No More Police: A Case for Abolition

by Mariame Kaba

In the end, crime is a constructed category. States can and do decide what actions to label and punish—as crimes or civil violations—and which actions they deem legal.20 What is labeled as crime is largely the product of political decisions made in service of maintaining existing relations of power. For instance, as Alec Karakatsanis, founder and director of Civil Rights Corps, points out, the state can choose to make shoplifting a crime, but not wage theft, effectively protecting employers who steal from their workers while punishing people who take what they need to survive.21 According to Karakatsanis, wage theft costs $50 to $100 billion a year. That’s five times more than all other property offenses—robbery, burglary, shoplifting, etc.—combined.22 Yet virtually no policing resources are devoted to preventing or stopping wage theft. As Karakatsanis also points out, throwing dice in the street is a crime, but not in a casino, similarly protecting corporate profit.23