this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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Yep, I do agree. So maybe we need to define things.
According to Foucault, the police is not about law enforcement. Magistrate interprets laws to make the police actions legals afterward. I would not gave example, but you could read his work on power and punishments. He describes how the use of violence structure the society as a whole, and how it does absolutely not even try to prevent violence in doing so.
It's of course more complex, but to summary : the police as not the same social function before and after the modernisation. For example, miliciens keeping cities safe before that are people with another work, that have to bee miliciens. Everyone that could do so, have to do that work from time to time (the corvée). And they have to protect people. So they would requisitions empty places for people without housings.
The modernization militarize this forces, centralize how they work and shift their mission and recrutements. Cops are now specialize forces, with military training, and a strict hierarchy. Colonization, brutalization of war ("Free company"), enclosures, ...
A lot of anarchists do refers to police with a compatible definition of Foucault and weber : the "monopoly of legitimate violence" This violence could not be broken or diminish if the force got social legitimacy and monopoly. In my previous example, I described the use of violence that is legitimate by default, and could be judge by everyone. Others gave example when this use is not specialize, so diminish this monopoly.
Some could says we want reforms police, and use a different word. We do not. Institution reproduce themselves through the people in it. Even the most social advance organization for "law enforcement" with former cops in it will go wrong. It took time to change one habits
Yep. And to make better policies and social structure, we need to understand why it goes wrong. Modern police has been made with mercenaries, soldiers (18/19e centuries), slave hunters (19/20e centuries), gang members paid to terrorize union members, and nazis. Those people were fired for their skills, and taught others cops to do like them. Because it was need by the ruling class to keep the inequality that favor them : to keep slave in slavery, workers wish small wages, or keep away racialize and colonized people from the infrastructure build with loot of other countries.
I'm not saying that cops are evil people. Some cops know that kind of issues and want to be "a lesser evil", others want to be good but will believe in some stuff that give sense to the violence they are making (racial inequity, nationalism, ... ). In the end, a white collar triggering war, or funding war crime would have a better treatment than a hobo stealing.
My point is : the social structure are stronger than individual will. And the police is a social structure. Again, police as an institution with people, a hierarchy, and an history that produce it. The social function "protect everyone against violence" is important, and is not the police we are talking about.