I have previously written about FEJUVE: a mutualist anarchist society that allows people to live in a community without a monopoly on violence & have a direct say in their community while still enjoying the luxury of owning local businesses & property they occupy/use. I also talked about the problem with policing under statism: that police are given certain powers that can put them and their friends/immediate family above the law without offering any greater protection for their community. Now, people are probably wondering how police would operate in a society without a strong vertical hierarchy or monopoly on violence. To explain any of this, we first need to look at the Aymara: a native group that exists in Bolivia.
The Aymara are a group of people that indigenous to the Anews and Altiplano regions of South America. Currently, over one million five hundred thousand Aymara people live in Bolivia and many of them live in FEJUVE. The book Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces by Raul Zibechi helps to explain how the Aymara helped FEJUVE create the current volunteer defense force it has. As part of the volunteer police force that helps to keep FEJUVE safe without having to require this police force to have special powers that put them above the average person legally, councils of FEJUVE's democracy have assemblies and collective self-defense groups.
Assemblies act as mediators that work to handle minor disputes with neighbors and help to set up court appointments if the dispute requires courtroom action. They are basically used for smaller civil cases and small criminal cases. Assemblies were around in ancient Aymara culture to help with smaller conflicts in their villages and the FEJUVE worked to bring them back. When it comes to more violent and dangerous crimes, there are collective self-defense groups. These groups are well-trained volunteers who specifically work to stop dangerous criminals like thieves and murderers.
It is actually somewhat similar to a program that was created by former President George W. Bush called Volunteers in Police Service or VPS where volunteers work to help police in programs like administrative duties, neighborhood watch, cold cases, disaster response, and - in some cases - as an auxiliary police force that can do things like fingerprinting, conduct traffic, deal with certain altercations, and even help search for missing children. In fact, some towns are fully staffed by volunteer police officers who get the uniform, equipment, professional training, awards of merit, and certain benefits that thank them for helping while not putting them above the average person as citizens in uniform.
What is the point of all this? Well, you have an anarchist community that has been around for 43 years and even volunteer police forces in parts of the United States that are able to protect the community without needing a monopoly on violence and special powers that put them above average Joes. Heck, in some of these situations, this volunteer force can do a great job and actually be required to protect people as part of their job - something that official members of the police force in states like the US are not legally required to do...
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