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Defunding My Mistake
Confessions of an ex-ACAB
Until about five years ago, I unironically parroted the slogan All Cops Are Bastards (ACAB) and earnestly advocated to abolish the police and prison system. I had faint inklings I might be wrong about this a long time ago, but it took a while to come to terms with its disavowal. What follows is intended to be not just a detailed account of what I used to believe but most pertinently, why. Despite being super egotistical, for whatever reason I do not experience an aversion to openly admitting mistakes I've made, and I find it very difficult to understand why others do. I've said many times before that nothing engenders someone's credibility more than when they admit error, so you definitely have my permission to view this kind of confession as a self-serving exercise (it is). Beyond my own penitence, I find it very helpful when folks engage in introspective, epistemological self-scrutiny, and I hope others are inspired to do the same.
How Did I Get There?
For decades now, I've consistently held plain vanilla libertarian policy preferences, with the only major distinction being that I've aligned myself more with the anarchists. Whereas some were content with pushing the "amount of government" lever to "little", I wanted to kick it all the way to "zero". There are many reasons I was and remain drawn to anarchist libertarianism, and chief among them was the attractively simple notion that violence is immoral and that government is violence. The problem with moral frameworks is that they can be quite infectious. To pick on one example for demonstration's sake, I notice that for many animal welfare advocates a vegan diet is heralded not just as the ideal moral choice, but also as the healthiest for humans, the least polluting, the cheapest financially, the best for soil conservation, the most water-efficient, the least labor-exploitative, et cetera & so forth. There's a risk that if you become dogmatically attached to a principled position, you're liable to be less scrutinizing when reflexively folding in other justifications. I suspect that happened to me with prisons, for example, where because I felt immediate revulsion at the thought of the state forcing someone into a cage, I was unwilling to entertain the possibility it could be justified. Ceding the ground on this particular brick was too threatening to the anarchism edifice I was so fond of.
Obviously if you advocate getting rid of the government, people naturally want to know what will replace it. Some concerns were trivial to respond to (I'm not sad about the DEA not existing anymore because drugs shouldn't be illegal to begin with), but other questions I found annoying because I admittedly had no good answer, such as what to do with criminals if the police didn't exist. I tried to find these answers. Anarchism as an umbrella ideology leans heavily to the far left and has a history of serious disagreements with fellow-travelers in Marxism. Despite that feud, anarchist thought absorbed by proxy Marxist "material conditions" critiques that blame the existence of crime on capitalism's inequalities --- a claim that continues to be widely circulated today, despite how flagrantly dumb it is. As someone who was and continues to be solidly in favor of free market economics, these critiques were like parsing an inscrutable foreign language.[1] I was in college around my most ideologically formative time and a voracious reader, but I churned through the relevant literature and found nothing convincing. Instead of noting that as a blaring red flag, I maintained the grip I had on my preferred conclusion and delegated the hard work of actually defending it to someone else. I specifically recall how Angela Davis's 2003 book Are Prisons Obsolete? (written by a famous professor! woah!) had just come out and the praise it was getting from my lefty friends. If this synopsis of the book is in any way accurate, Davis's arguments are so undercooked that it should come with a health warning. The fact that I never read the book all the following years could have been intentional, because it allowed me a convenient escape hatch: whenever pressed, I could just hide behind Davis and other purportedly super prestigious intellectuals as my security detail. Back then, I carried the incredibly naive assumption that any position held by prestigious academics couldn't be completely baseless...right?
Also pertinent is exploring why I felt so attached to something I knew I couldn't logically defend, and the simple explanation is that it was cool. Being a libertarian can be super socially isolating, especially if you live only in places overwhelmingly surrounded by leftists like I do. I navigated the social scene by prioritizing shared political values --- let's not discuss how I don't support the minimum wage, focus instead on how much I hate the police and on how much I love punk rock. That worked really well. Putting "ACAB" on my Tinder profile was an effective signaling move that dramatically improved my chances of matching with the tattooed and pierced cuties I was chasing. Announcing at a party that you are so radical that you're willing to eliminate prisons is an effective showmanship maneuver that few others have the stomach to challenge. There was plenty of social cachet motivating me to ignore niggling doubts.
How Did I Leave?
Whatever the outward facade, my position was crumbling behind it. Almost seven years ago I started working as a public defender and was inundated with hundreds of hours of police encounter footage that were completely uneventful; if anyone, it was usually my client who acted like an idiot. I've seen bodycam footage that starts with officers dropping their lunch in the precinct breakroom in order to full-on sprint toward a "shots fired" dispatch call. I've seen dipshits like the woman who attempted to flee a traffic stop while the trooper was desperately reaching for the ignition with his legs dangling out of the open car door. Despite this, the trooper treated her with impeccable professionalism once the situation was stabilized. At least about five years ago, I found myself in a conversation with a very normie liberal lawyer on the question of police/prison abolition. It was one of the first times I encountered serious pushback and I quickly realized just how woefully under-equipped I was. I distinctly remember how unpleasant the feeling was --- not from the fear of being wrong about something, but rather the fear of being found out.
There were instances where I pulled bullshit what-I-really-mean defenses of ACAB and tried to pontificate about how it's less about whether individual officers are per se "bastards", but rather how the institutional role is blah blah blah. I played similarly squirmy motte-and-bailey games with the abolition topic when I was confronted with undeniable rebuttals. I found an example from almost 10 years ago of one of my most common responses, where I'd highlight some police scandal (e.g., cops seizing more stuff through civil forfeiture than is stolen from people by burglars) and accompany it with the eminently lukewarm "on net, society might be better off without police". The argument is as abstract as it is unconvincing; soaring at an altitude too high for effective critique yet also too remote for anyone to care. Tellingly, I wouldn't and couldn't address the more pressing questions of how to deal with more serious crimes.
It was bizarre watching the discourse unfold during the 2020 BLM riots/protests. Almost overnight, the normie liberal demographic that previously was willing to push back on my inanity was now hoarse from screaming for police abolition. My younger self would've been thrilled watching the populace fully adopt radical anarchist sloganeering, but my actual self was aghast. I couldn't believe these people were speaking literally (yep!) or whether they somehow discovered the elusive magic elixir that transformed police abolition into a viable policy proposal (nope!). I'm someone who was and remains a full supporter of BLM's policy proposals, and I even defended burning down a police precinct building in Minneapolis for fuck's sake, and yet I didn't join the defund chorus.
Still, there's a noticeable bend to some of my writing from that time where I consciously mirrored some of the language du jour --- such as making a bog standard argument against mass incarceration while aping abolition language, or responding to a DTP conversation by discussing police overcompensation. I haven't changed my mind about anything I wrote there, but nevertheless it's fair to accuse me of indirectly "sanewashing" the DTP issue. I took my boring, wonky arguments and adorned them with the faintest slogan perfume. This let me carry my hobbyhorses on the attention wave, but it also contributed to rehabilitating (however slightly) the totally crazy slogan position.
Now What?
I know it sounds crazy, but I think effective law enforcement is a vital component of any well-functioning society. Tons of cops are perfectly decent people who try to do the best they can at a difficult and unenviable job. There are bad people out there who can be prevented from doing bad things only when they are physically restrained with chains and metal bars. Unless we develop some revolutionary new technology or fundamentally modify the nature of man, this is the reality we're stuck with. I still firmly believe there are loads of improvements we can make to the policing and incarceration we have, but abolishing it all is a delusional idea untethered from reality. Radical stance, I know.
Regarding the anarchist responses to the topic, the only coherent proposals I've ever encountered are from David Friedman and others on the anarcho-capitalist side (a variant thoroughly detested by left-wing anarchist thinkers who think it's an affront even to consider it "real" anarchism). Friedman's response is essentially a cyberpunk future with competing private companies offering insurance, security, and arbitration in one package. Friedman's proposal is unusually thoughtful and coherent (the bar is low) and yet still remains largely a thought exercise reliant on some generous game theory assumptions. Who knows if it will or can ever work.
In terms of lessons learned, I should first note that introspection of this kind, spanning across such a long time period, will have significant blind spots and would be particularly prone to flattering revisionism. The most obvious mistake I made was in burying those unnerving moments of doubt. Instead of running toward the fire to put it out, I did my best to tell myself there was no fire. I had already arrived at a conclusion in my mind and worked backward to find its support, and I suppressed how little I could actually find. Whether intentionally or not, I fabricated comforting explanations for why my position was right even though I couldn't directly defend it, often citing evidence that was more aspiration than reality. My ideological isolation kept me safe from almost all pushback anyways. And magnifying all of this were the social dynamics that rewarded me for keeping the horse blinders on.
I'm likely overlooking other factors of course, and there's the ever-present, gnawing worry that haunts me, whispering that I might be fundamentally mistaken about something else. Maybe I am, but hopefully I'll be better equipped to unearth it.
[1] This isn't really on point or even about crime, but to give just one example of the "vibe" I encountered from left-wing anarchists, Voltairine de Cleyre in one of her essays makes a very Kulak-esque argument about how to best guarantee freedom of speech:
I appreciate the serious and thoughtful essay on the topic. My first impression was a fearful "oh no, is this one of those crappy converted libertarian essays". You might have seen the kind ... where the title and content of the essay amounts to "As a libertarian, I use to think poor people were evil and horrible, now as a liberal I see how wrong that idea is." I'm glad this was not that kind of essay.
I have to admit as a bit of an anarchist libertarian myself it challenges me more than most essays would. I am however of the anarcho-capitalist variety of libertarians, or as some anarchists would describe it "not an anarchist at all". (I started writing this right before I got to the section of the essay where you talk about anarcho-capitalists, so you beat me to the joke, but I'm keeping it in)
I did not have your starting position of ACAB. Though I was very suspicious of cops that would defend the "thin blue line" when corruption came into play. I had multiple personal stories from former cops of the insane corruption and shit that cops got away with. One that stuck with me was an economics professor at a local community college. He taught the class between his extended golfing sessions. Former New York Cop, with a very hefty pension. He explained he was doing the class mostly to have something to fill his time. I liked him, but jeez did he have some stories to tell. Pedophiles left on rooftops to either jump or freeze to death. He told the story in a way that gave plausible deniability that maybe other cops had been doing this, but there was also a degree of bragging and agreement with the practice that suggested he'd done it himself. There was also a story about a bomb investigator that got permanently put on desk duty when his wife and the man she was cheating with were blown up under mysterious circumstances that no one could figure out.
My starting position on cops was something like "probably mostly not bastards, but this is definitely a corrupt state institution, and there are better ways this could be run with the right incentives"
I'd stick by that as the correct position, even today. And it might not sound extreme, but I take it to the extreme. There are certain levels of "defund the police" that I'd agree to. And I'd like to defend that position without vague references to thought exercises. Or to leave you as unsatisfied as David Friedman.
What is the problem with policing today?
In short: Too many laws.
A police officer today probably has more knowledge of the legal system than was ever required of anyone in 19th century America. Maybe 19th century supreme court justices would have been required to have more knowledge.
We have seen in moderation on this forum and in many other circumstances there are two semi-valid approaches to law:
These two things exist on a spectrum. But it is hard to disagree that America has been trending towards the codification of everything. Both systems have their downsides, but the main downside of the "codify everything" approach is that humans aren't so good at applying it. They certainly can't remember everything that has been codified, but even if they do, they can't help but injecting their own opinions into things and turning it into a vibes based system.
Cops are sort of the first entry point into the legal system, so its the first and most obvious place where you see these problems crop up. Even if they get fixed by later parts of the justice system, they are still the most visible. The top of the funnel is always the widest, and cops are at the top of the funnel.
There are many other problems with too many laws. It decreases trust in law enforcement in general. It splits valuable resources. It creates avenues for criminals to exist outside the legal system. Etc.
What is the solution?
First, Reduce the scope of policing.
Second, Split up what they do into different professions.
Third, stop trying to legislate goodness into others.
Fourth, allow private citizens to do the work of police.
To me, these are options are both the realistic approach in the short term, and the only viable long term solution. Policing is a bundled good. Any police precinct has many relevant functions and duties, and police officers are supposed to be generally interchangeable between those duties. (so interchangeable that I know one police district required officers to serve a prison wardens for a year before being allowed to go out on patrol).
This is bad, and dumb. Every industry specializes over time. Police officers directing traffic or making stops to give people speeding tickets do not need a full set of training. Police officers that go and apprehend murder suspects might need full swat training. Clearing out homeless people, securing a mall/shopping center, or patrolling a dangerous neighborhood can all be very different jobs that require different mentalities. Some of the worst "police are terrible" stories come from what I see as mixups between these professions.
Also, just have less laws. Sorry all you sim city players out there hoping to control everyone's actions. You need to back off. The scope of policing needs to be philosophically limited. Murder, rape, kidnapping, theft, etc are all clearly valid reasons for some group to exist that can use deadly force to respond to these crimes. But things between consenting adults need to be off limits to the use of force. People tend to want to legislate how to be a good person. But being a good person is a never ending process, and there are always minor improvements you can make. Once we started embarking on this journey of "police should make people be better" we entered down a path of endless laws and regulations.
As an example of areas where we have reduced the scope of policing, I'd suggest looking at any side job cops ever get. Private security for facilities, private protection for rich individuals, security guards at gated neighborhoods, private investigators, bounty hunters, etc. These are all often more specialized security forces than police, and they can often provide better services than the police. (we should not be surprised that private businesses can provide better services than a semi-monopolistic government entity).
Finally, private citizens are sometimes capable and more motivated to accomplish the goals of a police force. An easy example is a home break in. Police might be there in five to ten minutes at best. If you are already there, you can respond much faster to the situation. Perhaps you should be allowed to shoot to defend yourself. This is true in some states, not in all, and not in many countries outside the US. A harder example: I also can't go to the homeless encampments near my neighborhood and take many actions. I am restricted to calling the police (who luckily did something about it recently). But as a homeowner and father of two. I had much more to lose from a confrontation with the homeless. Even if I could have easily brought superior firepower and safety. A full set of body armor ammo and weapons, and hiring two professional bodyguards for a few hours is ironically cheaper than fending off any murder changes for the crazy homeless person that might have suicided themselves against this extreme use of force. Police have a measure of protection from liability that makes them the only viable path for rich people to deal with problems that might require the use of force.
I might be able to continue this tomorrow, but I'm running out of steam. Police are a modern invention. We have survived most of history without them. I think they are mostly a result of modern legislation. Specifically, too many laws, nanny stating bullcrap, and restrictions on what private citizens are allowed to do.
Well sort of, but not very well. Peel didn't create the Metropolitan Police just because he felt like it, law and order in the early 19th century and before was a disaster, precisely because so much of the burden was placed on private citizens to bring cases etc. and they weren't very good at it. Violent crime in inner London dropped by as much as 40% on the introduction of the Met, with smaller reductions for property crime.
We also survived most of history without modern medicine.
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