Anarchy is exhausting.
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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Abolition of police and prisons
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Abolish is to flourish! Against the prison industrial complex and for transformative justice.
See Critical Resistance's definitions below:
The Prison Industrial Complex
The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.
Through its reach and impact, the PIC helps and maintains the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic and other privileges. There are many ways this power is collected and maintained through the PIC, including creating mass media images that keep alive stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, and other oppressed communities as criminal, delinquent, or deviant. This power is also maintained by earning huge profits for private companies that deal with prisons and police forces; helping earn political gains for "tough on crime" politicians; increasing the influence of prison guard and police unions; and eliminating social and political dissent by oppressed communities that make demands for self-determination and reorganization of power in the US.
Abolition
PIC abolition is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.
From where we are now, sometimes we can't really imagine what abolition is going to look like. Abolition isn't just about getting rid of buildings full of cages. It's also about undoing the society we live in because the PIC both feeds on and maintains oppression and inequalities through punishment, violence, and controls millions of people. Because the PIC is not an isolated system, abolition is a broad strategy. An abolitionist vision means that we must build models today that can represent how we want to live in the future. It means developing practical strategies for taking small steps that move us toward making our dreams real and that lead us all to believe that things really could be different. It means living this vision in our daily lives.
Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.
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that's why it MUST be collaborative and engaging in working to implement better systems requires rest
Anarchy is invigorating. Living under a tyrannical regime is exhausting.
I never feel quite so alive as when I am looking at what my community needs and seeking to meet that need. It's felt like everyday I've put in at least a little bit of work since Hurricane Helene destroyed my neighborhood. We're still rebuilding from that disaster and building towards a resilient community that can survive the current ongoing disasters, but it's absolutely electrifying the things I've seen in that work:
- people prioritizing amongst themselves who should be seen by triage nurses first at the overworked hospital the night of the hurricane
- groups handing out narcan because in post-disaster scenarios corporations cut their OTC anagesics with fentanyl
- a young boy whose life was saved by some of that narcan after taking some laced tylenol
- the homeless community providing guidance on recognizing patterns of migration amongst law enforcement agencies to help the entire community be more resilient against ICE sweeps
- a group of neighbors standing in the street throwing balls at each other, not with any particular aim, and certainly with no ruleset, just happily enjoying their presence together
- a great many other things I won't go into that are just as grand, just as beautiful, and at the same time smaller and more personal, as any of my other bullet points
In another reply I emphasized the importance of collaborative efforts but I didn't know how to put into words what you've brought up. Anarchism is life-giving. We keep us safe, and you will never feel as safe as when you are working together to keep your neighbors safe, and seeing them work to keep you safe.
It's funny, too, because we have all of these state induced crises thanks to direct attacks on our communities, as well as the state induced crisis of Winter Storm Fern being a result of athropogenic climate change. And still I feel energized, alive, and full of vigor. Something has awoken in my community since I moved away for work in 2018 and then moved back for my wife's education in 2024. I don't know what will come of this current time, but I am filled with a great deal of hope that we can get positive outcomes by organizing ourselves to meet these crises, and by staying organized to keep on meeting the moment until eventually we've changed what's possible entirely.
Maybe I'm being overly optimistic about what we can do, but I think there have to be people out there who project positivity without it being a toxic form of positivity that denies the pain we're going through in order to shift what people think is possible. In many ways, I see that as my role in my community. I don't necessarily know when it happened, but I am seen as an elder now. People look to me for advice and guidance. I am asked for my input as someone who has experience speaking up and speaking out for the last 21 years of my life after my neighbor was crushed beneath a boulder. Many of my neighbors are new to this because they weren't even born yet when I became an activist.
Anyway.
This is all WAY too much in response to your little one sentence statement and why I was trying to keep it short in my other comment. But I recommend anyone who feels hopeless right now to go connect with other people. Get involved with mutual aid projects, bail funds, court watchers, and community defense groups. You'll find when you are in those spaces you'll feel less like you've gone completely crazy for a few minutes or hours at a time. It's the very best thing you can do for your mental health, and it will help your community immensely
Counterpoints
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You just described how the police were assembled in the first place.
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The enemy of this situation are also not police but instead thousands of organized members of an extra-judicial group who do round-the-clock patrols of the city, replete with their own intelligence network and radio dispatch system.
Counterpoints
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Incorrect, the modern police as we know it today (meaning i exclude the army used in ancient times, as they had a different nature to the police), was assembled to protect private property, to catch slaves, and to stomp down worker movements.
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If they were not extra judicial, it wouldn't have mattered, the police themselves were also used to abuse protesters in the past, it wasn't "legal" but it doesn't ultimately matter because the state has the monopoly on violence, so nothing substantial was done about it. And also, ICE and the police have a very large intersection of recruits, as they both give you protection and ample opportunity to abuse minorities and poor people.
~~The Gestapo~~ ICE is what you get when the ruling class successfully creates a second police.
- You just described how the police were assembled in the first place.
You would intuitively think (or hope) so, right? That’s certainly how we would do it today, if we were starting from scratch.
But historically? No.
Police started as private security for shops, then got subsidized by public money (capitalists do hate paying for things), then when people were like “Why do we pay your salary when all you do is protect rich people’s property?”, they were like “That’s not true. We also, uhhh… Hmm. Oh! We catch escaped slaves. And that keeps you safe. (Also the slaves are rich people’s property, so it’s a win-win-win!)”
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So? If they become a problem we deal with them then.
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Thats completely irrelevant to their point. Their point being that the current iteration of the police is unnecessary, and youve done nothing to address that.
Hope this didnt come off as aggressive, i sometimes have issues toning my text