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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Policing The Poor - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿Policing The Poor

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by Tamara Eberle﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, September 1996﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿Cases of police violence and corruption have dominated headlines in a number of cities over the past year. TAMARA EBERLE takes a look at the origins of police forces as a means of controlling working class communities.﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


The Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci argued that the state in capitalist society rules in two ways: by means of consent and by means of coercion. Wherever possible, states prefer to dominate through winning the consent of the governed, by getting the majority of people to go along with the existing system of power. Under such circumstances, the ruling class is able to dominate without much use of force. Gramsci suggested that to win consent, the dominant class tries to exercise "hegemony" throughout society: that is, the cultural, moral and political leadership that leads the majority to accept the rule of a minority. This is often done by drawing on ideologies such as racism and nationalism. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

But there are always some people who act outside of the dominant consensus; and at times the number of such people can grow quite dramatically. At such times, states turn inevitably to the use of force. Under such circumstances, mainstream politicians get on the "law and order" bandwagon, calling on government and the courts to "get tough" with social protest. It is the police who are in the forefront of all such campaigns to apply greater repression to working class communities. 

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In Canada in recent years we have witnessed crackdowns on young offenders, buildups of police forces, rising incidents of police shootings (especially of people of colour), police attacks on striking workers (as in the recent OPSEU strike in Ontario), and fingerprinting and workfare to further demoralize the unemployed. 

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The role of the police in these situations is entirely consistent with the reasons behind the original creation of police forces. Understanding the history and function of the police as the repressive arm of the state is useful to an understanding of state violence. 

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The first known modern police force was instituted in Britain around the 1830s. It was the result not of "community pleas for protection and service", but of a ruling class desire to subdue a working class that was well learning to exercise it's collective strength. As working class resistance grew in the form of strikes, union organizing, community uprisings, and so on, the government struggled with strategies for containing rebellion. At the time, the government had only the army for administration of violence and it proved to be more of a hindrance than a help. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The failure of the army to suppress working class resistance had several causes. First, troops were conscripted, badly paid and disciplined by flogging. All of this increased their interest in defecting. Second, troops were billeted with workers' families and lived in their communities, increasing their exposure to the arguments of working class activists and their sympathies for them. Third, because the army was trained to kill it was not an effective means of dealing with a mass demonstration of 100,000 people; in such circumstances, killing people point blank only further aroused workers' rebelliousness. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

As a result, the ruling class was forced to change its strategy. It needed a repressive force that had the ability, as one writer has put it, to "exercise summary punishment without providing martyrs to inflame working class anger. The police could arrest the ring leaders only, a tactic which appeared to be more practical given the number of workers they faced". 

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Initially, Britain had only a small centralized force in London which would travel around the municipalities "to suppress individual uprisings." But this was ineffective as multiple demonstrations were held in a variety of regions so that one police force was unable to suppress them all. 

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So, in 1831 the state imposed "The Special Constables Act" which empowered magistrates to nominate citizens for "community police duties and emergencies". At first there was a great deal of resistance to the implementation of the police force by the working class (for obvious reasons), the middle class (concerned with the financing of the force), and the businesses and financiers (concerned with police interference on "that fine line between deception and business deal"). But, by the time of the Special Constables Act the middle class had been convinced that the police were worth financing and the state agreed to keep the forces out of business' dirty dealings. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The build-up of the police over the second half of the 19th century gradually created forces which could terrorize, injure, selectively arrest and break up gatherings of people without large-scale killing and the risk of escalating unrest that such killing might entail. 

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The history of policing demonstrates well that this coercive body has never existed to prevent violence but rather to inflict it in the name of the minority ruling class. 

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In fact, one of the functions of the police is to legitimate certain forms of violence, while criminalizing others. So, causing human suffering through unemployment, industrial accidents, toxic pollution, cuts to healthcare and welfare, the closing of borders to immigrants and refugees and so on is all perfectly legal. But when people resist such suffering, when they confront callous landlords, occupy government offices, or use picket lines and demonstrations to challenge employers they are often said to be engaged in violent, criminal activity. Rather than being there to save us from violence, the police are there to defend the suffering and violence created by capitalism while criminalizing those who rebel against it. 

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Today, the police play a particularly oppressive role in policing communities of colour. Especially in large urban centers, it is black and native youth who are often singled out and demonized by police. Black and native youth are stopped, questioned, arrested, charged, convicted and even shot by police with more frequency than any other groups. 

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Despite this oppressive role, the state constructs a myth about police as heroic individuals who daily risk violence, injury and death. This myth is often used to justify increases in firepower and human power on the premise that their job is uniquely "dangerous". This is a complete fallacy. Policing is statistically one of the safer occupations. Miners, construction workers, seafarers, firefighters, even restaurant and hotel workers have much higher rates of death and injury on the job. 

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At a time when nation-states find themselves "repositioning" in a global economy they remain the fundamental institution for regulating people in a given territory. These economic changes, rather than dissolving the power of states, are forcing governments to institute more aggressive policies in light of new instabilities. States respond to these instabilities with increased repression and social control: increasing police powers, employing riot squads, instituting welfare cops, and so on. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Looking at the history and the role of the police i﻿s a vital part of organizing against the violence they commit. For, wherever there is resistance to poverty, violence and racism, we will see police repression. And we will need to organize against it with a full understanding of who it is that the police are hired to serve and protect -- the ruling class minority that controls the wealth of society. 

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