"What is the police?"

My young son recently asked me "What is the police?" I hesitated and he repeated the question. I knew my wife was cringing at the thought that I would start indoctrinating our children about the evils of the state and its instruments. I wanted to avoid an all-too-tempting "The police are state thugs!" reply because that would be meaningless without an understanding of what constitutes the state. Such confusion could actually be destructive. 

However, my son insisted on getting an answer and I refused to lie to him. So, I decided to keep him on a need-to-know basis and started with what he already knows: "The police carry weapons -- like soldiers do -- to protect some people and to fight other people. If you need protection, you get a police officer to fight for you."

I think I gave my son a good answer.  I never said that the state police officer had any rightful authority for his actions. The truth is that the police do provide protection -- albeit selectively. Furthermore, you can hire a dirty cop if you tried hard enough. I was trying to avoid a normative description of the cops -- that will have to come later because I am having a hard enough time teaching him to stop beating up on his younger brother.

When my son is older, I will explain to him that if he needs protection, he can also hire a private security guard -- if he has any money left after paying his taxes.