The Revolutionary Politics of Abolition

Abstract

What does it mean to abolish the police? 1 Narrowly defined, the police are the state institution authorized to use violence against citizens, residents, and anyone else present in a given territory, to maintain public order and enforce the law. But by and large, contemporary abolitionists in the United States resist defining police in this narrow sense. Instead, they define the police expansively, to include not only private security forces and citizens who act as informal police deputies but also broader practices and institutions that surveil and control Black people and other marginalized groups. This expansive definition locates the police on a continuum with prisons and the carceral, and abolitionist scholars and activists have called for the abolition of the child welfare system, social work, and residential institutions for people with disabilities, among other demands. In part, this expansive definition of policing reflects the punitive nature of the contemporary U.S. state, in which racialized policing and punishment have either become entangled with or overtaken other state functions, such as the provision of basic