CP seeks to improve police image

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IN THIS pamphlet, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) appeals for a benevolent attitude from the state in the form of 'community policing', or 'democratisation of the police' In doing so, the CPGB has failed to challenge the bourgeoisie's attempts to rebuild the credibility of the police, which experienced so many challenges this last year with the riots and the black protests against police indifference to racist attacks.

Behind this lies the CP's view of the state. Marxists argue that the state is not a neutral arbiter able to reconcile class differences by acting in the interests of everyone. In "The State and Revolution' Lenin summed it up: "The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms.

"The state arises where, when and insnfer or rass antagonismas objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable' The army, the courts, the civil service hierarchy, and the police — the permanent machine set up to regulate and rule society - is connected by its structure and by a thousand personal ties to the ruling class. It may be weakened or restrained by working class pressure, but it can no more change class colour than the CBI can be gradually won over to socialism.

Yet the CP is aiming "to make the police the real servant of the community and that includes the black community' This misunderstanding of the state causes the CP to support the attempt of Scarman to re-establish police credibility and to prepare for the next state attack on black people and

'Black and Blue: Racism and the Police' . A Communist Party pamphlet, 50p. Reviewed by A.A.Mir.

the working class. The CP's view that the agencies of the state can be used for everyone's benefit leads them to be critical of the particular internal structure, practices and methods of the police, but not hostile to the state as a class-based institution directed, in a capitalist system, against the working class and specifically oppressed groups, of which blacks are the obvious example.

The CP wants 'an end to the abuse of power by the police and an end to racism in the police', and requests the police to undertake 'a real pledge to abandon and abolish every taint of racism in their practice' The Charter of Demands' proposed by the CP's national race relations committee suggests 'regular in-service training should contain an antiracist syllabus, including racism awareness training, to be worked out with black community organisations' This is too much for some of the contributors to the pamphlet. A.Jouhl, for example, declares that his organisation "The Indian Workers' Association (GB) is not in favour of working class organisations entering into consultation with the police or active involvement of national black pelice trainman coons in people': organisalon: ity policing; or of sitting on joint bodies with the police.

"To enter into consultation with the police implies that they can be servants of the community. To believe this is to delude ourselves that in capitalist society the police can be converted to serve the people' Having cleansed the police of racism and having • decriminalised immigration control' through ending 'police involvement in immigration control' (but inherently racist immigration controls remain?), the CP attempts to secure the 'democratisation of the police'. It is suggested that vision of the police forces and the adjudication complaints police to be placed in the hands of accountable and democratically constituted bodies, independent of the police and with a substantial element of black representation'.

The CP's 'Charter of Demands' (more a series of timid requests) suggests 'community policing with democratic accountability and control, not saturation policing, with 'far fewer pandas prowling and far more home beat policing' The CP observes with concern the perceived change from consent' policing to 'containment' This evolution in the role of the police is partly explained because: 'policing by consent is not working In particular, it is not going o work during a recession and high unemployment' The CP also sees the decline in numbers of 'decent and relatively unprejudiced policemen' as responsible for this evolution in the role of the police towards 'containment' The answer? The CP

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this could be achieved through: "The local super-