

In any society there tends to be a body of rules or laws which are broadly accepted by society. These outlaw anti-social behaviour such as murder, physical attack, theft etc. It’s through such laws and their enforcement that the state acquires its reputation as a neutral regulator of society.

However, law under capitalism is class law. It exists to enforce the rights of property. This is the case both with the civil law, which concerns itself with things like enforcing debt and contract, and also with the criminal law.

Marxists, of course, are not opposed to legal sanctions against anti-social crimes - domestic burglary and crimes of violence, for example. However, the way in which even the criminal law is applied is class-biased: if you're working class, if you're black, if you are a working-class woman, then you stand a much greater chance of being convicted or going to jail. Half the prisoners in Britain are there for crimes relating to debt, or are on remand. One in four women are jailed for a first offence compared with one in 17 men.

23% of women are jailed for theft compared to 11% of men. 80% of women sent to prison are unemployed or on benefit; in effect they are penalised for "crimes of poverty". You stand a much greater chance of going to jail if you are convicted of a bank robbery of £1,000, than if you are convicted of a City swindle of £5 million!

Marx explained the so-called neutrality of the law is undermined by inequalities in income. For example, it is a crime for both rich and poor to steal food. But the poor are much more likely to be forced to steal than the rich who can afford to buy all the food they want.

In addition, there is a series of blatantly political, class laws, relating to things like public order and industrial relations - most notoriously these were the Criminal Justice Act and the various anti-trade union laws introduced by the Tories, which are to do with making it more difficult for working class people to fight the attacks of the bosses.

New Labour has since added a whole new range of repressive laws, which clamp down on civil liberties. And although New Labour has amended some of the Tory anti-union laws, it is still the case that Britain has among the harshest anti-union laws in the world.

In many ways these are designed to intimidate and prevent people taking action. Yet, as many movements show, such as that which led to the freeing of the Pentonville dockers in 1972, the law cannot restrict the scope of working-class struggle once united action and solidarity come into play.

In putting forward these laws, the ruling class, echoed by the leaders of the labour and trade union movement appeal to workers to 'abide by the law'. They rely on the general consensus that may exist for the laws dealing with crime in order to persuade workers that they must abide by political laws.

Although this can have an effect in holding back the movement for a time, it tends to break down as it comes into conflict with the need of workers to defend their working and living conditions. In this respect the Anti-Poll Tax movement was an important breakthrough. It popularised the idea that unjust laws can be successfully defied.

The introduction of such laws cannot be seen as a sign of strength but weakness. It indicates the ruling class are losing the consensus which allowed them to rule with less expense and trouble in the past. It also reveals the real character of capitalism to working-class people.

It is this tactical consideration which has led to splits amongst the ruling class themselves and amongst those responsible for administering the state machine. At the top of society this is a tactical issue. They fear a loss of authority if the state doesn't appear neutral. At lower levels of the state administration, these measures heighten the conflict between the political use of the state and the commitment, for example, of many probation officers, social workers and some prison officers, who see their job as making a practical contribution to society through the rehabilitation of offenders.

The police.

The police, together with the army, constitute the central "body of armed people" which is at the centre of the state apparatus. They are the first line of defence against anything which disturbs the public order of capitalism. In the last 20 years, as social tensions have increased, the myth of the ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ type copper, sorting out lost cats and helping the elderly across the road, has vanished.

The thinking of leading policemen today - a time of increasing political and social tension - indicates that they well understand their basic function in defending capitalism. Former Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, James Anderton once said: "I think that from the police point of view that my task in the future... that basic crime as such - theft, burglary and even violent crimes - will not be the predominant police feature. What will be the matter of greatest concern to me will be covert and ultimately overt attempts to overthrow democracy, to subvert the authority of the state, and in fact to involve themselves in acts of sedition designed to destroy our parliamentary system and the democratic government in this country."

The large-scale involvement of the police against strikers and demonstrators, rather than against traditional 'crime', shows where the real policing priorities currently lie. In fact the Dock Green myth of the friendly neighbourhood bobby could only have come out of the relative social peace of the 1950s and early 1960s.

The miners’ strike of 1984-85 was a watershed for many people. On the field around the coke depot at Orgreave (just outside Sheffield) on 18 June 1984, 4,200 police officers organised into 181 teams, with 58 dogs and 50 horses trying to intimidate and break the spirit of the miners. The fierce repression of the miners’ strike and the poll tax demonstration were not aberrations, but a more open return to the traditional ‘priorities’ of the police.

Some sections of the working class and even the middle class, especially young people, are antagonistic to the police. But working-class people are also worried about crime, which they are the main victims of. They feel the police are needed to deal with situations they cannot tackle themselves.

The police use this fear of crime to build support for themselves and demand more power and resources. We campaign for the accountability of the police. After all if their role really is to protect people from theft and physical attack, what possible objection can there be to being accountable to those they are allegedly protecting?

The Socialist Party campaigns for a democratic check on the police; for elected committees to have the right to hold them to account and to determine priorities and resources.

Not only should such committees be elected but groups that face political policing like the trade unions, black and Asian groups should have direct representation. We also campaign for a fully independent complaints committee, an independent forensic evidence system, for the weeding out of racist officers and for the reinstitution of the right to silence for those subjected to harassment and arrest.

Boston Police Commissioner, Robert Di Grazia once said: "We are not letting the public into our dirty little secret that those who commit the crime that worries the citizen most, violent street crime, are, for the most part, the products of poverty, unemployment, broken homes, rotten education, drug addiction and alcoholism, and other social ills about which the police can do little, if anything".

He denounces the politicians who "get away with law and order rhetoric that reinforces the mistaken notion that the police, in ever greater numbers and with ever more gadgetry, can alone control crime."

The army.

The regular British army was built as a colonial army with worldwide operations to ensure the power of the British state against colonial peoples. The armed forces are vital for the security of the capitalist state against other capitalist states. But the army is also the last line of defence against revolution and civil disorder. "Assisting the civil power", ie intervening in civil disturbances in Britain is a traditional part of the role of the army.

The army was used extensively during the industrial disputes in 1910-1914, and again from 1919-1926. The army was used against the miners of Tonypandy in 1912, intervened when the police went on strike in 1919 in Liverpool and were used extensively during the 1926 General Strike. The army was used to try and break the firefighters' strike in 1977 and was used once again in the firefighters’ dispute of 2002-2003.

Major disturbances, which the police were unable to handle, would again see the attempted used of the army: however, with the semi-militarisation of sections of the police (riot squads etc) this would probably require a higher threshold of disorder than before. It is well-known that the army has detailed contingency plans for domestic counter-revolutionary and "low-intensity" mainland British operations.

The political police.

Every capitalist state operates one or more secret police services, which are in large part aimed at following and disrupting what they call "subversive elements" (ie political movements like the Socialist Party, militant trade unionists and radical activists of every kind who oppose their policies and their system). Their role has been exposed in The Enemy Within, a book by journalist Seumas Milne, about their role in the miners' strike and their attempt, linked to the Cook Report programme and the Daily Mirror, to destroy the NUM leader Arthur Scargill "politically and socially". This culminated in an abortive attempt by intelligence services to deposit £500,000 in a Scargill-linked bank account in Dublin with the aim of framing him as an embezzler.

More recently the BBC programme True Spies claimed that MI5 had sent agents into organisations like Militant (the forerunner of the Socialist Party) and also recruited trade union leaders as agents in order to keep radical ideas in check. Whether or not this was the case, the state’s activities did not stop Militant leading a successful struggle to defend jobs and services in Liverpool City Council and the magnificent campaign that defeated Thatcher’s hated poll tax.


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THE BRITISH state today is obviously


with extracts taken from What is the state ? an introduction to marxism from the socialist party