Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't deny the effectiveness of putting everyone in jail.
You must have a different definition of "effective" than I do. Prison is like graduate school for criminal behavior.
He didn't say they get back out.
Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
41–50 of 254 posts
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#42The SWAT issue is a different issue IMO, more related to politicians wanting to "do something" at the Federal and State levels. "Doing something" translates to "allocate funding". That money can pay for more cops/overtime, or stuff. Or it may be earmarked by a congressman whose donor makes light tanks to only buy tanks. The us vs. them stuff is related to the state of affairs in high-crime communities. Cops can't rel…
> If a policeman has access to body armor and machine guns to serve a warrant on some guy in a house, he will take them along. Interestingly, in the UK, where regular policemen don't carry guns, most policemen apparently don't want to have firearms. Obviously this is a rather different culture, and there's a difference between a collective matter (should we all be armed?) and an individual matter (should I be armed t…
I think part of the reason for UK police not wanting guns is primarily what the UK police see as their mission: It is community policing, where UK police try to work within and with the permission of the community because they feel they're most effective that way (also called "policing by consent"). http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/policeNine.php
Police carrying guns makes them "scary" to the general public, and as such damages their primary mission (see above). It is also hugely damaging to the police's reputation when someone gets shot (even righteously) and would be catastrophic if someone was illegitimately killed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Meneze...).
The US police is VERY militarized in Urban areas. They also seem to have an "us Vs. them" attitude about the general public, and are less interested in earning respect but rather taking it by force or coercion ("thin blue line," "respect my authority," "quit resisting," etc).
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#43The SWAT issue is a different issue IMO, more related to politicians wanting to "do something" at the Federal and State levels. "Doing something" translates to "allocate funding". That money can pay for more cops/overtime, or stuff. Or it may be earmarked by a congressman whose donor makes light tanks to only buy tanks. The us vs. them stuff is related to the state of affairs in high-crime communities. Cops can't rel…
If a policeman has access to body armor and machine guns to serve a warrant on some guy in a house, he will take them along. The cop has no idea who may be behind a door when they knock -- they may be intoxicated/high, have a vicious pit bull, or just be a scared kid with a gun and nothing to lose. The policeman wants to go home to see his kids at the end of his shift. Uh, shouldn't this information be available base…
Easy for a guy sitting in a chair in front of a computer to say.
I'm not justifying the behavior, I'm trying to illuminate why it's happening. You're attributing responsibility for a situation to people who don't make decisions. Society has made choices (let's move to the burbs to get away from those poor folk) and your representatives have enacted laws that have created all sorts of absurd situations. And we drop policemen into the middle of the chaos to exert some control over it.
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure of what you're trying to say here. Is it OK for the police to harass people because they're black, or sport a beard, or wear the wrong T-shirt? That's what you call "preventive policing"?
You can't deny the effectiveness of putting everyone in jail.
Yes I can. Think of how much more effective it would be to just execute them.
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#45Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#46The SWAT issue is a different issue IMO, more related to politicians wanting to "do something" at the Federal and State levels. "Doing something" translates to "allocate funding". That money can pay for more cops/overtime, or stuff. Or it may be earmarked by a congressman whose donor makes light tanks to only buy tanks. The us vs. them stuff is related to the state of affairs in high-crime communities. Cops can't rel…
> If a policeman has access to body armor and machine guns to serve a warrant on some guy in a house, he will take them along. Interestingly, in the UK, where regular policemen don't carry guns, most policemen apparently don't want to have firearms. Obviously this is a rather different culture, and there's a difference between a collective matter (should we all be armed?) and an individual matter (should I be armed t…
'A 2006 survey of 47,328 Police Federation members found 82% did not want officers to be routinely armed on duty, despite almost half saying their lives had been "in serious jeopardy" during the previous three years.'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19641398
"Arming the force would, say opponents, undermine the principle of policing by consent - the notion that the force owes its primary duty to the public, rather than to the state, as in other countries."
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#47How did we get here? When gangs and organized crime turned the cities into war zones in the 1970's and 1980's.
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#48How did we get here? When gangs and organized crime turned the cities into war zones in the 1970's and 1980's.
Actually the militarization of the police force comes from a coordinated effort to repurpose military hardware for domestic police use. [1]
Kind of funny that the gear used to fight one terrible war overseas is sent back to our own country and used to fight another terrible war domestically, huh?
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/program-1033-military-equipme...
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a policeman has access to body armor and machine guns to serve a warrant on some guy in a house, he will take them along. The cop has no idea who may be behind a door when they knock -- they may be intoxicated/high, have a vicious pit bull, or just be a scared kid with a gun and nothing to lose. The policeman wants to go home to see his kids at the end of his shift. Uh, shouldn't this information be available base…
Easy for a guy sitting in a chair in front of a computer to say. I'm not justifying the behavior, I'm trying to illuminate why it's happening. You're attributing responsibility for a situation to people who don't make decisions. Society has made choices (let's move to the burbs to get away from those poor folk) and your representatives have enacted laws that have created all sorts of absurd situations. And we drop po…
Regardless of where the responsibility lies, it is unacceptable. I agree that the actual police officer does not control policies but they do control their own actions and it is part of the job description to put their lives on the line for the benefit of the general public. If they are not happy with that then they can leave the job that they voluntarily entered.
As soon as they draw a gun on someone without clear evidence that that person poses and immediate risk to themselves (police) or others, they are putting their safety above that of the general public. If they do not wish to put public safety above their own, then they need to find a new job.
Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?
#50Somewhat tangential: There has long been a tie-in between the military and the police. Former military members make an easier transition to the police, and a lot of policemen have a strong weekend-warrior, macho mentality and like big guns and things that go boom. Plus the rank system is similar, there's use of deadly force, and so on.
The U.S. has also seen major mission creep in the military. Instead of going in and bringing a devastating kinetic assault to an enemy in order to get them to surrender, now we're in the mission of Counter-Insurgency (COIN), nation-building, handing out candy to kids, and air-lifting supplies in to earthquake victims.
Because of all of that, I think we need a new branch of the armed forces specifically set aside for nation-building, humanitarian relief, and so forth. It's a completely different mission from the other branches, and deserves its own budget, training, and voice. Then, civilian police forces should only pull military members from that branch.
We need to separate the warrior mentality from the protect and serve, community-friendly mentality. Some organizational re-alignment may help.