This is an edited text of a talk I gave in Chicago in late June 2012 at the annual Socialism conference. Audio of the talk is available at wearemany.org, but the text here corrects some mistakes I …This is a really good overview of the evolution of policing and legal system alongside changing class relations in early 19th century New York and Charleston:
"First of all, we need to put policing in the context of a bigger ruling-class project of managing and shaping the working class. I said at the beginning that the emergence of workers’ revolt coincided with a breakdown of old methods of constant personal supervision of the workforce. The state stepped in to provide supervision. The cops were part of that effort, but in the North, the state also expanded its programs of poor relief and public schooling…
The rise of modern policing also coincides with the rise of public education. Public schools accustom children to the discipline of the capitalist workplace, including the submission to strict rules about the proper time to do things. The school reform movement of the 1830s and 40s also aimed to shape the students’ moral character. The effect of this was supposed to be that students would willingly submit to authority, that they would be able to work hard, exercise self-control, and delay gratification.
In fact, the concepts of good citizenship that came out of school reform movement were perfectly aligned with the concepts of criminology that were being invented to categorize people on the street. The police were to focus not just on crime but on criminal types — a method of profiling backed up by supposedly scientific credentials. The “juvenile delinquent,” for example, is a concept that is common to schooling and policing — and has helped to link the two activities in practice…
The overall point here is that the invention of the police was part of a broader expansion of state activity to gain control over the day-to-day behavior of the working class.”
Origins of the police
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