An idea that's prevalent even among some who call to defund the police is that "defund" means partially defund––that we want the police to stop the "bad policing" of "low level offenses" and instead just focus on "violent crime." But BOTH are anti-Black and counterproductive. 1/

There is nothing we want the police to do except be abolished. there is no good policing, there are no good police functions. The police are not designed to keep people safe. 2/

These were some of the responses to a tweet about not calling to both defund *and* arrest the police — the replies suggest that what we really want to do is end *over*funding of police, or just leave the police to only handle “violent crime.” 3/

Please know: the majority of people in state prisons are there for “violent” offenses. We won’t end criminalization by focusing on “nonviolent crime.” “Violent crime” is a term by the state and for the state, individualizing societal harm and obscure its own role in mass harm. 4/

Getting into it––calling for policing of “only” violent crime is still anti-Black. The system is inherently racist. It doesn’t stop being racist once the state charges someone with a crime that falls into a category labeled violent. 5/

(pause - none of this is to say that there are not serious problems of harm, both interpersonal and systemic. But that the system does not, and is not even designed to, stop harm—but rather perpetuates it.) 6/

But calling for the police to *only* police “violent crime” simply reinforces the idea that policing is bad ONLY WHEN it impacts people who don't “deserve” to be policed––but that we should absolutely send the police after the (racialized) “violent criminal.” 7/

Framing policing of “low level” offenses as an illegitimate form of policing while allowing policing of “violent crime” as a good or more legitimate form of policing gets is counterproductive. Again, these are state terms. 8/

The idea that there is some policing with the "right" goals, and some policing with the "wrong" goals––or policing with the right targets (“violent criminals”) and policing with the wrong targets (innocent bystanders/“low level offenders”) is fully counterproductive. Why? 9/

Because this just concedes to the vocabulary of broken windows policing, while disagreeing with the strategy—it’s saying there are big, bad things we need the *police* to stop, but we’ll just find a way for them to do so that doesn’t involve low-level/broken windows policing. 10/

This, despite NO EVIDENCE that the police are able to prevent serious harm or interested in preventing serious harm, and MUCH EVIDENCE that they cause serious harm. 11/

Treating non serious vs. serious or nonviolent vs. violent as easily, self-evidently distinguishable rather than pointing out that what's considered "serious crime" is itself a political construct is where we get tough on violent crime politics!!! 12/

I’ve written several threads (and an entire thesis) on how we’re in the era of tough-on-violent-crime politics, which shifts and hardens the line of “acceptable” criminalization and reinforces anti-Blackness in the name of its undoing. Here’s one 13/ https://twitter.com/micahherskind/status/1171581694392131585

Here’s a piece on why using the violent/nonviolent dichotomy is trash. 14 https://medium.com/@micahherskind/three-reasons-advocates-must-move-beyond-demanding-release-for-nonviolent-offenders-2e76629e7d03

And here’s a thread on why using anything the state says about crime/crime rates is trash. 15/ https://twitter.com/micahherskind/status/1291506659047735300

all this to say––defund means defund. if you want to keep calling for "defund until it's 'only' violent crime" (as if that's even possible??), that's fine, but just know the implications. all policing is racist. 16/

also, I want to acknowledge that in a system that has never produced justice, it's hard to envision justice and it makes sense that people would latch onto what we've been told our whole lives constitutes justice. This is really hard. It's been hard for me as I've learned. 17/

but I also want us to be aware of the implications of our words and demands. The pivot to focusing on "violent crime" will never bring justice.