Hey man, agreed the current police force is bad, sure, but how about an alternative being the leading narrative? A good platform offers solutions as the primary policies rather than soapboxing to the choir.
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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An alternative is local communities be in charge of this themselves. The money spent on policing could be better used to build up services to avoid crime originating, for mental health services, for armed community defense, etc. Local communities don't need to buy sonic weapons, apcs, and fit out riot squds.
As it stands police do very little to prevent crime, and rarely bother to solve a crime after it has been reported. What they do, do is a ridiculous amount of abuse towards innocent people.
We cannot get to that stage without first removing the barrier that is public perception that police prevent crime and keep us safe. Getting rid of them will allow organic means of defending a community to grow. The Black Panther are an excellent historic contemporary example of this in the media today, but they have to operate in constant opposition to the police which hinders them greatly.
Likewise we can see community defense in action in Rovaja and Zapatista's - but that's much harder to put into a meme compared to 'police bad' which most people understand.
Okay I'll offer up the alternative.
Show any social worker or mental health professional a violent police interaction and in 90% of cases they will just shake their heads. They deal with the same shit every day and successfully manage many of the same situations without shooting anyone. The police universally try to respond as aggressively and counter productively as they can and it turns mental health crises into violence. Like yeah, there are situations where armed response is needed but so many of the common situations don't require someone pointing guns at people. Go watch a random badge cam video and ask yourself, could a competent mental health worker resolve this? Food for thought, people frequently react in extreme ways to the police because they know how violent and unjust the situation will become with them involved.
For prison at a minimum just stop with the drug war shit. Stop sending people to jail for parking fines and weed and getting them wrapped up in the system so they lose their jobs. An ideal standard could, again, involve mental health treatment, counseling, and rehabilitation. If someone's arrested for stealing shit, maybe they need to be put in a safe environment where they can learn skills, get a job and contribute to society. If they're too dangerous, they need to be in a facility where they're getting actual help and treatment until they aren't dangerous if that day ever comes.
You may be thinking that this stuff is just vaguely cops and jails by some other name and at a hyper superficial level that may be in part, but the meat grinder we've built is definitely not the above in any stretch of the imagination.
There are even more extreme versions like the restorative (not just rehabilitative) justice systems built by the Zapatistas, I encourage people to seek out alternative proposals, there's a whole world of ideas out there.
Before abolishing the police you need to have an idea of what is going to replace it.
This post offers no ideas.
I also wonder if they mean, abolish the current police force, or the concept of a police force.
I can understand the former, but the latter makes no sense to me.
Abolish the police and replace them with this other thing that’s totally not just a better version of the police
A better version of the police would still be better.
Right. But the OOP is quite clear that replacing them with something better is not enough.
So you're the person the meme is referring to. Brave of you to admit it