[zo1]

And you don't think self-organizing communities built around their well-being will ever decide to do anything against those that go against its well-being? What if they end up making a defacto police force anyways, what then?

Also an anarchist, though not the kind you probably are ("anarcho capitalist" vs "anarcho space communist"). Either way, I don't have a rainbow happy view of human nature, and as such I don't think you can get away from having bad guys that require some sort of police or enforcement.

[yareal]

It's important to separate the roles police play. Sometimes they are detectives, solving crimes. Sometimes they are traffic enforcement, mental health interventions, noise violation enforcement, violent robbery halters, etc. Not all of these roles need be filled by an armed central full time force.

While I'd personally push for removing most of those roles from a police force, and I believe that communities could do so safely and better with more community run organizations, as an anarchist I believe it should be up to communities to decide what's right for them. If a group decides they really want police, then they should do that. I'd disagree with their decision, but that's ok.

[lolinder]

> as an anarchist I believe it should be up to communities to decide what's right for them

Isn't this more or less what's already happening today? Some communities have scaled back their police force dramatically, others have maintained theirs or even scaled them up.

Is the difference just that you'd prefer to see us start from a clean slate and choose from the buffet table, rather than have to migrate from legacy systems?