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Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

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Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#121
post #10

I mentioned this solution in a comment the other day. The NCAA gives sports programs the 'death penalty' when the 'loss of institutional control' [0] is so great the only fix is to disband and start over. Having it as an option is a good thing. The people in charge can't use an 'I didn't know' defense, because that itself is evidence of loss of institutional control. [0] https://www.ncaa.org/governance/institutional-…

The NCAA's only major death penalty was given to SMU and it devastated the local economy so much, with many restaurants, for example, going bankrupt, that they will never do it again. And SMU has been flagged for violations since then, also. The collateral damage is tremendous and the result after the calamity, as in Animal Farm, is not much different.

Additionally, "lack of institutional control" often means someone loses their career because of something done by someone else that took great pains to hide their malfeasance.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#122
That's actually great. All the power to them for willing to risk it, and a net benefit for everyone else watching how that experiment turns out.

I share the sentiment that police doesn't eradicate crime; it's a way to manage chronic crime, but not a solution in itself. However, take the chronic management away without solving the problem at the core and you're in for a much bigger problem.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Bodycams - Mandatory psych evals half-yearly - Anonymous corruption reporting - Reduce/eliminate drug penalties - Eliminate civil forfeiture - Ticketing revenues no longer fund the department - Expanded auditing of violent calls Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. I fully expect MN to swing red this election as a result of this.

> Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. This is a totally uncalled for generalization. That aside, most of the items you've listed work against the policies that police abolitionists are fighting for. Here's a good explanation: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59ead8f9692ebee25b72f...

The doc is really weird. It picks and evaluates dimensions that obviously will improve after disbanding the police, but doesn’t try to address the question if the actual safety will improve. Instead it looks at whether disbanding the police will “ challenge the notion that police increase safety?” wtf. Also hard to believe that more training and bodycams have negative effect on actual quality of policing and safety. Any data to support this?

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#125
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, Americans need to realize that almost everything about our society is a bad first draft, in need of prompt replacement. People reflexively defend existing institutions, but the more I've thought about it over the years, the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving. Police departments might be a good place to start, but most American cities also need to address structural d…

>the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving I would suggest living in a third or second world country without outside support. I had your same mindset, and did that for a few years. I could not wait to come back.

Actually it was living abroad in a third world nation that soured me on America. Bringing my children back to the USA was painful to me and disappointing to them.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#126
post #55

The US has lots of different police forces – city police, county police, state police. Many other countries have more centralised policing with fewer levels. I think, a smaller number of bigger police forces might promote more professionalism, more professional management, oversight by more experienced politicians (state political leaders tend to be more experienced and capable than local political leaders, especiall…

The problem is that there is no organization that is incentivized to uncover or investigate police crimes. All other portions of government have cross-checks to stop people breaking the law. The police don't, and cover for one another. There needs to be an organization that has clear and direct incentive to prosecute abuses by the police, that doesn't have a century+ long tradition of violence, selective enforcement,…

But it would seem far more feasible to build an organization like that to oversee one unified police force than to have n tiny organizations to oversee n small local police forces. If you'd try to mix levels (one central org cross-checking n small forces) everybody involved would inevitably confuse their role with a central coordination hierarchy and the original intent would get lost.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's directly comparable. It didn't work so well in Ukraine either, which has an educated, Western society. They disbanded and "rebuilt" their police force to step away from Russian influences. Corruption came back, but in the meantime, a lot of operation efficiency was lost. Swapping out a police department is much like swapping out a dev team - you are losing a LOT of tribal knowledge, and you have few guarantees t…

They are not doing that to solve any real problems. They are doing that to calm down the mob.

Of course, but some people listening to the mob think it will actually do something.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but the more I've thought about it over the years, the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving There is so much about America that is worth preserving. One easy example right off the top of my head is the law and culture that enables people to peacefully demonstrate like they are today. Even discussing the idea of doing this in many countries could get you killed - or worse! Tha…

> The idea of an internment camp is not even considered. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/us/ice-detention-coronavirus-... https://www.insider.com/report-detention-centers-use-disinfe... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-fac... https://archive.is/bxmYQ [WaPo]

Those are for people who are specifically not here legally and therefore don't recieve the full protection of our constitution and laws. While I vehemently disagree with these camps, there's no reason to assume a re-born America's laws would apply to people who are not citizens/legally accepted into its borders. A fix for these camps would be to guarantee the same protections we Americans enjoy to people who come here illegally, which can be accomplished using the current framework we have today.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#129
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, Americans need to realize that almost everything about our society is a bad first draft, in need of prompt replacement. People reflexively defend existing institutions, but the more I've thought about it over the years, the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving. Police departments might be a good place to start, but most American cities also need to address structural d…

>but the more I've thought about it over the years, the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving There is so much about America that is worth preserving. One easy example right off the top of my head is the law and culture that enables people to peacefully demonstrate like they are today. Even discussing the idea of doing this in many countries could get you killed - or worse! Tha…

> One easy example right off the top of my head is the law and culture that enables people to peacefully demonstrate

If you compare that right to any other country in the West, it doesn't look so peaceful and free.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#130

"Dissolve the organization and start over from scratch" is an under-used solution in American life, even in the private sector. Apparently Camden, NJ did a version of this in 2013 with a fair amount of success: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camde...

Google up how Georgia completely disbanded its police, and remade it from scratch: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=484947...
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