Policing A Class Society, 2nd Edition. Sidney L. Harring, Haymarket 2017
This is an excellent Marxist study of the rise of the urban police department in the last part of the 19th and first part of the 20th century. The author’s main thesis is that the creation of the police was shaped by the needs of the ruling class to consolidate the accumulation of capital. He rejects the idea that it was pure and simple urbanization and resulting complexity that created the need for police. “ the police institution…its modern form emerged from the class struggle under industrial capitalism…we now have essentially the same police institution that involved in the inteNse class conflict of the 1870’s, 1880;s and 1890’s”( pg. 3) and “ beginning with the “Great Strike” of 1877 and accelerating with the “Great Upheaval” of the mid-1880’s, the urban police institution was transformed into an efficient, well-organized, and disciplined system that was capable for the first time of asserting a powerful regulating effect on urban life — of policing urban society” ( pg 27) “ By 1905 most urban police departments were six , eight , or even ten times their 1865 size”( pg.34)
The process was on-going and complex over the period that he studies from 1885–1915 in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley region. The class struggle created the need for more efficient enforcement, which could best be done by a public force. Many capitalists resisted this at first, not wanting to pay the taxes necessary to support a larger, better paid force. This change went along with paying for the state to take on other functions of socializing the working class such as education and public health. The industrial working class was being largely created especially in the mid-west cities he focuses on in the post-Civil War period. Very similar changes took place in the previous centers of industry in the East as well. Part of the need for this was the “Americanization” of new immigrants since much of at least the lower sections of the working class were non-English speakers. Up until this period, a much smaller, less professional public force simply supplemented the private security that capitalists paid for themselves. There were many changes effected over the post CW period , including 1) increasing the size of the police 2) raising their pay 3) increasing training 4) municipalizing what had been local ward control 5) instituting the call box and patrol wagon system.6) making the police more immune from the vagaries of electoral influence — -by including the police in civil service and making the hierarchy of the police more independent of the elected city leaders. 7) creating a military command hierarchy on a city wide basis. These changes took place in different cities at different times but the direction was the same. Even in Milwaukee which often had socialist influence on the city government, the same trends took place. One difference in Milwaukee was that the size of the police was smaller proportionately than in other cities due to socialist electoral pressure and working class opposition.
Strike Suppression
One of the key functions of the police in this period of heightened class struggle was strike suppression. The police in general showed themselves to be the best instrument for controlling the working class — even moreso than the militia , which could be too crude in its repression and was also made up of working class people. This in some ways parallels the experience of Britain which created a more developed police force to handle rising class struggle without relying on the military. The author details many examples of the use of police in strikes and the consequent avid opposition to the police by the workers. Controlling the working class was carried out in other ways as well. The renewed emphasis on police patrols in working class neighborhoods allowed the state to impose itself consistently rather than sporadically as with the previous watch system. The policing of working class morality by regulation or suppression of dance halls, saloons, gambling etc. was part of this. The ruling class saw “ immoral” or criminal activity as a continuation of the direct attack on property that strikes exemplified.
The Police and the Working Class
There were three basic functions of police surveillance of the working class: 1) to enforce the work ethic of capitalism. Capitalists feared that workers who stayed out drinking and carousing would not be fit for work. 2) to police the boundaries of the working class. Given harsh conditions of exploitation, the temptation of workers to enter the ranks of the lumpen proletariat and rely on crime was very great. Police repression was aimed at raising the costs of taking this route and hence keeping workers as part of the working class. 3) Imposing the will and ideology of the ruling class through the state on workers.
Besides strike suppression, much of the work of the police was aimed at general control of the working class. Public disorder, drinking etc. were the main activities of the police.
Since the creation of the police system was so new, it did not yet have the consent of the majority. This had to be won over time through repetition but also through the social service activities of the police. The police won support for what the author believes is their core function, repression base on the threat of force, by providing ancillary services. Through this period, working class opposition to the police was continuous and high. It was often expressed politically.
Police Neutrality between Classes?
Of course, perhaps the main way that police won public support was through suppression of “crime”. All classes were concerned about property crime and violent crime against people. Because they had more property, the petit bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie were most concerned about this. Though the police used more of their resources protecting bourgeois and petit bourgeois property than they did that of workers, they upper classes had continual complaints about the lack of efficiency of the police. This, as well as the imperfect suppression of strike activity has led some historians to argue that the police were neutral between classes. Harring rejects this strongly. He says that for the most part any perceived inefficiency came from the impossibility of fully controlling class struggle and the social results of capitalist exploitation.
The relation of the police to “crime” was and is of course complex. Working class saloons were raided while upper class establishments were let go. The police regularly supplemented their income by taking bribes to look the other way from criminal activity. The author feels that this activity did not get in the way of the fundamental role of the police in controlling the working class.
Middle Class Reform
Corruption did however lead to campaigns by middle class reformers which sometimes had impacts but did not change the fundamental relation of the police to crime or to the working class. In some cases, the reform movement went along well with the overall bourgeois drive to professionalize the police and make them more effective in class struggle. Some of the reform drive was explicitly anti-working class in trying to suppress working class drinking etc.
Harring believes that the state is a direct instrument of bourgeois class rule. In the early years of the creation of the new model of policing, often the police commissioners etc. were members of the ruling class. Later as the police became independent and professionalized, they operated according to bourgeois norms. Some historians believe that professionalization removed the police from the class interests of the capitalists. The author argues otherwise — -that the new professional procedures were fundamentally in the interest of the property owners. This reality contradicts the bourgeois ideological criticism of police as being ineffective at protecting property rights. The reason for this criticism is to push the police but also to pretend that the police are not fully on the side of the capitalists and therefore win more working class support for them.
Relative Autonomy of the Police?
This is a very interesting theoretical point. On page 251 he explains this in detail. “Some Marxists pose a theory of “relative autonomy” which emphasizes the partial autonomy of the legal and other public institutions…forgetting that it is often an autonomy that the bourgeoisie grant under pressure at some points and then struggle to withdraw at other points…. I see the state and its municipal institutions, including the police as instruments of the capitalist class.” He goes on to propose the “class struggle” model “which regards the class struggle as the ultimate limitation on the use of the state as an instrument of the ruling class.” He also notes that there are simply inherent limits on the capacity of state power to impose ruling class interests.
His stress on the police and state generally pursuing capitalist interests is very useful. The most important thing is to reject the pluralist idea of the state as being tossed between competing social and economic interests. However, the direct control of the state by the capitalist class at all times and places is not necessary to explain the bourgeois orientation of the state. The instrumentalist analysis often fits the facts, but not always. Even when the government is controlled by working class or “socialist” parties, the imperatives of capitalism must be carried out. Nation states and even cities compete to create a “good business climate” which ensures pro-capitalist policies even when capitalists are not directly in control of the government. The state itself has been shaped as a bourgeois institution over centuries and has an interest in promoting pro-capitalist policies. His discussion of the limitation of the bourgeois orientation of the state by class struggle is important. The balance of class forces can influence what the capitalist state feels is necessary to maintain stability and hence the continuation of capitalist profits. The function of the state in capitalist society is ultimately more important in explaining its pro-bourgeois orientation than the instrumentalist analysis lays out. Trying to defend an institutionalist analysis in the face of contrary facts can even weaken the case for explaining the pro-capitalist nature of the state. The author actually gives evidence of a more functionalist analysis when he talks about the police being independent of electoral control.
The explanation of the rise of the police is very important. It shows clearly that the core mission of the police is the enforcement of current class divisions and the augmentation of the ability of the ruling class to profit off of exploitation. It shows that the ancillary social functions of the police are merely window dressing. “Capitalist accumulation is an inherently violent process that would be impossible without the backing of coercive power.” ( pg.251)
The Police Today
Though the author only touches on it, one of the most interesting points is the comparison of the 1885–1915 period to the period in which the author originally wrote the book in the 1980’s and the situation today.
In the earlier period, acceptance of the police had to be won. Force, especially against strikes was at the forefront. Social services/the welfare state was undeveloped and therefore the role of consent was less prominent. Class struggle was higher and had not yet been incorporated into a legal framework. “Tramping”, poor people moving from city to city in search of work or welfare was less important in the 1980’s. Direct racism in the northern cities was less important than it is now since few Black people lived in the cities and European immigrants received the brunt of police attacks.
His introduction to the 2017 edition published by Haymarket, notes that the social services that limited the need for direct policing have been undermined by neo-liberalism since he wrote the book in the 1980’s. “the collapse of the social safety net …and the closure of mental institutions has left the police institution as the primary social service agency”. (xvii). This creates conditions closer to the time of the rise of the current police system. It is telling and a bit ironic that the capitalist class today actively supports spending for publicly organized repression which it at first opposed in the late 1800’s Over a century of policing has proved its value to the ruling class.
The author’s conclusion to the first edition is that the social safety net has resulted in the diminishment of class struggle. He doesn’t elaborate on other factors that influence levels of class struggle. The onset of neo-liberalism has undermined the basis of class peace. So far this has not shown itself in a massive rise in direct work place struggle in the U.S. However, it has manifested in the rapid rise of imprisonment and militarization of the police. The author notes the importance of racism in policing in the current period and the rise of the resistance to it. Since the mid-70’s that state has shrunk the carrot and expanded the stick. One aspect of this is the horrendous rise of the attacks on the homeless, which is the modern equivalent of the attack on “tramping”. Homelessness has risen because of the attack on the social safety net as well as renewed economic crisis.
This book provides an excellent overview of the rise of the modern police system. It shows clearly that then as well as now, the police “protect and serve” the interests of the capitalist class. They are as another book puts it “Our Enemies in Blue”. Any movement against police abuse and brutality will ignore this analysis at its own peril!
