Would it be accurate, then, to say that the "police abolitionist movement" does not want to abolish the police? If that is the case, why call it the police abolitionist movement? It seems like all that does is generate ill-will from people who are potential allies.
Re-read the person you're responding to, I think you'll see your response makes no sense. They didn't say "replacing them with nicer cops", they said: replacing them with social programs, housing, education, healthcare.
None of these require cops. Yes, you likely need some form of police force for the very, very edge case scenarios where the others won't do, but abolish police means abolish the police.
Unless you assume all cops are "untrained, armed, and oftentimes extremely racist individuals", simply removing those who are would not "abolish the police", which is why I asked.
* Dissolving existing police departments and making officers reapply as a way to eliminate the worst offenders that are currently protected by the blue line of silence.
* Re-establishing the police as a much smaller operation where their duties are limited to situations where deadly/coercive force is needed.
Things that would become police “adjacent” and would be handled by other government officials.
- detective work
- calls about the homeless
- all non-violent offenses like noise complaints, property disputes, drug possession, moving violations, shoplifting, etc.
The hope being that many people who are currently officers would actually rather be part of the non-violent operation.
