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

Re: How much do we need the police?

#251

Post by warkdarrior » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:12 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #236

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…

But that's a terrible experiment! For one, you're in a situation where the only people with serious weapons are criminals and police (because non-criminals could generally trust the police to handle violence for them). You haven't armed the populace, you haven't set up civilian watches, you haven't done any of the things that would happen in a society actually set up to be sustainably police-free. You took a society…

> You haven't armed the populace, you haven't set up civilian watches

Isn't that reinventing the police, just with a different name?

Re: How much do we need the police?

#252

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:12 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #86

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…

>The police seem like soldiers because we have asked them to fight a war, and we're okay with civilians being collateral damage. A war on... what? Drugs? Gangs? Are those things that can be fought with assault rifles and MRAPs? This whole situation is reminiscent of the wars of vietnam, iraq, and afghanistan.

The tyranny Athens imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. -- Thucydides

Re: How much do we need the police?

#253

Post by mjevans » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

Ididntdothis wrote: post #2

I agree that police is being pushed into policing things they aren’t suited for. For example, cops just shouldn’t be in schools. I think the biggest crime is the drug war. Most aggravations come from drug related arrests.

I don't do drugs (aside from caffeine) myself, not even the legal ones. I'd also prefer smoking were banned (please, please, buy edibles). Yet I'd still generally legalize, and regulate (nearly) everything.

The "drug" war is entirely caused by society being crummy and having incomplete social safety nets. Those things should ALSO be fixed, but take far longer than a moderately sized reply to even begin to discuss. Staying on topic for just 'the drug war' and related arrests.

It would be trivial to make all of the criminals in the drug war vanish nearly instantly: just make getting a drug fix legal, cheap, and easy. (General reference, compare the Prohibition of Alcohol to booze today vs other drugs.)

Yes, some drugs are really bad, but making them not-legally-obtainable just means some criminal's going to fill the gap.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#254

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

gowld wrote: post #79

Sniffnoy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this silly. It acts as if people are incapable of assessing situations and then selecting the best action based on that situation. Yes, police have the authority to use violence; that doesn't necessarily mean they have to have some sort of essence of violence that drives them to be violent all the time. Indeed, police in many situations do successfully negotiate situations without employing violence. So, clear…

The military aren't police. Yes, they are pretty good at RoE, and when it's time to shoot, they shoot the hell out of their target. But their job is distinctly not to spend all day in pursuit of individual criminals and apprehending them. Military tries to avoid contact with criminals until it's fireball time.

That isn't police's job either. As Stuart Schrader recently documented on "Intercepted", the average cop makes one felony arrest per year. [0] Most of the time they're doing exactly what we've somehow noticed them doing recently: menacing people who don't have resources to defend themselves.

[0] https://theintercept.com/2020/06/03/the-rebellion-in-defense...

Re: How much do we need the police?

#255

Post by twyleo123 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #249

tathougies wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Presumably this "oil smuggling" (couldn't it simply have been buying and selling?) took place before the current steep drop in the price of oil...

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mexico-v...

A few morsels:

> Over the next two years, Arredondo said, he would be hounded, kidnapped, pistol-whipped and stabbed so severely that surgeons removed his gall bladder. In December 2016, he fled to Canada, where he now seeks asylum from gangs that steal fuel from Salamanca and five other refineries operated by Pemex, the state-owned oil company.

...

> Fuel theft is fast becoming one of Mexico’s most pressing economic and security dilemmas, sapping more than $1 billion in annual revenue from state coffers, terrorizing workers and deterring private investment in aging refineries that the government, following a 2014 energy reform, hoped instead would be thriving with foreign capital.

...

> Between 2011 and 2016, the number of unauthorized taps discovered on Mexico’s fuel lines nearly quintupled, according to a recent report by the federal auditor. Repair costs surged almost tenfold, to 1.77 billion pesos ($95 million).

...

> A May 2017 study, commissioned by the national energy regulator and obtained by Reuters via a freedom of information request, found that thieves, between 2009 and 2016, had tapped pipelines roughly every 1.4 kms (0.86 mi) along Pemex’s approximately 14,000 km pipeline network.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#256

Post by throwaway894345 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #236

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…

But that's a terrible experiment! For one, you're in a situation where the only people with serious weapons are criminals and police (because non-criminals could generally trust the police to handle violence for them). You haven't armed the populace, you haven't set up civilian watches, you haven't done any of the things that would happen in a society actually set up to be sustainably police-free. You took a society…

Why don’t we look at societies without police and contrast them to societies with police and tease out which have better outcomes?

Re: How much do we need the police?

#257

Post by tathougies » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

electricviolet wrote: post #173

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I'm kind of besides myself about how "abolishing police" is treated as a serious proposal, when the most deaths and violence occur in profoundly vulnerable communities where disbanding police would almost certainly result in innocent people having no protection against criminals. It's pretty clear that police unions allow for a lot of this institutional rot and inability to address abuse. I fear that the left doe…

Most of the left leaders I follow and trust are specifically opposed to police unions due to the fact that they protect violent officers. Let's not lump other public sector unions in with police unions; the teacher's union has nothing to do with police brutality.

Well the teachers union in lausd at least is well known for protecting pedophiles salaries.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#258

Post by tathougies » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:27 AM UTC

nmca wrote: post #77

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,…

It's a guns issue, surely? Not got the exact stats but for 2019 I think police killings in the UK ~3 and US ~1000, with only a 5x difference in population. I'm a well spoken law abiding white guy and American cops frighten me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enfo... https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police...

I'm a well spoken law abiding brown guy and American police don't frighten me. Have you considered your fears are not grounded in reality? Even with the cop killings as high as they are (and they should be lower), you are much more likely to be hurt by criminal violence than violence from the police.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#259

Post by tathougies » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:29 AM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #171

oh_sigh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police try to find and arrest rapists, who would probably go on to rape other people if they weren't in prison.

You would think. But I know someone who was raped. The guy even bragged about it. But the DA declined to prosecute.

The da is not the police.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#260

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:29 AM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #96

remember_george wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing how George Floyd moved to Minneapolis to do ministry work I bet he didn’t even know the bill was counterfeited.

AFAICT we still don't even know whether the bill was actually counterfeit. It's not a useful fact for either side of the Culture War.

Yeah this is the sort of bullshit detail that gets inserted into the narrative for CYA reasons. Pedestrian hit-and-run victims are reported as cyclists because of course drivers can't help but run over cyclists. The scary black man was "menacing" Karen, not telling her to pick up her dog's nasty excrement in the public park. Obvious bullshit.