While it is important to remember that police do not prevent crime, it is just as important if not crucial to understand the root causes of the low level crimes plaguing US settler colonial society. Low level crime is a product of a class based society that perpetuates despair and frustration.

US settler-colonial institutions of policing are themselves a human rights violating industrial complex yielding huge superprofits. Policing as a whole consists not only of the courts, prisons, the US Department of “Injustice,” it has internationally reaching tentacles like the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) . It consists of unions, fraternal organizations, and associations like the Fraternal Order of Police, National Association of Police Organizations, and the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA, AFL-CIO). IUPA is actually chartered by the AFL-CIO. These uphold the facade that police are laborers who deserve the legal rights of workers.

In actuality policing under the oligarchy of capitalism serves to repress the working class and their interests and in the US this includes preserving the white supremacy of US settler colonialism.