American police are out of control

• Multiple L.A. sheriff’s deputies relieved of duty as feds probe beating of trans teacher, and cops' organized cover-up of what happened

• Fired Utah police officer charged with sexual abuse of teen girl

• New York cop back on duty, despite refusing to take breathalyzer test after suspected DUI crash that permanently injured toddler

• 22-year-old left brain dead from ‘days-long brutal torture’ in Alabama prison, lawsuit says

• Southern California cop dies by suicide after being arrested for soliciting minor to engage in sexual acts

• New York Governor orders firing of 14 officers involved in prison death

• Former D.C. police intel chief found guilty of tipping off Proud Boys leader ahead of capitol attack

• Family sues over Michigan man's death at Bexar County jail

• Excessive force, negligence claims can proceed in case stemming from 2020 death of man in custody

• Hmmm: Man found dead in police vehicle apparently became trapped

• How a ‘blue wall of silence’ let Central NY prison guards get away with day of terror

• Indiana jail workers believed Louisville woman who died in custody was 'faking it,' records show

• Missouri Governor commutes sentence for cop who killed black man

• "Excited delirium": How cops are trained to get away with killing people

   
• Don't call the police.

   
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21 comments

I get dogpiled anytime I suggest abolition. Americans will rabidly defend their existing systems, even if they are oppressed by them. It's difficult sometimes to be vocal about it, so I wanted to extend some appreciation for doing what you do
- If we get rid of the police and all their frame-ups and bribes, beatings, killings, threats, PIT maneuvers and corruption and qualified immunity, some say it would be anarchy (in a negative sense) and ask, what would we replace the police with? Makes me think of someone going in for cancer surgery, asking, "But doc, if you take out the tumor, what would we replace it with?"
  
  Are you me?
  ^ In this post I used the analogy of a fire in a house. Fire department shows up and asks, "ok but what are you going to replace the fire with"
  
  Had to check my ID to be certain, but apparently I'm not you.
- Legitimate question: how do you deal with murderers, rapists, muggers, thieves, etc?
  Somebody mentioned regarding police as a tumor, and asking the doctor to leave it in. But I see it more like chemotherapy. It is awful, attacks fairly indiscriminately, leaves people feeling worse than the cancer itself (at least temporarily), and the cancer, for some, is often preferable.
  Right now, chemotherapy is being used as a cure-all, and those who are all-in on supporting it want to expand it because what if there is cancer?! And those against it say to get rid of chemo completely because it harms so many and does much more harm than good, even when there is cancer (which is sometimes, but not always, true). But it's not a cure-all, and if you get rid of it completely you can't fight cancer, and sometimes you need to fight cancer.
  So we need to severely diminish use of it, create strong oversight as to its use, and expand funding for other curative options for things that aren't cancer related.
  (In case the analogy is not coming through, cancer is real crime, like murder, rape, etc, where physical enforcement becomes necessary. Non-cancer is stuff like wellness checks, mental health situations, traffic law enforcement, or about 90% of what police get used for).
  
  No no --- you're misreading the chemo analogy. It's not, "asking the doctor to leave it in," it's the doctor asking the patient, "what are you going to replace the cancer with?"
  The point is that if you delay the procedure until the patient gives you a satisfying answer, the cancer will have killed them. The analogy suggests that we should just do the procedure now before the patient dies, even if we can't answer every single question. Delaying the procedure is the dangerous thing, not the lack of a replacement.
  
  Ah, then in that case, it seems more like a tumor in an organ, and the doctor wanting to remove the grossly infected organ.
  The idea being, there is a necessary function being done. A tumor serves no function. But I do get the point: Leaving the tumor-ridden organ in may kill the patient faster, especially if the organ isn't currently doing it's job properly anyway. So removing it and dealing with the aftermath later could be the more reasonable play.
  
  What slaves do we need to catch?
  
  Yeah, I get the reference. What never seems to get addressed is how legitimate criminals get dealt with.
  So far the "abolish the police" ideal has all the thought of the "get rid of Obamacare" by Republicans. As much as you don't like the current system, giving no concept of what would replace it is just theatrics. It's ideological masturbation. And that's what my initial question was, that in all this has been ignored with references to how bad police are, and comparing them to tumors, or pointing to their origins.
  In this post-police world, who enforces law?
  
  There will never be a 'post-police world'. That's an impossible daydream, like honest government or peace on earth. Always civilization will need someone to deal with troublemakers, and always it will be ugly work, involving the use of force.
  To solve the ongoing and increasing problem of law enforcement routinely breaking the law, police must be overseen by people who aren't themselves police, police worshipers, police buddies, or ex-police.
  
  In this post-police world, who enforces law?
  The judicial system.
  You've not even defined the question. Maybe you should humble down the presentation.
  
  You know what I'm asking, and you know the judicial system cannot enforce law, they can only pass judgement on it. Enforcement requires force. What provides the necessary force to either keep people from or hold people accountable for rape, murder, burglary, theft, assault, etc.
  Who even gets someone into a courtroom for the judicial system to make judgement?
  The attempts to evade such a ridiculously simple question shows why this ideology is not worth considering until those who believe it actually consider it themselves.
  And to be perfectly clear, I was (and still am) wanting a legitimate answer to the question. Maybe I'm missing something? Maybe some think social pressure would work in absence of force. Maybe some believe in the equality of "rich people already do it undeterred, so poor people should be able to as well." Maybe... what? Vigilantes? I don't know. Perhaps I lack the unbridled faith in humanity that leads people to believe in a world without any enforcement of law, or the imagination to come up with some form of law enforcement without a force that upholds law. But nobody else has offered anything, so what am I to do but speculate?
  Is that humble enough?
- I like the idea of reform. Not a "retrain" sense, but a "purge every department and train the new department to the same standards as MPs, with regular auditing and oversight".
  
  The problem is that the culture attracts new, awful cops.
  Kids grow up and see the news, the movies, the jokes, the memes, the entire culture surrounding police officers getting away with murder and think, "if I want to hurt people and get away with it, I should become a cop".
  Even if you purge every department and train new cops, all of the new ones will be bad too.
  Reform won't work. Abolition will.
  
  Too many years ago, this light bulb came on in a eureka moment for me: If someone's a bully, gets great joy from cruelty, meanness, keeping people afraid, and causing pain for anyone insufficiently afraid and 'respectful', there's no career more appealing and secure than becoming a cop. That's what most cops are.
  And any hypothetical 'good cop' who isn't like that certainly knows the names of all their co-workers who are, but says nothing, is a collaborator, certainly not a 'good cop' in any fair assessment.
  
  Honestly, especially since abolition is politically impossible, I'd be pretty happy with genuine reform. It's never genuine reform, of course, if cops, ex-cops, and cops' buddies are in charge, or even allowed in the room.

21 comments