NCJ Number
91705
Date Published
1982
Length
235 pages
Annotation
The police have mainly served to enforce the class, racial, sexual, and cultural oppression that have been an integral part of the development of capitalism in the United States.
Abstract
The current police enforce the oppressive social and personal relations of capitalist society through definitions of crime which have been made by and for the people who benefit most from the capitalist system and through selective enforcement of the laws. The present fiscal crisis and intensified repression, especially in Third World communities, means that tactics are needed which take into account the changing organization and forms of policing. Efforts should include support for community investigations of police crimes, lobbying for reductions in wasteful and dangerous police budgets, and maintaining alliances between working class and Third World communities and liberal and petty bourgeois organizations. In addition, attention should focus on the police's increasingly national and even international character, the material sources of crime and the inability of police to control street crime, and the development of community crime prevention efforts. The book includes chapter notes; photographs; and a resource section listing books, journals, other materials and sources of information, and organizations working against police repression.