by Mallory Culbert
OLUTION V E OF E H T
@mivcv, @culbert_mallory bit.ly/nevertoldus
POLICING (in the united states)
The South, usa
The
origin
of
the
united
states’
obsession
with
the
police began before the civil war. Busy commercial centers in
the
northern
goods
us
during
concerned Policing
hired
security
transport,
but
to
protect
southern
property policing
with
protecting
the
institution
the
profession
and
practice
is
of of
and was
slavery. violently
maintaining the status quo and enforcing the law’s heavy interest in punishing “deviants” in order to protect private property. Slave patrols were some of the south’s first forms of policing. revolts
They
and
were
civilians
returning
tasked
runaway
with
slaves
preventing
using
harsh
slave
physical
punishments. By law, almost all white men had to serve in these patrols for up to one year of service. These groups were designed to enforce slave codes by giving the white population that didn’t “own” slaves policing power and the duty
to
police
Black
people.
This
was
insurance
that
the
landless white men who didn’t own slaves would serve rich plantation
owners
instead
of
going
against
them.
During
the Reconstruction period after the civil war, local sheriffs functioned enforced
exactly
the
like
the
segregation
earlier
and
slave
suppression
patrols. of
free
They Black
folks in the name of maintaining “public order” (aka White Supremacy).
NEXTdistro
The South, usa
When
the
Trans-Atlantic
slave
trade
was
made
illegal, southern white men with political power (the hegemon or dominant culture) needed new ways to maintain they
their
created.
position Even
at
the
though
top
the
of
the
systems
hierarchy in
place
didn’t truly emancipate enslaved americans until the 1960s,
other
forms
of
control
were
put
in
place
to
maintain a constant supply of cheap labor.
The
13th
amendment
abolished
slavery
except
as
punishment for a crime–that’s when the Black Codes were
passed.
These
codes
criminalized
Black
freedom, mobility, and power, in order to put them in prison
to
Industrial
work
for
Complex
cheap.
This
exists–to
is
take
why
the
Prison-
away
the
control
that “deviants” have over our own bodies and put our bodies to use for production.
During the Reconstruction period after the civil war, local sheriffs functioned exactly like the earlier slave patrols. They dutifully enforced the segregation and suppression
of
free
Black
folks
in
the
name
maintaining “public order” (aka White Supremacy).
NEXTdistro
of
The South, usa During the political wildfire that was the late 1800s, police
captains
and
sergeants
were
hand-picked
by
local political party leaders who used their money and social influence to harass political opponents. Those party leaders who ran taverns instead of gangs would pay
off
work.
officers
During
illegal,
allow
president
commission
to
enforcement the
to
Prohibition
illegal when
hoover
(a
investigate
was
movement
across
to
just
the
make
gambling alcohol nazi)
how
nation.
policing
and
was
created
ineffective That a
sex
made
was
a law
when
“respectable”
profession began. This created a more unified sense of white power which used the stigma of criminality to justify discrimination.
This
shift
included
toward the
professionalism
development
of
around
record
the
systems
1930s and
experimentation with the science of criminal behavior. Police
science
sociological Black
combined
research
people
to
crime
about
commit
the
statistics
natural
criminal
with
tendency
acts.
of
Academic
research came out that backed up the idea that Black people are a race of criminals. Black people became Public Enemy #1 in the north and the south.
NEXTdistro
The South, usa Immediately after the civil war, social groups were defined more by class/job, and Black-white friendships among working people were common. These southern not-gentlemen poisoned rural white folks with ideas of White Supremacy which turned poor whites against poor
Black
people.
The
ruling
class
divided
and
conquered
the
working class that outnumbered them by using false ideas of white racial superiority. Ugh, rich people.
Rich white people turned the white working class against the Black working class to protect their wealth. Police officers were another huge factor in the creation of the racial hierarchy that the PrisonIndustrial Complex is based on. Because the law’s job is to protect the
interests
of
consequences
the
for
white
white
ruling
people
class,
who
there
violently
were took
little
to
“justice”
no into
their own hands.
Black southerners fled north as the Ku Klux Klan began using lynchings to attempt to control bold or ambitious Black folks. Lynchings were public rituals for the whole white community with boys participating as
young
drinks,
as
10
white
years
people
old.
Local
proudly
vendors
took
sold
pictures,
tickets white
and
food
people
and
traded
postcards that featured the brutalized victims, white people shot at the bodies for sport. These postcard momentos were so popular that businesses mothers
advertised
with
love.
photos.
Whatever
handed
out
as
on
Even
the the
remained
souvenirs.
of
The
back,
Nazis the
and
sons
published victims’
police
force
bodies acted
act) as an extension of white fear and anger.
NEXTdistro
sent
and
them
to
distributed were (and
cut
their these
up
and
continues
to