Derecka Purnell's book Becoming Abolitionists, which looks at how cops bolster mechanisms of repressive state power, says that a truly free society is rooted in consent and cooperation.
The police are a contradiction. On the one hand, governments, detective shows on television and cops themselves claim that they protect the innocent from predators and criminals. On the other, we are confronted with constant news of police misconduct. In South Africa, police officers have massacred miners, killed children and assaulted unarmed demonstrators; an officer has been recorded dragging a naked man out of a shack; some have been caught selling guns to gangs; others reportedly act callously to victims of sexual abuse.
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