For me, it’s pretty clear that police and prisons reinforce class society and are things that factor into proletarianization. Therefore there can be no socialism without abolition. A corollary states that socialist projects that reinstituted police and prisons (gulags and checka anyone?) couldn’t be socialist because by using police and prisons it reinforced proletarianization and class relations.
What do you think?
I’m not sure, I like to think of myself as an abolitionist but the more I think about it the more I can’t make my mind up.
I think a socialist society is going to need some form of police or a rapid response service like firefighting, and ambulance to get to emergencies but I don’t think this service needs to be wandering the streets like the police does today and also removing what they do to only dealing with violent crimes like someone getting attacked for example everything else they do should be its own service like a mental health response team, a road accident response team etc