Churches Across US Make Pact To Stop Calling The Police—Showing They Don’t Need Them
A growing number of churches are refusing to call the police, choosing instead to seek to de-escalate situations with nonviolent alternatives.
By John Vibes
TheFreeThoughtProject.com
May 12, 2018
A handful of churches on the west coast have made a pact to stop calling the police, in hopes of preventing ordinary disputes from escalating into violence. Church leaders say that members have also been encouraged to join them in refusing to call the police, although they know that not everyone will follow.
The churches are even going so far as to avoid calling the police when violent crimes occur because they are seeking to challenge the institutions of police and prisons altogether.
Volunteer leader Nichola Torbett of The First Congregational Church of Oakland is one of many people involved with this effort who believe that the current policing structure is beyond reform.
“Can this actually be reformed, when it was actually created for the unjust distribution of resources or to police black and brown bodies?” Torbett told the Washington Post.
Torbett must have been thinking of how some of the earliest police organizations in the country were slave-catching patrols, or perhaps of the history that police have of defending corruption corporations to the point where they are killing innocent people.
These views are shared by many others who have signed onto this pledge, including Rev. Anne Dunlap of The Northern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ, who has also called for the full abolition of police.
“You’re talking about state violence against communities. You have to speak up and take a stand about that. There’s not a nice way to just play in the middle. There’s not a way to reform our way out of police violence but to dismantle policing as a system,” Dunlap said.
Dunlap said that communities could take care of themselves by relying on one another in times of need, instead of depending on an authority who has a license to kill.
“In the case of interpersonal violence, for the survivors as well as the perpetrators, we want to look at transformative justice. Would a punitive police and legal system actually bring us the desired outcome for everyone involved? What are our actual values? What do our traditions teach us about redemption?” Dunlap explained.
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