I Became a Police Abolitionist (2020)
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
theatlantic.comOtherstory
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Police AbolitionCriminal Justice ReformSocial Justice
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Police Abolition
Criminal Justice Reform
Social Justice
The article discusses the author's journey to becoming a police abolitionist, sparking a discussion on the role of policing in society, with the single comment expressing skepticism about the feasibility of abolition.
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Oct 16, 2025 at 10:28 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Oct 16, 2025 at 10:59 AM EDT
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3 months ago
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So "I'll admit that there are perhaps bad apples, but actually I won't: they are all bad apples. But I won't provide any source".
> “What will we do with murderers and rapists?” Which ones? The police kill more than a thousand people every year, and assault hundreds of thousands more. After excessive force, sexual misconduct is the second-most-common complaint against cops.
Again, if your argument is that the police does more harm than good, maybe (just maybe) you need sources.
It just sounds like the author changed their belief and now want to convince others to change theirs. I would be interested in questions like:
1. Can we quantify the problems caused by the police?
2. Is the situation exactly the same everywhere in the US? It's a big country...
3. Is the situation exactly the same everywhere in the world? Pretty damn sure it's not.
After that, if the only viable idea is that "we should have milicias instead of professional police officers" (because that's what's suggested, right?), then maybe let's consider it. But maybe one of the steps before is to try to understand why the concept of "police" isn't causing issues everywhere in the world.