Since December 22nd, following the killings of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu of the NYPD, policing-statistics in the Big Apple have plummeted as cops have “refused “to make arrests or issue citations (read: enforce largely arbitrary and punitive laws).
The New York Post reported:
- Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.
- Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300.
- Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241.
- Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau — which are part of the overall number — dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63.
Officers of the NYPD have called this reduction a response to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “fostering of an anti-police environment“ in the wake of the BlackLivesMatter protests. Police say their safety is of the upmost concern. Law enforcement unions like the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association have suggested to its members to put their safety first and to only make arrests when “absolutely necessary”.
"Absolutely necessary” being the operative phrase. With such a drastic reduction in enforcement one might expect to look outside and see utter chaos, but as twitter user AllisonKilKenny observed “I just looked outside and nothing is on fire and the sun is still out and everything. Weird.”
Yea, weird. Weird to think that maybe most of what police do is completely unnecessary. Weird to think that maybe the world wouldn’t delve into complete mayhem if cops vanished tomorrow. Weird that maybe, like the photo above suggests, if we focused on building community and meeting each others’ emotional, spiritual, and material needs, policing could at last be a relic of the past.
Or maybe it’s not weird. Maybe what’s weird is that we have forgotten how to imagine and act toward a world of mutual aid, common respect, and actual democracy.
See Also:
- Origins of the Police | David Whitehouse
- The Nature of Police, the Role of the Left | Peter Gelderloos
- Learning to Struggle Stronger | Against Hired Guns
- Reaping What You Sow: NYPD Put on Notice About Being Bullies with a Badge | AmericaWakieWakie
- Gangs of the State: Police & the Hierarchy of Violence | AmericaWakieWakie & PraxisAndCapital
- Cops: The Myth of the ‘Most Dangerous Job’ | AmericaWakieWakie
(Source: fullpraxisnow, via nowyoukno)
