The Function of Police in Modern Society: Peace or Control?

[Jefferson23]

Scholar Sam Mitrani says the police were created to restrain the working class and the poor

January 19, 2015

Bio

Sam Mitrani is an Associate Professor of history at the College of DuPage. He is the author of The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850-1894 published in 2014 by the University of Illinois Press. He has written on the labor movement and the origins of the state in the late nineteenth century. He is also politically involved, most recently as the campaign manager for Ed Hershey's Working Class Fight campaign for alderman in Chicago's 25th Ward.

Transcript

JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore.

The ongoing debate and protest around police brutality and how best to hold law enforcement accountable generally have one underlying assumption: the police's role is to serve and protect the population. Police reform advocates are demanding reviewing police practices and increasing accountability through body cameras or civilian review boards with teeth.

But our next guest says we need to stop kidding ourselves, the police were created to control the working class and poor. And since the creation of the modern police force in the U.S. in the 19th century, police have been used to protect the interests of the elite.

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