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Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

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Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#51

Post by geggam »

thatcat wrote: post #38
c3534l wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The militarization of the police has come primarily from the militarization of criminals. Before the Valentine's Day Massacres, criminals had better cars and weapons than the police, allowing them to fight and win against the police. Prior to the LA shooting spree, police had no way to fight a criminal armed with assault weapons and no training on how to do so without endangering the public. When I lived in St. Louis…

>police got tanks and other military equipment from out of state and then never let go of them This is related to the economic dynamics of military surplus and nothing more.

If you believe that then you havent read history

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#52

Post by merpnderp »

DanBC wrote: post #32
dcolkitt wrote: post #9

> Cooperating with law enforcement is often morally and practically unthinkable for the city’s most vulnerable The article has a really big blind spot, in that it fails to mention the Drug War even a single time. If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army- the militarization of weapons and approaches, the festering hostility between the police and the policed, the heavy-handed suspicion…

Other places have a war on drugs, or have regulations about lemonade stands, and they don't have the pathologically awful policing that the US has. The US is extraordinarily violent. That's where you need to start: why is violence so common and acceptable in the US?

The US is a violent place even without guns. The murder rates for non-gun violence are still astronomical compared to other developed countries. It's likely always been violent place, so how does that change?

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#53

Post by celticmusic »

sandworm101 wrote: post #43
dcolkitt wrote: post #9

> Cooperating with law enforcement is often morally and practically unthinkable for the city’s most vulnerable The article has a really big blind spot, in that it fails to mention the Drug War even a single time. If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army- the militarization of weapons and approaches, the festering hostility between the police and the policed, the heavy-handed suspicion…

>> If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army... then you have to start with the Drug War. Go back much further than that. Go back to the civil rights movement. Go back to jim crow. The history of the American war on drugs was born of racism and continues its birthright. That is the real sticking point, the source of the high emotions surrounding drugs. The drug war is a proxy for much…

The motivation for the war on drugs is not borne out of racism, but a combination of greed and public safety concern.

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#54

Post by maxerickson »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #39
jadell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always felt weird to me that most of the rationale for policing drug use is based on preventing the crimes a user might commit while on drugs, rather than just the prosecuting the crimes they actually do commit while on drugs. "You can't do heroin because you'll get addicted and might steal in order to fuel your addiction." "But I haven't actually stolen anything yet, so what crime has been committed?" Are there a…

Speeding. Public intoxication. Keeping an attractive nuisance.

Speeding and attractive nuisances are only victimless if you squint, as they both pretty clearly are statistically harmful to others (not when I speed a bunch of people feel the need to say I'm sure).

Public intoxication less so, but it is also mostly used as a pretext to remove people from public spaces in cases where it is obvious they shouldn't be there.

Speeding is also mostly treated as a minor infraction, not quite a crime. Sure, if you really do it good, you can get detained for an extended period of time, but you really have to do it good to end up in that situation.

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#55

Post by danmaz74 »

DanBC wrote: post #32
dcolkitt wrote: post #9

> Cooperating with law enforcement is often morally and practically unthinkable for the city’s most vulnerable The article has a really big blind spot, in that it fails to mention the Drug War even a single time. If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army- the militarization of weapons and approaches, the festering hostility between the police and the policed, the heavy-handed suspicion…

Other places have a war on drugs, or have regulations about lemonade stands, and they don't have the pathologically awful policing that the US has. The US is extraordinarily violent. That's where you need to start: why is violence so common and acceptable in the US?

I'm pretty sure that the number of guns really doesn't help. If I were a police officer, I would be much more nervous in the US than most of Europe (to make an example).

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#56

Post by fredgrott »

celticmusic wrote: post #53
sandworm101 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army... then you have to start with the Drug War. Go back much further than that. Go back to the civil rights movement. Go back to jim crow. The history of the American war on drugs was born of racism and continues its birthright. That is the real sticking point, the source of the high emotions surrounding drugs. The drug war is a proxy for much…

The motivation for the war on drugs is not borne out of racism, but a combination of greed and public safety concern.

nope see the original conviction of very famous black singers in the 1950s its right in the court transcripts read up please

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#57

Post by edent »

celticmusic wrote: post #53
sandworm101 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army... then you have to start with the Drug War. Go back much further than that. Go back to the civil rights movement. Go back to jim crow. The history of the American war on drugs was born of racism and continues its birthright. That is the real sticking point, the source of the high emotions surrounding drugs. The drug war is a proxy for much…

The motivation for the war on drugs is not borne out of racism, but a combination of greed and public safety concern.

"Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice."

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities."

"In 2013, the ACLU published a report titled "The War on Marijuana in Black and White". The report found that despite marijuana use being roughly equal between blacks and whites, blacks are 3.73 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decriminalization_of_non-medic...

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#58

Post by saagarjha »

merpnderp wrote: post #45
sandworm101 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army... then you have to start with the Drug War. Go back much further than that. Go back to the civil rights movement. Go back to jim crow. The history of the American war on drugs was born of racism and continues its birthright. That is the real sticking point, the source of the high emotions surrounding drugs. The drug war is a proxy for much…

There was definitely racism in the passing and enforcing of these laws. There was also definitely communities overran with drug related crime that were desperate for help. When a single mom can't buy her kid a bicycle because the last 3 have been stolen out from under him by addicts looking to score, she's going to ask the her elected representatives for help.

> When a single mom can't buy her kid a bicycle because the last 3 have been stolen out from under him by addicts looking to score

That seems like burglary/robbery rather than a drug-related offense.

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#59

Post by goliatone »

celticmusic wrote: post #53
sandworm101 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army... then you have to start with the Drug War. Go back much further than that. Go back to the civil rights movement. Go back to jim crow. The history of the American war on drugs was born of racism and continues its birthright. That is the real sticking point, the source of the high emotions surrounding drugs. The drug war is a proxy for much…

The motivation for the war on drugs is not borne out of racism, but a combination of greed and public safety concern.

> The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#60

Post by hobs »

celticmusic wrote: post #53
sandworm101 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army... then you have to start with the Drug War. Go back much further than that. Go back to the civil rights movement. Go back to jim crow. The history of the American war on drugs was born of racism and continues its birthright. That is the real sticking point, the source of the high emotions surrounding drugs. The drug war is a proxy for much…

The motivation for the war on drugs is not borne out of racism, but a combination of greed and public safety concern.

You are deeply incorrect. The drug war is an explicit war on non-whites; the drug war disproportionately effects POC more than any other factor by an enormous amount.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war

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