Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

afterwordMAKING POLICE OBSOLETEIT IS TRADITIONAL, IN A BOOK SUCH AS THIS, TO END WITH RECOMMENdationsas to how the police can be made more efficient, more effective,less corrupt, less brutal, and so on. Those recommendations are almostalways addressed to policy-makers and police administrators. Usually therecommendations are more technical than political, meaning that they offerdetached advice on what, in the broadest sense, may be considered the meansof policing-strategies of patrol, crowd control, interrogation techniques, useof-forcepolicies, organizational schemes, accountability mechanisms, moraleboosters, affirmative action-while taking for granted (but rarely identifying)the ends of policing. They do not, usually, raise substantive questions aboutthe police role in society, the need for police, or alternatives to policing.I am going at things from quite the opposite angle. My recommendationsare not addressed to those with power, but to the public. They are decidedlypolitical, and avoid the technical. I have, throughout this book, scrutinized thepolice role, examined its implications for democracy and social justice, andquestioned the ends the cops serve. I turn now to briefly consider whetherwe can do without police.CHALLENGING THE CONVENTIONAL WI SDOMIn his essay 'The Manufacture of Consent," Noam Chomsky advises, "If you wantto learn something about the propaganda system, have a close look at the criticsand their tacit assumptions. 1bese typically constitute the doctrines of the statereligion."]With this in mind, it is interesting to note the things that scholars will notadmit, the possibilities that they leave unexamined. In the "serious" literature,it is a nearly universal assumption that the police are a necessary feature ofmodern society. 2223