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The privatization of policing

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Re: The privatization of policing

#221

Post by kodyo »

djha-skin wrote: post #9

As a country we have played around with private policing (the Pinkerton detective agency) after the civil war. We decided we didn't like it. Privatization of police is bad because only those with money get the benefits. What's this article does not talk about are the countless neighborhoods and streets that don't have security guards protecting them. The article puts security guards in a very pretty light and maybe t…

Do you believe that government police equally benefit all populations?

That’s a really weird thing to believe.

Re: The privatization of policing

#222

Post by kodyo »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #60
kneebonian wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an alternative to that as well. When the poor couldn't pay for the private police they didn't just give up on security they just created their own police force, the Italian Mafia the Irish mob, etc. Almost all of these started to provide security to communities that were otherwise not being provided for.

The Bloods being another infamous example of gang starting out as self-protection.

That’s how police departments started out, too.

Re: The privatization of policing

#223

Post by kodah »

JeremyNT wrote: post #193
lbarrow wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bizarre. I live in Chicago and don't have to deal with anything like this. The West coast has a really strange set of blinkers on about these problems.

I spend a lot of time in Chicago and always find it safe and pleasant. Yet when I talk to some people, typically of a conservative persuasion, they describe it as an urban hellscape in the same way some posters here describe SF or Portland. A failed city that people are fleeing, with impossibly high taxes, no remaining police, rife with crime, and with corrupt bureaucrats suckling on the government teat at every turn…

Here's the Portland political map: https://bestneighborhood.org/conservative-vs-liberal-map-por...

As you can see, Portland proper is nearly entirely Democrat. I'm a registered Democrat as well (I'm OP). Prior to this I lived in San Jose. Portland is a lovely city, but talking about what's going on here doesn't make folks Republican.

Re: The privatization of policing

#224

Post by JoeyBananas »

rainsford wrote: post #51
rayiner wrote: post #12

> People who voted to defund the police are now paying for private security. Multnomah County, where downtown Portland is located, is bluer than blue. Joe Biden won there by more than 79 percent of the votes in 2020. And these people want their private security to come with guns. Leaving aside the quibble about whether anyone literally voted to “defund the police,” I do find this phenomenon interesting. Our “progress…

Isn't it a fairly reasonable and consistent position to be in favor of armed professionals with a specific need to carry a weapon but opposed to everyone being able to carry a weapon around whenever they feel like it? The situation you mention is only a gotcha or a contradiction if you assume "gun control" means "nobody should ever have a gun for any reason", which I don't think is an actual view held by many people.

What if the average Joe is the one who has some specific need to carry a weapon? Who will hire the armed professional to protect him after they defund the police?

This line of reasoning is a contradiction because it leads to the conclusion "The average Joe should carry a gun."

Re: The privatization of policing

#225

Post by rjtavares »

BirAdam wrote: post #191
rjtavares wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm shocked (but not totally surprised) at the response to the concept on HN. I cannot even imagine how one could think this is a good thing - necessary, I can understand, but not a good thing. I don't even know how to argue that this is bad. I'll just lose all my faith in society if this ever happens where I live.

I’m curious as to your thoughts if you care to share. I’m not really a partisan on anything, but I am strongly distrustful of both megacorps and government.

Equality before the law is a basic principle of Democracy. A privatized police will not, by design, apply the law equally to all people. That's unacceptable.

Re: The privatization of policing

#226

Post by EFreethought »

thrillgore wrote: post #74
BirAdam wrote: post #8

First, I like this model of private policing. In the instance the article sites, the security force went at the heart of the problem rather than throwing someone into a cage. That’s a good thing. Second, if you have a failure from a public institution, a private alternative is a good thing. You get more competition, which often yields better results. Third, this isn’t very thought out, but trimming public police forc…

It's January 2nd and we're already at Peak HN. I'd rather have a semi-accountable government service than a private one in my cyberpunk hell.

When you start cargo-culting Chesterton's Fence, then you are at peak HN.

Re: The privatization of policing

#227

Post by MilStdJunkie »

zdragnar wrote: post #217
giraffe_lady wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merely mentioning the publication a writer voluntarily contributes to is not ad hominem are you serious lol. That is a simple fact about their body of work. It is also not prejudiced to evaluate a single work of a writer in its context within their oeuvre, and to consider your own knowledge of their previous works when evaluating a new one. That is merely judgement , friend. You might would have us so carefully prune…

The first two lines are statements of fact. The third line: > Alrighty then. is a blatant dog whistle. Even without the last line, it's not enough to simply say "just providing context!" It's a bit like jumping into a conversation about the affordable care act by saying "President Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. He was mentored by Bill Ayers, a man the FBI described as the leader of a terrorist group." It is a…

Do people choose their middle names, generally? Cassius Clay did, and it most certainly informed on the things he said later, after making that decision. If he was born Muhammad Ali, then it would be a shitty thing to do to judge his words on his birth name.

Did associating with Ayers preclude Obama from getting a TSC? Nope. Ayers wasn't active when he was Obama's BFF. He wasn't even a felon. Maybe Ayers was Wundergrounding it up in 2008, but he wasn't, unless I guess he was?

There was a political price paid there[1] - in Obama's choice of mentors - and if that's not perceptible I don't know what to say. Among people who cared, Ayers. was a millstone. Among other people, it was a selling point. Which hits to the point of why everyone's getting so incensed right here and now: Bill Ayers was a hero to a part of America, and to another part of America he was the devil himself.

We're in the same land, but we've come to have completely opposite values, fundamentally different, so that everything becomes an existential threat. The idea that this crisis has been artificially generated is of course scurrilous and would never occur to someone with a generous view of human behavior.

[1] Conveniently steering eyeballs away from Goldman's PAC effectively putting Obama on the DNC board.

Re: The privatization of policing

#228

Post by [deleted] »

phpisthebest wrote: post #201
jrochkind1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"entire segments of the criminal code void by saying they will not peruse any cases for violations of those acts. Shoplifting is one such law they often ignore" Are you exagerating? I don't think anyone anywhere has completely stopped prosecuting shoplifting. Or if they have somewhere, please cite specifically, either with numbers, or with enough context so we can try to find some. There are some places where shoplif…

>>I don't think anyone anywhere has completely stopped prosecuting shoplifting. San Francisco where functionally anything under $900 is not prosecuted. That is the big one NYC has also had its fair share of this. >>When we can't talk about what's really going on without exagerating It is not really exaggerating, I am not talking about individual cases where an Assistant DA looks at a case in their professional review…

[deleted]

Re: The privatization of policing

#229

Post by BirAdam »

rjtavares wrote: post #225
BirAdam wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious as to your thoughts if you care to share. I’m not really a partisan on anything, but I am strongly distrustful of both megacorps and government.

Equality before the law is a basic principle of Democracy. A privatized police will not, by design, apply the law equally to all people. That's unacceptable.

The current system does not apply the law equally. While I agree in principle, reality doesn’t match the reported ideal. This isn’t due just to police forces, but also to judges, juries, and the quality of lawyers. The rich, the good looking, and the well spoken have a distinct advantage in the court system. Additionally, most people never have their day in court, they’re instead pressured and intimidated into plea bargaining.

Re: The privatization of policing

#230

Post by mikem170 »

phpisthebest wrote: post #195
mikem170 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that wage-theft specifically is a tangent here. But I do believe there is more to talk about, this isn't something to dismiss so easily. Why are we allowing the victims of shoplifting to hire armed guards with not enough training or accountability to selectively enforce laws in public spaces as they see fit, sometimes abusing law abiding citizens, as mentioned [0] earlier in this thread? Is that ok? Isn't the…

>>Why are we allowing the victims of shoplifting to hire armed guards you have flipped the proposition from where it should be ethically. Everyone has the clear and natural right to defend themselves and their property from aggression including theft, We create governments in order to protect our rights, persons and property when government fails in its only job it reverts back to the individual to secure themselves…

> The state has the self declared monopoly on the INITIATION of violence. Meaning the state has declared that is has the authority to attack you in any circumstance with or with out needing to justify their actions under the umbrella of self defense.

I wasn't sure what distinction you are making with word "initiation", above. I'm reading that the idea is the state has a monopoly on the "legitimate" use of force [0]. They have the final say, for instance on how you allowed to defend yourself, ordinarily allowing the use proportional force to protect yourself from bodily harm.

Also mentioned was idea of a natural right to defend oneself, like you talked about, which is an idea that goes back to the enlightenment, but that this is in conflict with the idea of a state monopoly on violence. Seems like in practicality if the state wants to lock you up in a cage for shooting someone, your natural rights weren't really a thing.

I brought up the state monopoly on violence because people and the government will need to decide if they want to allow private armed security guards to operate on the streets [1].

> I cant stand thieves, and fully support self defense laws like the ones in Texas which allow people to defend their property with lethal force.

Texas seems to be an outlier in this regard, "Texas being the only state to allow the use of deadly force to regain possession of land or property" [2]. Other U.S. states and other Western countries do not allow the use of lethal force to defend property like Texas does. I don't think modern societies and governments are going to embrace your position above any time soon.

In the context of the article we are talking about, I assume that the people of Portland will not want to allow these armed security guards to roam the streets breaking laws and hurting people [1].

I do agree with your position that people are going to want to defend themselves if the government won't do so, or does so inconsistently. That's probably why we have gangs in the inner cities, places where the government doesn't enforce laws for one reason or another. The government looses legitimacy in the eyes of the affected when this happens. Allowing shopkeepers to put armed security guards in the streets is not going to help this bigger problem, and comes with a set of new problems.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

[1] https://www.opb.org/article/2021/12/02/part-two-police-prose...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine

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