Police are the armed enforcers of the owning / capitalist class, in the US having their origins in the Slave catching patrols of the 1700s. They're the domestic enforcement arm of capital, the hired goons of the elites of their given city, serving their interests, with a monopoly on violence, analogous to the military, who acts as the imperialist enforcement arm. Their daily activities consist of fucking over poor people and trapping them in a cycle of poverty.
Instead of solving thefts of personal property for working class people, they are themselves active thieves, generating over $12B USD / year in "civil forfeiture", and even more profit through traffic offenses and court costs. Since 2012, cops have stolen more property than burglars ( asset forfeiture ). You can call them to come stand around and scratch their heads for an hour (if they don't decide to shoot you), but more likely they'll be at a protest being active agents of the US police state(pic), where they collect a massive amount of data on "troublemakers" using facial recognition, and military grade equipment, (pic) against the citizens they occupy. Many of the largest corporations in the US, openly bankroll police departments, helping them buy surveillance equipment, defensive gear, and military weaponry.
Oh but who will imprison the rapists? Not the police: Less than 0.5% of rapists are in prison, despite 1 out of every 5 women being raped in the US. Perpetrators of sexual violence are less likely to go to prison than for any other crime, such as non-violent drug offenses. Police, when not abducting and raping women themselves(over 1200 formally charged incidents over a 9 year period, many of them during traffic stops), or beating their wives and kids in high numbers, have been shown to protect high-status sex traffic rings, and famous, well-connected predators.
Cops have a long history of murdering workers organizing for better conditions. It's no accident that cops usually hold pro police rallies on May Day, where cops killed a bunch of workers striking for an 8 hour day in Chicago, that has since become an international day comemmorating worker's rights.
As the protectors of capitalist property rights, they carry out all evictions on behalf of landlords, and even investigate and arrest people on behalf of insurance companies.
They imprison the poor in huge numbers, 1 out of every 5 black men, and 1 / 7 Latino men are kidnapped at some point and thrown in a cage, mostly for nonviolent drug-related offenses. Cops kill over 1000 ppl a year in the US.
All cops have a duty to uphold those interests, that is their societal function; if they don't toe that line, they get fired. That's the systemic reason to hate them, and advocate for the abolition of capitalist police, and why the only good cop is an ex cop, or a dead one. And I know an ex cop who quit when they realized what harm they were doing to ppl.
But not all cops are bad you might say? Well when they're not spending their time fucking with poor ppl, kidnapping, and murdering people, 4 out of every 10 of them go home and beat their wives and kids. They also kill so many house pets that it's considered a noted statistical phenomenon (30 murdered dogs every day, 2) . So they are also domestic abusers, pet killers, and all around trash on a personal level.
Sorry I'm so amped about this but they just murdered a 14 year old in Phoenix, AZ a few weeks ago, and after delaying the release of, then doctoring the body cam footage, the cop is getting off yet again.
Confessions of a former bastard cop.
List of atrocities committed by US authorities.
Oh, and for anyone wondering what the alternative is, here are some things domestic worker-controlled security forces (it feels almost blasphemous to call them police, since they have the exact opposite function as capitalist police) have historically done:
- Actually solved murders, rapes, and thefts against working class people.
- Were fully accountable for offenses (although these were rare since there was no for-profit abduction system as exists in Capitalism).
- Enforced traffic guidelines in cities, first with suggestions, then with minimal to no fines. See this episode of How Yukong moved the mountains to get an idea of the demeanor of some police in China during the cultural revolution for example.
- Arrested Capitalists, not empowered them.
- Worker strikes, when they happened, were left alone.
- Had minimal crime rates, since homelessness and joblessness were low.
- Focused on rehabilitation, not punishment.