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How much do we need the police?

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Re: How much do we need the police?

#181

Post by carapace »

I dunno about no police, but Sir Robert Peel has a thought (I posted this the other day, apologies if you've seen it before.) This seems to me to be pretty sane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles

> The Peelian principles summarise the ideas that Sir Robert Peel developed to define an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent in the United Kingdom and other countries including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

> In this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. "Policing by consent" indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#182

Post by wahern »

hedora wrote: post #135
evan_ wrote: post #24

In Eugene, OR, where I live, there is a program called CAHOOTS ("Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets") which is more or less the mental health equivalent of an ambulance. They're dispatched by non-emergency operators to situations such as mental health crises, public intoxication, and welfare checks- things where police officers would be asked to serve as a social worker, as the article puts it. My understan…

California used to have programs like this in the 80’s. They were outlawed as part of Regan’s war on mental illness (or whatever he called it). A friend of mine went through this, so I went through all the options with the a few emergency psychiatric wards. These days, even if the person has medical insurance or someone wants to pay out of pocket, the mental health professionals aren’t allowed to do anything without…

The evisceration of mandatory mental illness treatment programs and powers was primarily driven by psychiatrists' promises and civil rights advocates' demands. Legislators keen on budget reduction were simply happy to oblige, and Reagan didn't standout in that regard. He just happened to have a higher profile due to his being governor of California and then president. All other states made the same mistake as California, did so at around the same time, and it all unraveled long before Reagan became president.

Here's a more contemporaneous 1984 NY Times investigative article detailing the history: "How Release of Mental Patients Began", https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-me...

EDIT: The report mentioned in the article is presumably, "The Homeless Mentally Ill: A Task Force Report of the American Psychiatric Association", https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.36.7.782 I can't find a freely available copy online, however.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#183

Post by cgriswald »

Tehdasi wrote: post #123
djrobstep wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what part of Australia you're in, but literally every cop I've ever encountered here carries a firearm. They also have a pretty decent rep for brutality themselves, particularly if you're indigenous. So you are presenting a very misleading view.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc... US 30.4 vs Australia 1.7 So yeah, there are are issues with police in Australia, but the issues are far more extreme in the US.

The claim may be true, but the stats you quoted aren’t enough evidence to support it. A better comparison would account for the number and type of police encounters and might also account for the types of weapons they are likely to encounter in the course of their duties.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#184

Post by wolfgang42 »

bluedays wrote: post #50
bluedays wrote: post #21

> Political protests are a threat to the order of this system The quality of journalism for NPR has gone downhill so much. A real "protest" is inherently violent. Your are encouraging the state to use it's monopoly of force against you. Your goal is to ensure that others see the state using force needlessly against you. When others see others using violence against you they begin to reconsider the conditions that put…

Also, I want to take this time to point out that this post originally had 3 upvotes, and now it has -2 votes. This is going to sound a bit conspiratorial, but I've long suspected that there is a bit of astroturfing happening on Hacker News and this doesn't alleviate my suspicions.

Five people with opinions (on a post with 112 voters) is astroturfing? Also, from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html :

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email us and we'll look at the data.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#185

Post by aSplash0fDerp »

With all of the layers of legislation and enforcement, by in large, most citizens hands are clean when it comes to the current round of hot-button issues. (Waiting for someone to post #americashandsareclean and keep the spotlight on policy)

This appears to be another diversion (or attempt at despair) gathered from all of the pieces in motion so far in 2020.

Sticking to the policy debate, do you/we really need paramilitary prisons on american soil would have made for better rootcause reporting.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#186

Post by matheusmoreira »

chipperyman573 wrote: post #164
BurningFrog wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like are you suggesting the natural state of people is just to loot and behave completely selfishly? Don't know about that, but there is ABSOLUTELY enough selfish/predatory/angry people in any population that will commit violent acts for profit and pleasure if the risks of being brought to justice disappears. I would not have guessed it would erupt as fast as it did in Montreal, but empirically, it did. I expect da…

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

> 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.

Criminals are likely to organize in order to increase their chances of success and survival. Individuals will be quickly overwhelmed if they don't form their own organized defense forces. There's always a lot of extremely violent people protecting the "normal" ones.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#187

Post by birdyrooster »

_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.…

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.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#188

Post by vulcan01 »

hedora wrote: post #151
always_left wrote: post #28

Does anyone ever take justice into their own hands? Not recommending it, but my neighbor's car was stolen so I went out and found it for them that day. It was reported missing but I had a feeling it wasn't going to be actively looked for due to the severity of the crime.

The penalties for taking the law into your own hands are generally highly asymmetric and in favor of the original perpetrator. For example, if you forced the car thieves out of the car, or parked it in place by blocking the road, you might be looking at assault charges. Similar arguments can be said for most other common crimes. Consider noise ordinances (harassing / threatening your neighbor until they shut up), tre…

Some good legal arguments on whether it is legal to steal something back or not... https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/15869

Re: How much do we need the police?

#189

Post by _8j50 »

ben509 wrote: post #178
_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.…

The Vigiles were a police force[1] in ancient Rome, so they're not a recent innovation. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigiles#Police_force

That's not "modern police" as in the modern organized structure. Even the wild west had marshalls and sherrifs but they were not police.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police under history, look at the "modern police" section. I find this poster against police in Wales a bit amusing: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/No_Polic...

Law enforcement is not the synonymous with police.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#190

Post by ChristianBundy »

carapace wrote: post #181

I dunno about no police, but Sir Robert Peel has a thought (I posted this the other day, apologies if you've seen it before.) This seems to me to be pretty sane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles > The Peelian principles summarise the ideas that Sir Robert Peel developed to define an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent in the United…

Serious question: how can something be called "consent" if it can't be withdrawn by individuals? That's democracy, not consent.
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