Critical sociology of the police: Towards an abolitionist perspective

Images of police violence during the worldwide “occupy”-protests, but also during the London riots in 2011 have raised questions about the role of the police as a social institution in democratic societies. With increasing intensity of social conflicts comes very often an increase of symbolic confrontations with the police, for example when peaceful protestors directly face police water canons or tear gas. However, besides such rare cases of genuine confrontations, police violence for most people does not play an essential role in everyday life; it can even be said that the general need for this institution is commonly seen as more or less self-evident.

During the 60ies and 70ies in many countries critical approaches to criminal justice, the prison complex and police emerged. In Germany, the so-called “critical criminology” started exploring possible alternatives to criminal justice. Around the same time in the US, intellectuals and activists mostly from the black civil rights movement demanded a fundamental restructuring of the social penal institutions toward a more just legal system. Cultural studies intellectuals in England and the post-structuralist accounts influenced by Foucault in France have addressed similar issues. But while for example prisons have been subject to a radical criticism, with activists arguing to overcome the prison as a penal institution altogether, there is still no visible account in favor of a general abolition of the police.

In my paper I will argue for such an abolitionist account. In the first part I shall demonstrate some of the problems with state coercion and why it is not without alternatives. In the second part I will focus on these possible alternative ways of conflict resolution and try to back up my argument with findings from contemporary empirical research on counseling and mediation.