instantly. says my. goodness. we have to be on our side in solitary confinement in the prison for terrorists oh wait you don't have a life person. i don't see him dying. and. that's what he's going. ha dresser phobia russia's foreign ministry blasted the long awaited u.k. parliamentary report on a claim for russian election ladling the document calls for stronger action by learn to take out some of the alleged influence. as donald trump sends troops on to the streets of the physio portland to quash on

the arrests there are claims as moves illegal as it was through to the local authorities. first across the line russia says it has a covert vaccine good to go but 1st it's already coming from the west of the khalid made such a quick. look at r.t. dot com for more on those and other stories coming up next the dissident voices the missing plane stream media the focus on on contact with chris hedges coming up now . welcome to our own country today we discussed police reform with philip mackerras a writer activist and ph d. candidate in sociology and african-american studies at yale university this entire system has to be and there is no way to reform and we can't tweak a reform here where mass incarceration or this current you know policing apparatus that we have or culture of surveillance that it's actually under

a broader cultural tradition and control that is actively harming certain people with it's also not operating in this way of giving public with a broader public consumes and to instill the entire thing and there is no tweaking it but along that way there are certain steps that if you know to begin this means shifting resources our way in the end that's diverse framework which is fundamentally about the best from systems of punished. in this specific context policing in reinvesting those lines into community resources isn't to say because we know what makes this in this community this resources we look around the country the same students have the most resources not. our national conversation on race and crime is based on a fiction it is the fiction that the organs of internal security especially the judiciary and the police can be adjusted modernized or professionalized to make

possible a post racial america we discuss issues of race while ignoring the economic bureaucratic and political systems of exploitation all of it legal and built into the ruling out paratus that other true engines of racism and white supremacy no discussion of race is possible without a discussion of capitalism and class and until that discussion takes place despite all the proposed reforms to the criminal justice system the state will continue to murder and imprison poor people of color with impunity. once again we see proposed legislation to mandate police reform more body cameras consent decrees revised the use of force policies banning chokehold civilian review boards requiring officers to intervene when they see misconduct banning no knock search warrants more training and deescalation tactics a requirement by law enforcement agencies to report use of force data nationally

and for standards for police training and greater diversity proposals made and in several cases adopted in the wake of numerous other police murders including those of eric garner and michael brown the minneapolis police department for example established a duty to intervene required by police officers after the 2014 killing of michael brown in ferguson this requirement did not say floyd joining me to discuss the role of the police and what we must do to end the power of police to inflict indiscriminate violence is philip mackerras a writer activist and ph d. candidate in sociology and african-american studies at yale university so let's begin with a history because it's not new we go all the way back to the johnson administration and all of the mechanisms and this has been bipartisan that has been used to

a step simply reform the police have actually boomerang and made the police more on a potent and more lethal can you take us through that history yeah i mean we can even go back a bit further we think about the origin of modern policing developing as you know the 1st form a slave patrols right that the apparatus of policing was developed in in the south in order to protect. the capital in the interest of slave owners and in many ways you know to prevent revolts and to prevent people in slave people from trying to freedom and then we see across you know different places in the north policing emerges as a way to protect the interests and capital you know a business owners. and merchants and so when we look over time we definitely see this pipe link between capitalism and sort of developing the social control

apparatus lyndon b. johnson in in the mid sixty's passed a law enforcement assistance act which became the 1st federal pathway to imbue local policing with more and more resources and as you call you know during this war on crime the police officer was a frontline soldier and over time and you know we can we can date back even to that because previously we see that reforms come out of this sort of idea of liberalism but what they do is they create in the view more and more power into the police and into policing which then create this massive apparatus that becomes very difficult and really just increases the capacity of state and police to engage and control and arm this force against black people but not only against by you as we see a lot of protests across the country that police are using violence and you know militarized equipment and tactics in order to really protect police power right to

really prevent any kind of protesting and then we see the state also engaging in the criminalization of protesters and you can be out protesting and all of this and then you're being charged with assault on an officer or resisting arrest and you know when there was a case in philadelphia at temple where we saw that someone was being charged with assault on an officer when when you look at the video what was actually happened was that officer would beating the person in the head with a baton and another cop was forcing. their face into the pain with their knee and so you know when we just mentioned. that if your state assault on a police officer which as you correctly point out is interpreted. you know very speciously by the police is a 7 year sentence but i want to go back to you when you talk about liberals because and i ask whether that difference so during the sixty's seventy's johnson administration is it that the liberal class the liberal elites especially in the democratic party were justifying this as opposed to the 1994 crime bill pushed

through by clinton and biden where it became their project and you know the attempt to wrest back the law 'd in order issue or were they before the 1994 crime bill also the architects of increased police power i mean it was it's always been a multitude of factors but liberals have been on sort of the forefront for much of the forty's fifty's into the sixty's where you know when johnson is that in many ways that thrust has been bought liberals as well as you know across the political spectrum but when we look from lending in the johnson to the forty's and fifty's with progressive liberal reforms into the ninety's when we look over time. you can you know the part of the. core engine behind these these these pushes have been largely results of liberals and which is

a part of the you know make a distinction then in the 1994 omnibus crime bill where essentially this was a political calculation on the part of the democratic leadership led by joe biden to outlaw in order you know the republicans you see this as a kind of continuity there is a comedy but it is it's different in a way because in the sixty's the police in the 1960 that the united states went to play not imposing. in 2018 the number was 137000000000 and so there the rapid growth and increase creates a different context and so. you know it was a different time where policing hadn't had been as the bell and so it was still sort of the early. days in a way of really developing in channeling resources in the way that we see today and so the context was different because that time was different but they were it was

also in many ways linked to the. movements of the day and sort of capitalizing on this sort of like fear of you know people who are engaging in activism in protests and this and unrest that that national sentiment and feelings were structured in such a way that it was inclined to be able to say like you know yes we actually do want more more police and so in some ways you can't even link the social unrest and the activism of that time you know from this broader push in some ways it's directly linked in many ways well there was a huge push to criminalize not only black people but also any war protesters and there was an attempt to criminalize all forms of dissent you grew up in newark new york city. you know you must have had some contact with. this new form of policing police terror i mean we should be clear that since george

floyd has been killed on average 3 american citizens almost all unarmed have been murdered by police daily since george floyd was. strangled to death so talk about your own personal experience and you know kind of what she what you've seen on the streets i mean what what policing looks like it in a in in parts of newark or i guess you were in the bronx you lived in the bronx too as well yeah i mean what people are seeing now is policing is just on camera and it's being circulated in these times where it's sort of in the national attention but violence like different kinds of police violence happen every single day and you know from being very gun on line. well these were not legitimate i never have i never accepted the idea that the police were a legitimate situation that could be reformed there was always a sort of position that they were not legitimate and not the proper providers of

safety and you know the 1st time i was assaulted by the police i was 13 like my family we can you know different members of my family and there's also just like different legacies that i had known stories of previous generations of people in my family who've been brutalized by the police and so you know and it's the bruises and it's also people kind of think of the sensational forms but the every day like teles they when i'm driving i get pulled over i fear that it might be the last thing that that kind of structural violence is also from about. and you know that the kinds of people are arrested you know being sort of violence is used in order to you know. engage with people on an everyday basis that like being arrested for no reason it's violent you know in many ways we can go down the line but the diff

there's many different forms of police violence that don't always look like the sensation of the killings which is why it's so much broader you know and that's why even in these moments where these folks ok let's do it or let's do it there's no way to actually capture the full extent of violence there's no way that to document it right because we know that when most people don't report. violence and misconduct that they express on behalf of police but also this certain things that you can't capture you can't capture that the adrenaline spike of being cold over him not knowing if you're going to die right like that that's something that you can't you can't capture that and so you know i think that and the other the other aspect of this is we know that the 2nd most commonly reported police misconduct this actually the 3rd which is the message violence 40 percent of domestic 40 percent of police houses experience a message and that is likely to be under reported and so those are kinds of violence that when you create this massive institution that basically you know is

untouchable and basically you create good guys and bad guys and police are the good guys that would you create is a context in which people can do harm and violence and one of the most important things that have happened which really takes off like in the mid 1900 is the idea that the police are a legitimate institution which is hasn't always been the case for most of this was we're not seen as the provider isn't sort of stewards of public safety it was a wreck it's a relatively new idea but that legitimacy then obscures that actual core of what police actually do was done and they did they did violence and control and you know when we look at the statistics for example there was a recent study in the new york times less than 2 percent of police 91 dispatch guards were actually been involved in anything having to do with violence less than 5 percent of arrest in this country you have to do anything with that and that's

not to say that we also need to transform how we think about the response of violence as a model of policing doesn't work but even what police are trained to do is not actually what you see that they actually do and so the system doesn't work for people in martin's base but it doesn't work for the country when we come back we'll continue our conversation with her. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then.

welcome back to on contact we continue our conversation about policing and police reform with philip mackerras. i want to make it clear that this and let's call it what it is police terror it it functions the same way lynching functions i remember speaking to the great theologian james cone grew up in segregated arkansas. he said as a small boy as soon as it got dark he would stand by the window even though he was a child fully cognizant that for a black man to walk down a road in the dark in segregated arkansas meant that is his daddy might never come

home and he talks about that trauma as a child and it's this is by design you create police terror and i think you describe it very well in these neighborhoods as a form of social control d. industrialized pockets where there is no work unless you're forced into the illegal economy and of course then they invent crimes. selling loose cigarettes which is however garner was murder or striking but as train traffic i mean there's just endless not knowing your lawn mowing your lawn. but it's not accidental what's happened is it it's still a way that the structure and systems are built you know is that. police have the power and opportunity to kill in the last people and so the poor folks right now is shifting and reducing police power and shifting away from a congress where police have the opportunity to engage in contact with people and

so i think the important thing here is that we have to look at it as a contest exposure perspective that police have the power and the resources and the opportunity to engage in violence that well you know and so i think that's that's key here and a part of it is also you know the ways in which every ministration of you know that current economic order all of the social ills that result from it that response is ok let's try to police and control our way out of this you know and so in many ways the system is structured in a way that focuses our control and punishment and profit over over people went just as an example i do work in a public housing. development in the org and right now there's no gas in the building they haven't had that since march so imagine them getting a pandemic and not having to elevate it isn't working. and that there was recently a fled that this on the 1004 there's a flood in so this water leaking into people's apartments but so in that's the only

result of capital that's me and the fact that this building is not properly maintained because there's nothing structurally that that changes our ships you know structurally that building from a building in the middle of manhattan that's a high rise luxury building the only difference is resources and upkeep and making sure that that it's you know prioritize but you know what the community does right outside there's a police station police car station there 247 there are 2 officers are usually inside the lobby or directly off right and then if you go down the street one way there's another cop car that station then down the other way the other cop but it's there in the lights are on then i. and so what we have is that what we're going to take those resources and to channel it towards the people as opposed to creating this context where it's you if you just drive through z. it's about punishment control. and not actually giving people the resources that they need to thrive and be saved and yet that's where all our resources city

resources have gone up to 50 percent of city budget $6000000000.00 a year in new york city are spent on police we invest in control as you pointed out not in people and i think you know i don't know what your senses but my senses looking at these protests on the street there's now an understanding of the institution i think and that it's not reformable it has to be dismantled would you agree yeah and i mean i sort of being involved in different spaces and you know thinking back to fareed is saying and the social movement that emerged out of that is that this work there had been people for decades that have been saying you know police in our home look at critical resistance people like injury richie angela davis ma'am cobb ruth was a governor that we see that there had been people weapon saying this for a very long time i think 5 years ago coming out of that meant that moment the

movement for black clouds an emergence of that broader ecosystems you basically had also a proliferation of people that started to really think about what does it look like to the alternatives to policing what does it look like to the developed campaigns and efforts to shift resources away from policing towards communities and also develop alternative emergency response that this is been a part of like conversations but has been largely sort of more nice but what happened is that for example we reclaim the block which is a was a collector in minneapolis i actually wrote about january that they were pushing to to. even the police to come to reinvest the money in community resources not scientists so emergency response but the mayor and city council didn't listen and you know then months later we see you know that same coalition was at the heart of the push and the successful push to dismantle the department you know the black

residents collected in that 150 and so what happened is that people have over the past 2 years have been engaging in deep study in conversations in organizing around all of this so when this moment happened previously police in city leaders and politicians were able to always define what happens next we're always in the find and they're going what do we do moving forward around policing what reforms we implement but now what happened is because of this this past 5 years the narrative was unable to be controlled by is that act missing work now it's got ahead of it and said no we don't want to reforms we want to divest the funding this mental about i want to ask a couple questions 1st about the gaslighting i corporations even the n.f.l. nancy pelosi with candy cloth and put even police officers taking the knee

are people behind it or do you think they see through it many people see that there might be some people who might see a symbolic gesture but the people who have been you know engaged in deep sort of study and work and organizing around and even just people you know people more broadly in general you know i think that many people are seeing you're taking in the and then you're also brutalizing and beating and pepper spraying a tear gassing its last thing protests is that the the level of. discount like that the discordance between you know what the police are symbolically doing with what they're actually doing is just so loud that and people are able to cut through and say. you know no this is this is a mob but some people are not and that's why they supposed to try to say to try to maintain the narrative that this system is not reform let me before i go into what has to be done i want to ask the police unions because. i visit me i would a mile great revolutionary. frame for this crime and you know the

the fraternal brotherhood of police in philadelphia which. essentially functions as a white hate group has mounted a war against him. and even when you get reformist mayors even reformist police chiefs these police unions are so powerful and we must not forget that they give huge amounts of money to. politicians call most got over $600000.00 in his gubernatorial runs they have the power and essence to block any kind of. quote unquote reform and there are huge hugely obstructive and powerful i mean they definitely are and they've sort of been on the front lines of pushing back against transformation as long as police unions have existed i think that the key to this is developing enough pressure and power that the political capital that usually comes from pandering to police unions becomes outweighed by

the broader public right because a part of this is about the money but also their endorsement in a support but if you have a context where people majority of people are saying you know that cuts across races that you know if it actually sort of becomes a broader movement that it becomes difficult because that political power outweighs the power of the. unions but but some of it is also the contracts and just the broader not the level of resources and power that they have and so part of this is also pushed to remove and expel police unions from broadening collectives and i think that will be a really important part of this let's just close with you know and you've written about this. what has to be done what what what do we have to do when we talk about dismantling police power what what are the where are those steps right i mean they can look different ways i think that angle has to be this entire system has to

be unearthed there's no way to reform its week you can't tweak to reform your way out of mass incarceration or this current you know policing apparatus that we have or is that culture of surveillance that it's actually undergirded by a broader culture of punishment and control that is it's actively harming certain people but it's also not operating in this way of giving public's in the way that the broader public can see that to and so the entire thing has to be an earth there is no tweaking it but along that way there are certain steps that can be taken in order to begin this mentoring and shifting resources and power away and that and that's diverse framework which is fundamentally about divesting from systems of punishment and this is the concepts policing in reinvesting those lines into community resources and institutions because we know what makes this a this community says resources when we look around the country the ses can tap most resources not least i want i just want

a couple specifics because it's about you know if you're dealing with somebody who's on how those living on the street don't call a guy with a gun call a social worker they're going to listen if you're dealing with somebody who has struggled with substance abuse don't call guys with guns i mean can you just begin to talk about how we should respond to crises within our communities. will with empathy compassion and frankly a certain degree of. of concern rather than punishment people have the resources and the teams that they can respond to on listeners drug abuse traffic violations and enforcement or rather not try to enforce but sort of this if there's something that is in the name of safety around track it's somebody who can stop and say hey you know i know it's raining in this way and as opposed to trying to enforce some kind of a medical saying like you know a person from a from

a public health perspective you might have some out in this might happen and also developing ways of responding when someone you know people might not engage in the . sort of agree upon ways how do we respond to those moments as well with frameworks i transform the justice restore that justice and giving people the resources whatever they need to transform themselves in the you know the tire contents through that process and that that is a different different and for like just a 101 examples if someone is rob usually the model is that if you call the police and we know the battery people don't come please from experience you know what can be qualified as crime but a model and someone comes asking some questions which might be triggering you know they actually has questions and they leave and usually nothing happens the clearance rate between with police is incredibly low so even though what they say that it was not you know what they actually do what would it look like if a team came and said hey you know we have we come from a trauma and farmers i think you know that this encounter might have been harmful

to you what do you need right now in this moment to restore your i phone that's at the end you take in and you need like you know that you use that where you live it right what we have these resources in these funds to say ok here's this amount of money and now you can be restored from what you would you lost and you know we're trying to figure out who did this and what would it what would it look like to go about a process where we can ask personal why do rob. why they rob people to begin with and what in the cloud for you to have a way of like a sense of accountability to this process and that there can be a collective transformation about this into in time that's a very different model that there are although i mean i think you would agree. there will never be justice in till there is economic justice and people are integrated into the economy as you pointed out and and neighborhoods with low crime or neighborhoods with resources and i think that's you know what you and other

writers on this issue of correctly pointed out thank you very much that was phillip mckerrow us on policing in the united states. according to even fox news trying is like going to the polls this is because joe biden is such a brilliant ended war because the heart he can sense is the 10 demick has been badly handled by the president still another theory comes.