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How much do we need the police?

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Re: How much do we need the police?

#151

Post by hedora »

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.

The penalties for taking the law into your own hands are generally highly asymmetric and in favor of the original perpetrator.

For example, if you forced the car thieves out of the car, or parked it in place by blocking the road, you might be looking at assault charges.

Similar arguments can be said for most other common crimes.

Consider noise ordinances (harassing / threatening your neighbor until they shut up), trespassers (Threats? Forcibly move them?), burglaries (rob them back?), domestic violence (victims that kill the assailant are often charged with premeditated murder), etc.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#152

Post by 01100011 »

jorblumesea wrote: post #29

One of my current frustrations with American politics is how radical everything has become. The debate is now, either we don't have any police and defund them, or, we allow them to continue being completely unaccountable. Neither of those situations sound ideal. It feels like Europe and other places have a much more reasonable and nuanced view. Police get funded, and well funded, but the job requirements are strict,…

Times like this are not conducive to moderate ideas. Everyone craves revolution without thinking through the consequences. Even MLK was frustrated with 'white liberals' like me who favor incremental change over quick, revolutional change. I still unapologetically advocate for a slow, reasoned approach however.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#153

Post by mac-chaffee »

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…

To the interviewee's credit, he specifically distances himself from this kind of situation:

> Well, I'm certainly not talking about any kind of scenario where tomorrow someone just flips a switch and there are no police. What I'm talking about is the systematic questioning of the specific roles that police currently undertake, and attempting to develop evidence-based alternatives so that we can dial back our reliance on them. And my feeling is that this encompasses actually the vast majority of what police do. We have better alternatives for them.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#154

Post by missosoup »

seibelj wrote: post #137
missosoup wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. >…

You're comparing single-digits per decade incidents which incite national outcry, with triple-digits per year incidents which are taken as a fact of life in the US. And you're trying to set a narrative that somehow those are comparable. They are not.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#155

Post by yters »

A lot of the areas the author says police are now dealing with used to be dealt with by religious organizations. Perhaps religious organizations should be encouraged to play a bigger role in the public sphere.

To make a tired argument, without any sort of moral guidance, people have no reason to live other than for their immediate needs. On of my friends grew up in the Baltimore inner city, and he says this is how most people are. They just act on their impulses and smash in a friend's face because they owe a few dollars. What turned my friend's life around is his decision to follow God instead of his own desires. I think there is something to that. It doesn't seem that giving people free money and housing solves the problem.

There are many much more destituted countries than inner city USA where people have much more functional societies with much less. I spent most of my childhood growing up in such a place. No running water or plumbing. Limited technology. Electricity one hour a week. Everyone walked everywhere. People lived off of what they could gather and fish. There wasn't widespread violence, drug use, sexual abuse, etc. like we see in the inner cities. The difference is these communities were very religious (muslim and animism) and they did not have much exposure to corrupting US substances such as drugs and pornography.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#156

Post by 01100011 »

themagician wrote: post #19

How much you need the police depends on how much capital you have. If you don’t have any the police don’t do much for you. In a world of increasing inequality fewer people need the police.

It's this sort of insulting, absolutist bullshit that drags down the debate. Do you really think police do nothing for, say, abused poor women? Sure, the cops have serious issues we need to address, but the issue is more nuanced than 'all cops are evil'.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#158

Post by missosoup »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #136
missosoup wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Sure. Aussie cops aren't angels at all. But comparing Aussie cops to US cops in terms of use of violence, poor judgement, etc. is insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFaPooJBDSg

Imagine this situation playing out in the states. Guy would be riddled with bullets in seconds.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#159

Post by themagician »

01100011 wrote: post #156
themagician wrote: post #19

How much you need the police depends on how much capital you have. If you don’t have any the police don’t do much for you. In a world of increasing inequality fewer people need the police.

It's this sort of insulting, absolutist bullshit that drags down the debate. Do you really think police do nothing for, say, abused poor women? Sure, the cops have serious issues we need to address, but the issue is more nuanced than 'all cops are evil'.

It’s not absolutist at all. I didn’t say they do nothing. I didn’t say all cops are evil. Those are your words mate.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#160

Post by vkou »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #126
tathougies wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A war on people shooting each other on our streets? A war on child trafficking? It's not about drugs, it's not about gangs. It's about how both those things lead to homicides and child endangerment. I don't care if a group of kids wants to band together. I don't care if someone wants to take a substance so they can trip. I care when -- in pursuit of those things -- children die, people are beaten and sodomized, sons…

Precisely zero people are out protesting excessive use of force against organized gangs running child prostitution rings.

That's because roughly 99% of the public is already convinced that they are a bad thing.

~50% of the public believes that police accountability is a bad thing. If it didn't, nobody would be out, protesting against it.

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