News

37 readers

1 users here now

Breaking news and current events worldwide.

founded 1 year ago

How You Start is How You Finish? The Slave Patrol and Jim Crow Origins of Policing (www.americanbar.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Though history books may say otherwise, policing in the United States has its roots in the slave patrols in the South. The institution of policing, and the larger justice system, must reconcile its past in order to evolve away from its racist roots.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (6 children)

There has been police ever since there has been a State, so for tens of thousands of years that we know of. Pretending that something didn't exist for 99% of its own history just to call it racist is silly.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

So, I just read the article.

Which line of it "pretends" policing didn't exist before the American South?

Because I'm not seeing what you're claiming.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

The first line: "Jim Crow Origins of Policing"

Police and law enforcement have existed ever since laws existed. We have millennia of history of policing before Jim Crow came into being. Jim Crow demonstrably is not the origin of policing.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

You need to read the actual article, and not just the first line.

Your understanding of what is being discussed is woefully incomplete.

load more comments (3 replies)