Why is almost everybody against more police ?

[schlaufuchs]

Because police are unnecessary.

That is: there is no socially valuable service¹ which police provide which also necessitates the existence of a professional privileged class of goons with an absolute and unquestioned authority to murder whomever whenever.

I'm not saying that police are unnecessary in the sense that there are bad actors and that it isn't socially necessary for there to be some structure in place to protect individuals of a society against these bad actors. I am speaking specifically against that structure existing as a profession.

¹I mean in a general mutual aid social-utility sense; the obvious and unspoken "valuable service" the police provide is the protection of the capitalist class and the enforcement of their property rights.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Current relevant issue in the LA County Sheriff's Department.

The two times former sheriff, and his main under sheriff, are doing time in the friendly custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons along with a dozen of their most egregious cronies. In the wake of that scandal we elected a guy who ran on the expected reform campaign and did make an effort to clean up the department. As usual, the hard working and highly experienced badged thugs that might have had to change their ways were given the opportunity to leave for higher paying jobs in local city PDs where they could continue their unfettered viciousness, and every crime in southern California was thrown at the feet of the new sheriff who "couldn't maintain necessary manpower because of his criminal coddling policies that put law enforcement lives at risk.," as explained in a constant stream of letters to media handed out to their members by the cop union for "sign and send" operations.

So, now we have another new sheriff, who can't lure back all those bad cops from their new city PD posts. But he has reinstated the worst of the worst who were so egregious that they actually got fired during the brief effort at reform without getting the opportunity to resign.

 

[Lexicus]

Yeah but genuine curiosity, not trying to zing or anything lol

I don't know what it means though

 

[inthesomeday]

Sorry, like this:

I imagine that much of the reputed corruption and inefficiency of police in Eastern European and Iberian countries is a combined legacy of their relatively starved economies and history of ultra-authoritarian regimes. Why then does Italy not suffer from a similar reputation? The transition from fascism to not-fascism also wasn’t necessarily revolutionary. But their economy has consistently been a world-leading one. Perhaps this suggests that economic turmoil or underdevelopment, not legacy of totalitarianism, is the best indicator of how generally unideal a police force will develop to be?

 

[Lexicus]

Well in the Italian context I would trace it to the revolutionary situation with the fall of the fascist regime during WW2. It's different from Iberia for that reason. But I understand the Italian police brutalize immigrations on the regular so idk.

 

[inthesomeday]

Ah right, sure. I guess I always imagined that was moreso the Italian equivalent of ICE but a cops a cop I suppose

 

[Hygro]

@Hrothbern walking in central Amsterdam I had stepped slightly into the street so my company and I could walk three people wide. The police drove by and the cop yelled at me like some chastising teacher lady my age— I perceived no violent authority. A bit inebriated and responding to the perceived animal nature of the situation of a random person yelling at me out the passenger side of a mellow looking car for me to get on the sidewalk, I yelled "thanks" ("Dank u wel!") back after my friends translated in about my most sarcastic Dutch voice as I complied. Shortly after the moment, all the symbolism poured in and my brain translated it into American and I was mortified.

For in the US first off the cop would have blared me on the loudspeaker, in a much scarier car, and then if I had gotten that sassy, there would be a large and a "he had it coming" moment for them to start harassing me on top to prove a point of authority. That could have been the end of my night. The Dutch cop was being pretty reasonable: the roads there are super narrow and everyone is expected to behave accordingly, and by no means being too extra to tell me to get over a step. She didn't light up or cause a ruckus to do it. More of that is quite different than more of US police.


I like to go on walks at night through the neighborhood. The primary danger I perceive is bored police wondering why I'm not inside.

 

[H4run]

I think generally every nations has lots of polices, the poor recruitment standard makes the institution in many part of the world somewhat corrupted. Better fix the qualities than adding the quantity because without a better recruitment's standard and better operating procedure adding more police can means adding more troubles.

 

[Sommerswerd]

@Hrothbern walking in central Amsterdam I had stepped slightly into the street so my company and I could walk three people wide. The police drove by and the cop yelled at me like some chastising teacher lady my age— I perceived no violent authority. A bit inebriated and responding to the perceived animal nature of the situation of a random person yelling at me out the passenger side of a mellow looking car for me to get on the sidewalk, I yelled "thanks" ("Dank u wel!") back after my friends translated in about my most sarcastic Dutch voice as I complied. Shortly after the moment, all the symbolism poured in and my brain translated it into American and I was mortified.

For in the US first off the cop would have blared me on the loudspeaker, in a much scarier car, and then if I had gotten that sassy, there would be a large and a "he had it coming" moment for them to start harassing me on top to prove a point of authority. That could have been the end of my night. The Dutch cop was being pretty reasonable: the roads there are super narrow and everyone is expected to behave accordingly, and by no means being too extra to tell me to get over a step. She didn't light up or cause a ruckus to do it. More of that is quite different than more of US police.


I like to go on walks at night through the neighborhood. The primary danger I perceive is bored police wondering why I'm not inside.

Reminds me of Trevor Noah's bit about getting pulled over for passing the police on the highway. I wish I could find the clip. He did some others that was about getting pulled over in general, but the first one about Americans not passing the police on the highway was the funniest.

 

[Lexicus]

Reminds me of Trevor Noah's bit about getting pulled over for passing the police on the highway. I wish I could find the clip. He did some others that was about getting pulled over in general, but the first one about Americans not passing the police on the highway was the funniest.

My favorite police bit in a standup routine will always be...

 

[Sommerswerd]

My favorite police bit in a standup routine will always be...

If we got pulled over stoned Lex, I'd definitely let you do the talking.

 

[Broken_Erika]

And now for an Highly Informative Educational Video.
Spoilerizerd for naughty launguages

Spoiler :

 

[Archon_Wing]

"Is there a problem, officer?" -yes
"What the fudge do you want ************?" -no
"Do you have any.... warrants?"

Still one of my favorite parts.

 

[Sommerswerd]

And now for an Highly Informative Educational Video.
Spoilerizerd for naughty launguages

Spoiler :

This is a great depiction of why people think black people get harassed by police... "Herp derp cuz they're all dum stoopid krimnulls, if dey jes obey de lawl dey'd be fine... da perlise iz our fwends herp derp"

 

[EnglishEdward]

In most western societies, there are so many laws and regulations about that it is impossible to get by without, in many peoples views, one infringing on them.
Fortunately a shortage of human enforcers means that they do not have the resource to prosecute everyone and, provided one is polite, they rarely prosecute for trivialities.

Unfortunately the development of automated systems of prosecution:

For instance, what if I rigged up every car in the country to self-monitor speed and compare GPS location to known traffic speed limits?

Then every time someone sped, the car would mail them a speeding ticket.
Like red light cameras, only way cooler!

Think about how happy my fellow citizens would be with me for 100% enforcement of traffic laws.

does not actually require cops because the insurance companies are already requiring customers to have monitors
installed (or be de facto priced off the road); and the EU and other places are shortly to be making them mandatory for new cars.
Then the state will deduct each fine fom your bank account, and when that is empty, your car is remotely disabled.

 

[Commodore]

I'm leaning toward an abolitionist position toward the police as they currently exist in the United States. We need to just tear that particular edifice down and rebuild it from the ground up. Fortunately there are lots of models for how the police could look in this country, e.g:

You know, you and I are probably a lot more aligned on this issue than you might think. I think alternative policing methods definitely need to be tried, preferably a model that forges a closer bond between the police and the community they are policing.

 

[innonimatu]

In most western societies, there are so many laws and regulations about that it is impossible to get by without, in many peoples views, one infringing on them.
Fortunately a shortage of human enforcers means that they do not have the resource to prosecute everyone and, provided one is polite, they rarely prosecute for trivialities.

You know this is a feature? It allows for prosecution discretion, and for the wealthy to harass the poor with civil lawsuits. In theory the law is equal, in practice its application is discretionary, in favor of the powerful.

Automated systems of prosecution actually cause problems with this feature, I don't expect them to be widely applied. Not that the wealthy wouldn't be able to pay the fines, but there is the embarrassment factor.

Tracking cars is one of those things. It has been all the rage to have cars always online. With stupid security implications that manufacturers pretend to ignore. They are all investing heavily on connected cars. But as this gets more complex, it also gets more failure-prone. As everyone of us dealing with electrics and software knows, these products do not last that long. It's not clear what if any will be the enforcement mechanism as those systems malfunction. Of as the owners of these cars make them "malfunction". I see this being acknowledged as a bad idea and a huge waste of resources some ten years in the future.

 

[red_elk]

I don't really know how the cops act in Eastern Europe, but my impression is that true cop violence is more common in the US than e.g. Romania or Bulgaria while bribes are again higher there. Almost needless to say, both are worse in Russia than the US.

More corrupt, yes, but I'm not sure about more violent.
The big difference between US and Russia is that in Russia very few people possess firearms and police are much less trigger-happy. If you are stopped by road police, nobody will demand you to keep your arms visible or remain in your car. I believe in most areas, Russia is similar to other Eastern European countries in this aspect, Romania, Bulgaria or Poland.

Though there are few Caucasus regions (Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan), where police shootouts sometimes look like this:

 

[Sommerswerd]

Unfortunately the development of automated systems of prosecution: does not actually require cops because the insurance companies are already requiring customers to have monitors installed (or be de facto priced off the road); and the EU and other places are shortly to be making them mandatory for new cars. Then the state will deduct each fine fom your bank account, and when that is empty, your car is remotely disabled.

Hey! That sounds just like the system they had in that movie The Fifth Element

*mocking computer's voice* "You have one point left on your license... Yeah I know"

You know, you and I are probably a lot more aligned on this issue than you might think. I think alternative policing methods definitely need to be tried, preferably a model that forges a closer bond between the police and the community they are policing.

I would really favor systems that require most, if not all the police in a given department to actually live in the area that their department covers. Besides the obvious effect it would have on the police themselves, I think it would also make the public have a more positive attitude towards the officers.

 

[Farm Boy]

I like to go on walks at night through the neighborhood. The primary danger I perceive is bored police wondering why I'm not inside

They're supposed to take an interest. I generally wave. Kinda like I would if I was alone on the street with anyone. "Hi there, human."