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How much do we need the police?

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Re: How much do we need the police?

#131

Post by kyleee »

wolfgang42 wrote: post #80
BurningFrog wrote: post #38

Montreal once had a 16 hour police strike, creating a natural experiment in what happens without police. Steven Pinker describes how that went: > "As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the…

I’m not convinced that eliminating police altogether is a good idea, but after reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot (which cites your Stephen Pinker quote), I don’t think that a situation which also involved “taxi drivers... armed with Molotov cocktails” is representative of what might happen if police departments were disbanded under other circumstances. (Edit: I regret putting snark over substance…

" I don’t think that a situation which also involved “taxi drivers... armed with Molotov cocktails” is representative of what might happen if police departments were disbanded under other circumstances"

Why not?

Re: How much do we need the police?

#132

Post by toomanybeersies »

haecceity wrote: post #82
kenz0r wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to correct you on firearms. Police officers in Australia are generally issues firearms (semi-automatic pistols).

I thought British police mostly don't carry firearms.

Same with police in New Zealand. It's part of the Peelian Principles and policing by consent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles

Re: How much do we need the police?

#133

Post by seibelj »

redis_mlc wrote: post #122
seibelj wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are also greatly exaggerating the risk to citizens in the USA when calling the police. The risk is not to the caller, the risk is to the alleged criminal that may get manhandled (or shot) way out of proportion to the offense. But you don’t make a mental “death chance calculation” when you call the cops.

Good luck with that. Because domestic calls are so unpredictable in a gun-owning society, callers can expect to see a drawn gun pointing at you. The police often do no-knock residential intrusions, while throwing a grenade into the house. (For non-US readers: I'm not exaggerating. "Dirty Harry" movies are documentaries about living in the US.)

You are reading news on the internet and extrapolating to the entire USA. Yes, there is a real problem with police brutality here, no question. I am not a fan of the police in general. But we are not living in a wild-west hellscape where anything goes. The protests are necessary and so is reform, but these are the extreme cases in a country of 330mil people.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#134

Post by megameter »

bluedays wrote: post #55
reificator wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you make it to a full blown riot you have MESSED UP. Or you lost a sports game, let's not pretend the bar for rioting is very high... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_rio... EDIT: Sorry, I missed "you just won a sports game" as a reason for rioting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_riot > After the Canadiens defeated the Boston Bruins in the first round of the 2008 Stanley Cup playoff…

Yeah, sports riots are actually just dumb. But it's also a separate issue entirely. It's like seeing a scatter plot and being like but what about this point right here ---------------------------->

In sports riots, the police just stand by and give a graduated response. They don't run around clubbing sports fans. They are perfectly happy to engage in dramatic standoff and dispersal with political protestors, though.

However to understand why this would be the case(starting from a naive POV), you have to go beyond general discussion of injustices and reforms into deeper examination of the power structure and loyalties, which is hard to surface out of soundbite media.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#135

Post by hedora »

evan_ wrote: post #24

In Eugene, OR, where I live, there is a program called CAHOOTS ("Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets") which is more or less the mental health equivalent of an ambulance. They're dispatched by non-emergency operators to situations such as mental health crises, public intoxication, and welfare checks- things where police officers would be asked to serve as a social worker, as the article puts it. My understan…

California used to have programs like this in the 80’s. They were outlawed as part of Regan’s war on mental illness (or whatever he called it).

A friend of mine went through this, so I went through all the options with the a few emergency psychiatric wards.

These days, even if the person has medical insurance or someone wants to pay out of pocket, the mental health professionals aren’t allowed to do anything without getting the person in need of emergency care to sign an emergency consent form under their own free will, and while capable of making legal decisions (which is by-definition impossible). Pre signing the form “just in case” doesn’t count. My friend did this, in fact.

Other than waiting for the situation to escalate to violence (and getting the person incarcerated without care) the only option is to have a police officer (with no medical credentials) come out and make a diagnosis.

The officer almost always (and in this case, did) overrides any doctors and loved ones involved in the case, and finds that the person does not need care.

The triage nurse at one of the care centers told me that most residents of the many waterfront encampments in the city were people her office had previously turned away.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#136

Post by toomanybeersies »

missosoup wrote: post #102
djrobstep wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what part of Australia you're in, but literally every cop I've ever encountered here carries a firearm. They also have a pretty decent rep for brutality themselves, particularly if you're indigenous. So you are presenting a very misleading view.

Yes most police in AU carry a firearm. No they don't have a 'decent rep' for brutality, whatever that means. Comparing AU police to US police is insane. Every encounter with police like a traffic stop in the US is a nonzero chance of getting killed. That's not at all comparable to Australia where there are no tasers and the use of lethal force is in the single digits per year nationally. The view you're presenting is…

Compared to US police, Aussie cops are pleasant and agreeable. But compared to New Zealand police, they're still brutes. I've never had an encounter with police in another developed nation, so that's my only real comparison I can make, Colombian police certainly aren't polite and civil.

Don't just judge the police on your experiences as an innocent bystander, but by how they treat those they think are less innocent. Police in Australia are far more likely to use violence and intimidation than Kiwi cops, in a large part because they are armed. Carrying a firearm creates an inherent power imbalance and a willingness to use violence and force to resolve an incident than deescalation techniques. NZ cops are much more likely to attempt to defuse the situation, or avoid the situation becoming (potentially) violent in the first place, using force is seen as a last resort than a first option (although it's a different story if you're Maori or Polynesian).

Re: How much do we need the police?

#137

Post by seibelj »

missosoup wrote: post #121
seibelj wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are also greatly exaggerating the risk to citizens in the USA when calling the police. The risk is not to the caller, the risk is to the alleged criminal that may get manhandled (or shot) way out of proportion to the offense. But you don’t make a mental “death chance calculation” when you call the cops.

> You are also greatly exaggerating the risk to citizens in the USA "Noor was convicted of third degree murder and second degree manslaughter for killing Ms Damond Ruszczyk just minutes after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her Minneapolis home in July 2017." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-08/mohamed-noor-sentence... > The risk is not to the caller Just yesterday there was…

Believe me - I am not a fan of the police in general - but you are cherry picking some extreme examples. There are many cases of police brutality in Australia.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/it-does-happen-here-calls-to...

> “The family of an Aboriginal man who died in custody says protests against police brutality in the US should be a wake-up call about the plight of Indigenous Australians in the justice system.

> Speaking in the wake of video footage of an Aboriginal teenager being kicked to the ground by a NSW policeman, Paul Francis-Silva, whose uncle died in a Sydney prison in 2015, said: "It does happen here in Australia - the brutality, and the injustice against the First Nations people.”

You could also agree Australians are full of racist, evil cops as well, yes? Or is picking a few extreme examples not allowed for your country?

Re: How much do we need the police?

#138

Post by vncecartersknee »

BurningFrog wrote: post #38

Montreal once had a 16 hour police strike, creating a natural experiment in what happens without police. Steven Pinker describes how that went: > "As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the…

How is this a natural experiment? Anarchism isn't just "when there are no police" Obviously looting should be read as exposing underlying ills and unmet needs within society. Like are you suggesting the natural state of people is just to loot and behave completely selfishly? look how many people in just the US riots alone cooperated to form medical stations, to work against police tactics, to make sure protestors had water and snacks etc..

Re: How much do we need the police?

#139

Post by usrusr »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #52
usrusr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do need some people to be in charge of violence. If you make that their only job you'll be in a situation of hammers seeing nails wherever they look. You'll be much better off assigning that unavoidable violence duty to people whose main responsibilities and qualifications lie elsewhere.

> If you make that their only job you'll be in a situation of hammers seeing nails wherever they look. That depends entirely on how much power you give them, and how much accountability you impose upon their use of it. The primary role of police in society is to simply be the wide end of the funnel for the incarceration pipeline. Trying to give them duties that conflict with those objectives is simply always going to…

No amount of power removal and accountability will change the "nails" perception if the only job they have is hammering.

> The primary role of police in society is to simply be the wide end of the funnel for the incarceration pipeline.

Only if your idea of a perfect society is one where everybody is incarcerated. I'd rather have one where as few people as possible need to be incarcerated to keep order.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#140

Post by billme »

always_left wrote: post #28

Does anyone ever take justice into their own hands? Not recommending it, but my neighbor's car was stolen so I went out and found it for them that day. It was reported missing but I had a feeling it wasn't going to be actively looked for due to the severity of the crime.

How exactly did you find the car?
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