in Esperanto
Chapter 4: SKETCH OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY -- ADMINISTRATION
5. The police system will no longer be necessary.
5.1. Drastic decrease in crime
In the national system since the early modern period, the system of the police, which is dedicated to maintaining public order on a daily basis, has become the standard. The word "police" is synonymous with the city-state "polis" and directly means "government" in old French. In other words, the compulsory power that secures national governance is the police power, and the police agency exercises it systematically.
In that sense, the state and the police are inextricably linked, and as long as the state exists, there will always be demand for the police system. In fact, the protection of the state itself is the raison d'etre of the police, and it is common throughout the world that arresting anti-state criminals is an important task.
However, it is not possible to simply say that in a communist society where the state system itself will be abolished, the police system will logically and inevitably become unnecessary. This is because it is common throughout the world that the most important role of police agencies is to crack down on crimes on a daily basis. As long as there is a criminal phenomenon, the abolition of the police system will be ridiculed as a pipe dream.
Still, in a communist society, things are very different. As we have seen before, in a communist society where the money economy is abolished, at least money-related crimes will be exterminated. And given the fact that most crimes involve money, it is certain that the elimination of money-related crimes would warrant a truly revolutionary improvement in the security situation.
If so, the necessity of the police system, which has become almost the common sense of humankind, will be questioned. At the very least, there will be no need for a heavy physical police system. However, it seems unlikely that the act of violating the rights of others will be eradicated even in a communist society, considering the sad nature of human beings.
Still, such rights infringements will no longer be perceived as immoral acts, but as antisocial acts. There is no denying the need for an agency to crack down on such antisocial activities, but it no longer needs to be the traditional police system. The following is an example of such non-police crackdowns.
5.2. Civil Patrol and Investigative Commission
In many countries, a system is being established in which the police have comprehensive jurisdiction over crime prevention and investigation. As a result, the police have become more powerful, and to varying degrees, a police state is underway. In contrast, the communist crackdown on crime clearly separates crime prevention and investigation.
For this reason, The Civil Patrol will be established as a private but legally authorized organization that is mainly responsible for crime prevention on the front lines of the local community. The Civil Patrol is the corps organized in each commune. It is not just a vigilante group, but its personnel are basically part-time except for core staff and semi-professionals who have been trained in the skills necessary for security duties.
Since the corps is a private organization, it does not have formal investigative powers, and its duties basically consist of unarmed patrol activities, initial action to crime scenes upon receiving reports, including urgent responce and immediate arrest. However, for very minor offenses, it would be reasonable to give them the authority to investigate cases and admonish offenders.
On the other hand, an Investigative Commission will be set up as an organization to engage in official investigations after receiving communications and reports from the Civil Patrol. This is also not a form of police, but a non-police and compact specialized investigative agency.
As the name "commission" suggests, it is a collegial body consisting of commissioners who have been promoted from investigators and external commisioners. The commission does not direct the investigation of individual cases, but its main task is to enact, revise, or abolish investigative norms, which serve as work standards for investigators, and it is responsible for overseeing organizational reforms, abolishments and new establishments, as well as personnel affairs and disciplinary action.
The main body of the Investigative Commission is an investigative personnel consisting of full-time investigators with specialized knowledge and skills related to investigative activities, including forensic investigation or emergent intervention. Except for minor cases that are handled only by the Civil Patrol, when a criminal incident occurs, the investigation commission will take over the initial action of the Civil Patrol and conduct a formal investigation.
It is desirable that this institution be established in units of the provincial areas or quasi-zones in the federal zones in order to have jurisdiction over a wider area.*
*In a small zone, it is reasonable to establish a single zonal Investigative Commission. A federal zone will have dual installations at the zonal and quasi-zonal levels. Also in a unitary zone, it would be beneficial to establish a central investigative assistance agency to manage zonal investigations and wanted warrants. In either form, a branch office is established in each district.
5.3. Traffic Safety Headquarters and Maritime Safety Headquarters
Regarding traffic enforcement, which is the authority of the police in many countries, Traffic Safety Headquarters will be established in provincial areas or quasi-zones to oversee the Highway Patrol that maintains traffic order and specialize in handling and investigating automobile accidents.
Also, the maritime version of the Traffic Safety Headquarters is the Maitime Safety Headquarters, which oversees the Coast Guard. In light of the unity of the ocean, it would be efficient to establish this agency in zonal units.*
*As we have already seen, there are no sovereign nations with exclusive territorial waters in the communist world, and the World Commonwealth basically has the right to control all sea areas on earth, but each zone retains the sea area under its jurisdiction agreed upon with the World Commonwealth, and is guaranteed preferential navigation and fishing rights in that sea area.
5.4. Special investigative agency
Separate from the Investigative Commission, several special investigative agencies will be established limited to investigating specific criminal cases. The Traffic Safety Headquarters and the Coast Guard Headquarters are one of such special investigative agencies in relation to traffic offence cases.
As one of the other examples, the Land Management Agency's investigative division is a kind of economic investigative agency that specializes in the detection of illegal occupation and illegal transactions on land that is propertyless in a communist society (See Page 13).
Furthermore, as we will see next time, there is a group of impeachment trial systems that mainly examine the corrupt behavior of public officials, and the impeachment prosecutor's team that intensively investigates the cases related to this impeachment trial and prosecutes them in the impeachment court is also part of an special investigative agency. This is a extraordinary investigation and prosecution body that is set up for each case, and the all the impeachment prosecutors are lawyers appointed each time.
In addition, depending on the actual situation in each zone, it is within the discretion to establish other special investigative agencies, but if the number of special investigative agencies increases too much, it is feared that this will cause unnecessary confusion, such as disputes over jurisdiction between investigative agencies.
