How much do we need the police? • Hacker News Board

Re: How much do we need the police?

#211

Post by 51Cards » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:08 AM UTC

awb wrote: post #174

chipperyman573 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Day 2 may have been a lot better as store owners started to take matters into their own hands. We only saw the first day, which many people were unprepared for. A lot less people would be willing to loot if they had a friend who died after getting shot by a store owner with a shotgun. Not that this is really any better, I'm just trying to say that we can't really reach any conclusions from one day of this experiment

Pretty sure gangs would take over. Power abhors a vacuum.

This. It would quickly devolve into a power struggle of who could amass the most strength. You only have to sample the mob era to see what would happen, where shop owners for example were paying for protection. In the absense of any form of control there will always be people that will take advantage and sway others to their cause.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#212

Post by asdff » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:09 AM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #175

"Police" (Edit:"modern police") is a 19th century invention, well after cities were a thing. If we get past semantics, a service that provides order and security to a community is needed. I imagine it more like social workers that also do criminal investigations for prosecutors instead of a military force for a city. Perhaps an unrelated armed "police" can help when deadly force is needed (gangs, armed criminals,etc.…

If anything, there should be more police imo but they should be disarmed with a gun being something you need to call for. There is so much petty crime, harassment, and assault that happens on a daily basis that just goes unreported or isn't followed up with since police are spread so thin, in LA at least. I want to see the return of the beat cop who walks the neighborhood regularly. I want to feel safe walking around my city and not have to watch my back for someone out of their mind on meth who might think my backpack is easy pickings.

At USC, they have these security people who just walk around the off campus area and report belligerent activity. Their uniforms are bright, so you can spot them at night and run over if needed. At the very least this sort of security needs to be in place in all parks and transit stops, there are just too many insane people left to fester on the street unfortunately. I'd love to have more shelters and mental health services built, and fully support all efforts at the ballot, but that's a 5-10 year timeline with land permitting and construction versus just handing out high vis vests and walkie talkies, and the situation certainly isn't improving in the mean time.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#213

Post by pnw_hazor » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

vncecartersknee wrote: post #138

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…

It is the natural state of criminals. Seattle suburbs were victimized by organized groups driving in car caravans from mall to mall. This occurred while police were busy in greater Seattle.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#214

Post by thephyber » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

metalgearsolid3 wrote: post #144

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 don't think you're presenting your anecdote in good faith. Either that or you're just completely unaware of the context. "Montreal was once known as the bank robbery capital of North America." https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/history-through-... NYPD went on strike in 2014, if anyone wants to research that themselves... RIP Eric Garner

> NYPD went on strike in 2014, if anyone wants to research that themselves

Vox did an analysis of the NYPD "slowdown"[1] as it was also a useful natural experiment. They didn't enforce the low-level "broken windows" crimes, but only did the minimum required by their contract. Needless to say, the city fared far better than right now.

That said, neither of these is a good example of what life would be life without government-supplied police forces. They are very rapid, unplanned changes in policy which don't allow private parties to hire private industry replacements and don't reflect how much less tax would be paid (about 40% of local government revenues).

[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-unio...

Re: How much do we need the police?

#215

Post by jiggunjer » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:11 AM UTC

missosoup wrote: post #154

seibelj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Regarding single digits vs triple digits: absolute metrics are pretty useless unless the US population is the same size as AU.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#216

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

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…

And that’s just the short term. Look at places like Somalia or Afghanistan to see what happens when law and order breaks down in a systematic way.

The issue isn’t even just “crime” in the sense of robbery, etc. When there is no police, organized crime can take over. When we lived in Bangladesh in the 1980s, a minibus full of criminals showed up at the gate of our house. (This being Dhaka in the 1980s, we had a brick wall around the whole house with broken glass on top and a big metal gate, and an armed guard out front.) I don’t know if it was because my dad hadn’t bribed the right people or what, but it took police an hour or more to respond, during which time the criminals tried to drive through our gate.

(I don’t actually disagree with the thrust of the article, which is more that we need to rethink the roles where we have police. I’m just sharing this because I’ve seen a lot of “defund the police” in my Facebook, and I strongly suspect it’s from people who have never lived somewhere without effective policing.)

Re: How much do we need the police?

#217

Post by tathougies » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

testbot123 wrote: post #194

joombaga wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point was that removing war weapons from police damages their ability to forcefully oppose organized gangs running child prostitution rings.

You mean, like... Jefferey Epstein? We spend so much time defending the rights of police to use military-grade weaponry on individual citizens that we forget that the people who are actually looting this country and committing its most grievous crimes are largely ignored.

Um okay... That's a demand for more police and police like units not less

Re: How much do we need the police?

#218

Post by asdff » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:13 AM UTC

ikeyany wrote: post #198

birdyrooster wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By civilizing the police we also mean affirmative action to bring the demographics of the officers in line with the people they serve. Removing guns wouldn’t have saved Eric Garner or George Floyd.

Other ways of turning policing away from "tacticool" policing and towards community policing: offering cops more $$$; requiring a degree or two; placing residency requirements (x cops in a precinct must live within y miles of the community they are to serve) to help weed out the bully types. That can be done in a reasonable amount of time.

To do all that you need to start with offering cops more cash, as in LA at least there is a huge recruiting problem and a staffing shortage. No one wants to be a cop, its a notoriously shit job where they haze you worse than boot camp and that's why many cops come from cop families who don't know any better than to tow the family line.

Cops in LA are also very highly paid especially in benefits and overtime. Part of the reason why they are so short staffed is that it is cheaper to pay a cop well into the 6 figures in over time and pay for one retirement pension then it is to hire two regular time cops and pay two pensions. I don't know how you fix this issue beyond enforcing stricter criminal punishment against bad cops and start actually busting heads instead of slapping wrists.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#219

Post by thephyber » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

shultays wrote: post #192

wolfgang42 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the sounds of it, tensions were already running high in the city (and the police felt that they weren’t getting paid enough to deal with it); on top of that the police had incentive to time their strike to happen at the worst possible moment. They were also joined in their protest by other groups inclined towards violence, and had reason to encourage those groups (in order to show that they were needed). The rea…

Competition is always high in between businesses. And taxi drivers are particularly nasty

But if it wasn't an instantaneous policy change, both taxi companies and limo companies would hire private security or gear up with weapons.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#220

Post by tathougies » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 3:15 AM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #202

tathougies wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadians do not have violent warlords on their streets. You don't understand what it's like to live in our (mainly South Western) cities, and live with threats of drive-by shootings, vandalism, and getting caught in gunfire. My dad worked driving around downtown LA and surrounds for 20 some odd years and there was more than a few times he was caught in gang-based gunfire. This was in the 80s and 90s mostly, and thin…

>if we legalize drugs, they'll just find something else to do, like child prostitution, unless you wanna legalize that too) If you legalize gambling, adult prostitution, and drugs it is disingenuous to suppose that criminal enterprise will somehow replace all that revenue off underage prostitution. It would absolutely pull the rug out from under them. If you give most underprivileged American youth a way to have a be…

Well we were doing that. Before covid induced economic damage we were experiencing record low unemployment among black and minority youth. Record low poverty levels, etc. In the meantime you still need crime enforcement lest you let all that earned wealth be stolen and looted by gangs.

And it is not disingenuous to suggest that criminal enterprises will switch to new enterprises when old ones are no longer profitable. Hell some gangs have switched the smuggling oil of all things.