PSL Statement: How will the police be abolished? A Marxist perspective

12 points on the U.S. state and the necessity of revolution 1. The Party for Socialism and Liberation stands for the overthrow, dismantling and complete replacement of the core institutions of the capitalist state, which are the “special bodies of armed men,” namely the police, prisons, military and courts. This core of the capitalist state cannot be reformed into a neutral body. It must be abolished by means of a revolution. 2. The centrality of these violent institutions in capitalist governance is reflected in their gargantuan scale. Combined, the state institutions far outpace any other part of government spending. The sprawling U.S. prison system is the largest in the world, accounting for 25 percent of the world’s prisoners with only 5 percent of the world’s population. It includes 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, as well as military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and other institutions. There are more than 790,000 armed officers across local, state and federal police agencies. The U.S. military is one of the largest employers in the world and even in “peacetime” the United States maintains more than 2 million active-duty service members. The National Guard numbers around 450,000. Read the full article here: https://www.liberationnews.org/how-will-the-police-be-abolished-a-marxist-perspective/