Music producer Paul Chin just read this book about the history of police and policing in North America
This interview originally aired on Oct. 3, 2020.
Paul Chin is a music producer and multi-instrumentalist who describes his sound as "weird electronic music that's kind of like hip-hop — and kind of like a lot of other things."
His work includes the 2015 project Dancing Drums and his 2020 album Full Spectrum.
The Toronto-based Chin spoke with The Next Chapter to discuss the book he's reading at the moment.
"The book that I'm reading right now is The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale. It is a breakdown of the history of police forces and police departments in North America as we know them. It's a systematic examination of the ways in which these systems are overburdened and kind of failing the communities that they're supposedly there to protect and serve.
It's been interesting learning how deeply rooted police and policing are into the fabric of modern society in North America.
"It calls for what is now the common refrain of the abolition of policing as we know it — to divest funds from this state-sanctioned system of criminalizing the impoverished and marginalized. It presents options or a vision for what society would look like with those funds reinvested into community support and organizations that would actually address the root causes of the things that lead various populations to crime.
"It's been interesting learning how deeply rooted police and policing are into the fabric of modern society in North America — and how 'necessary and vital' we've made them."
Paul Chin's comments have been edited for length and clarity.
