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

and with a minimum of bullying. What is needed, in short, is a shift in the responsibilityfor public safety-away from the state and toward the community.THE THREAT OF COMMUNITYIn the earlier discussion of community policing, I argued that community policingconstituted, in part, an effort to co-opt community resources and put themin the service of police objectives.s I did not, at the time, dwell on the reasonsunderlying this, but the attempt at co-optation points to a fact that ought not beoverlooked: community is a source of power.Community is not simply the territory within which crime is to be controlled,it is itself a means of government: its detailed knowledge about itself and theactivities of its inhabitants are to be utilized, its ties, bonds, forces and affiliationsare to be celebrated, its centres of authority and methods of disputeresolution are to be encouraged, nurtured, shaped and instrumentalized toenhance the security of each and all.9Where possible, the state seeks to draw on this power and direct it to its ownends. Community policing is one such attempt. In exchange for protection, thepolice negotiate for access to this power network, insinuate themselves deeplywithin it, and try to shape its activities to suit their interests.One major difficulty facing the state in its efforts to harness communitypower is the fact that this power is generally underdeveloped.Community is defined by two characteristics: first, a web of affect-laden relationshipsamong a group of individuals, relationships that often crisscrossand reinforce one another ... , and second, a measure of commitment to aset of shared values, norms, and meanings, and a shared history and identity-inshort, to a particular culture.]()Such webs of affinity are often painfully lacking from modern urban life I I-andwhere they exist, they do not generally come in easily manageable bureaucraticpackages awaiting official "partnerships" with police. In fact, there isinherent tension between the idea of police and the ideals of community.The modern police are, in a sense, a sign that community norms and controlsare unable to manage relations within or between communities, orthat communities themselves have become offensive to society. The bottomline of these observations is that genuine communities are probablyvery rare in modern cities, and, where they do exist, have little interest incultivating relationships of any kind with police. 12Where genuine communities exist, they are sometimes even hostile to thepolice. In such cases, the authorities view community power not as an additionalsource of legitimacy, information, and infrastructural development, but as a rivalthat must be suppressed. The state has no choice but to interfere with the meansof community action when the community falls into "enemy" hands-that is,when it resists state control or makes demands beyond those the state is willingto accept. This rule holds whether the enemy is described in political or criminalterms. The rationale is the same whether the authorities are interfering withgrassroots political organizing, or whether they're disrupting neighborhood life in225