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Rachel Sieradzki • August 8, 2020
YPVoices: The Honest History of Policing in America
Growing awareness of the origins of policing in America, shows us that the need to dismantle oppressive systems becomes ever more urgent.
My Fellow Americans:
When I first joined YPP I attended a general body meeting where the members discussed the organization's goals and priorities. Young People for Progress had already decided to focus on police reform, within Montgomery County and on the state level. We were just trying to determine the right strategy. Throughout the conversation, I began to realize what huge odds we were up against. It hit me like a ton of bricks that day: We’re a group of young people, fighting an oppressive system as old as the United States itself. The issues we set our sights on, were set in stone right from the infancy of our ‘great’ nation.
Policing as it exists in America today, evolved from Southern “slave patrols”, vigilante groups of white volunteers tasked to enforce slavery. The first of which was created in the Carolina colonies in 1704, 70 years before the creation of the United States of America as an independent nation. The purpose of slave patrols was fourfold:
- - to terrorize enslaved people,
- - to deter them from running away,
- - to chase down, catch, and return runaways to their owners,
- - and to use cruel forms of punishment on slaves.
After the Civil war, the slave patrol vigilante-style organizations had morphed into Southern police departments, for the purpose of controlling freed slaves who continued to work as farm laborers, and enforcing "Jim Crow" segregation laws, designed to deny freed slaves equal rights and access to the political system.
If you’ve been paying attention to race relations in American history, then you’ll get it. If you haven’t been paying attention, please get woke. Racial injustice, oppression, and genocide is America’s big bloody heritage. This is the reason our police system exists. This is why it formed, and this is why it is so deeply entrenched in our society.
The crazy thing is, the police still act like the way they did on day 1, in 1704, when they were just a simple vigilante slave patrol, in what was then known as the British colonies. It boggles my mind how at its deepest core, almost nothing has changed! Police still arrest more Black people than any other demographic. Just like the patrols were sent chasing after runaway slaves in search of a better life; today here in Montgomery County Maryland, predominantly Black neighborhoods are full of police officers wandering around aimlessly, looking for something to do or someone to arrest. Meanwhile, predominantly white neighborhoods don’t have any police cars on their streets. Nowadays, instead of using the brutal torture equipment such as whips or chains that was once common for punishing slaves, American police officers like to get creative, and trigger happy. Deadly police violence is not new, it’s a tale as old as time coming back up to the surface.
That’s why it felt so hopeless to me, that day at my first YPP meeting. Here’s what we were asking each other: What can we, a small ragtag team of young people, possibly do to effect change against systemic policing at a local level? We want to abolish the Maryland Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights. We want to make policy changes in Montgomery County. We have so many goals, but not a lot of members.
Suffice it to say that back then, I had no idea what was about to happen. The signs were all there, a storm was clearly brewing, but I couldn't have predicted that it would turn out this way for our cause.
We are no longer a small ragtag team of young people. We are now a larger and ever-growing ragtag team of young people. Our resources are constantly expanding, and with them so are our goals. It no longer feels hopeless. The big scary monster of Policing, is only so big and scary because it has been propped up by systems of oppression for so many years. We’re working for a more just and equitable future.
- A Voice for Progress
Source: https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united-states-part-1
YPP has 6 demands for the County Council to consider, based around
defunding the police,
decriminalizing survival, and
investing in communities.
1) Remove traffic enforcement from police responsibilities.
2) Take police out of schools.
3) Respond to nonviolent and nonemergency issues with non-police personnel.
4) Repeal the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBR)
5) Decrease the MCP Budget
6) Invest in measures that strengthen communities and prevent crime
