The massive international movement of revulsion against the police murder of George Floyd in the USA has rightly generated major debates about policing and whether or not it's possible to reform it without first overthrowing the economic and social system that policing exists to defend.
Immediate demands raised by the Black Lives Matter led movement are to "Defund the Police" and "Disband the Police". On the web many references were made to the example of a town called Camden in the state of New Jersey, which had apparently disbanded it's police force of around 120 officers due to many years of racist policing and widespread corruption, which, not surprisingly, had led the town to aquire one of the highest levels of homicides proportional to population, in the whole country. At the time of writing it's not clear whether the disbandment was directly caused by community pressure for urgent change or whether the town budget simply ran dry due to continual cuts to "public services". Nevertheless the initial reports indicate that a county or state wide force took over policing and proceeded to eventually re-recruit one hundred of the original Camden constabulary.
Details apart, this shows up both the issues and problems raised by policing in general and in addition who polices the police.
A very brief overview of the "policing" of the sectarian six county statelet of Northern Ireland also allows us to see how the British ruling class deals with such matters.
Prior to the Partition of Ireland policing in Ireland dates back to 1814 when Robert Peel, dubbed "Orange Peel" by the nationalist leader Daniel O'Connell because of his pronounced political sympathies, founded the "Peelers" or the Irish Constabulary controlled directly from Dublin Castle.
They were dubbed the Royal Irish Constabulary in the 1870s due to their role in suppressing a Fenian uprising.
After civil war and partition the Royal Ulster Constabulary was established on 1st June 1922 to police Carson's Protestant State for a Protestant People.
Following the Civil Rights marches and the events in Derry in 1969 the Ulster Special Constabulary (the "B Specials - a section of the RUC) were stood down in April 1970 - leaving the RUC and a new regiment of the British Army - the Ulster Defence Regiment.
The Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998 obviously had to see the development another police force potentially capable of winning the "trust" of the Nationalist population after 30 years of conflict and over 3,000 deaths.
The successor to the RUC was named the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) based initially on the body of constables of the former RUC. At its formation the PSNI was almost 92% made up by members of the Unionist community, but legislation in line with the Patten Commission's findings made it a legal obligation to achieve 50:50 parity of members from both communities - through "affirmative action" and also de facto "positive discrimination".
By February 2011, 29.7% of the 7,200 officers of the PSNI were from Nationalist community but amongst police staff (who were not subject to the 50:50 rule) the proportion was only 18%.
Despite this, in 2011 the British Government abolished the 50:50 rule and the "lateral entry" of Catholic officers from other police forces.
Stubborn institutional and structural defects in police and legal systems - racism, sectarianism etc. - are based on and reflect the structural inequalities and deformations in the society concerned and furthermore, amplify those deformations in periods when those conditions become intolerable to those suffering under them.
So it's necessary to address both the underlying economic inequalities and the social relations - including policing and the judicial system - that it throws up at one and the same time. Policing under capitalism was never founded on protecting the citizenry - it was always - and it remains - about safeguarding private property, the process of accumulation of private wealth and the safeguarding of the power of the class that owns that wealth.
The outstanding TV documentaries anchored by historian David Olusoga, on the story of Britain's slave trade and the mind boggling compensation paid out in 1834, not to the 800,000 slaves, but to the 46,000 British slave owners, totalling £17 billions in today's money - underlines the gut wrenching inhumanity on which capitalism and racism on both sides of the Atlantic is based to this very day. The compensation paid out was for the loss to the slave owner of his or her "private property". The re- investment of these blood stained millions helped create the Railway boom that lasted into the twentieth century and went into numerous investment banks and insurance companies in the City of London.
The Coronavirus pandemic, both in Britain and America, has laid bare the way that the system in both countries treats BAME people - just as it has fallen to those very same people throughout the Health and Care services to bear, not only day to day discrimination as a way life, but also the dangerous burden at work, of treating their fellow citizens who have been struck down by the virus.
As we see our "leaders" desperately trying to "turn the page" and get people back to work when the virus has only concluded chapter one of it's story; we are faced with an enormous economic recession with millions in the workplace already having taken a 20% wage cut through the furlough scheme. Many millions more will be pushed into unemployment trying to live on Universal Benefit. And then there is the matter of the "cost of the crisis" which means another howling gale of austerity - which we will be expected to pay for at the same time as Johnson and his gang desperately scramble with imposing Brexit; tying up shoddy trade deals with Japan, Trump etc; and trying to launch the "Brave New World" of Singapore - on - Thames. As the polarisation in society deepens the clashes between those fighting back and the defenders of the status quo will grow inexorably and therefore the issue of policing will continuously arise and will have to be dealt with.
Patrick Sikorski
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