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

Re: How much do we need the police?

#481

Post by 082349872349872 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

cheesecracker wrote: post #459

082349872349872 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education (in the french sense of the word)? My only specific recommendation I already gave above, and even that is a hypothesis. If I had an answer, I'd be proposing it, but as it is, I've taken the easier path out, by living in the place where I'd found the nicest people, after having traveled a bit. (I don't think one can make people be nicer to each other. At best, they can experience for themselves that things g…

Why not make people nice to each other first, and then abolish or reduce the police? It seems like that would happen naturally anyway. If huge parts of the police force went idle most of the time for lack of anything to do, the force would presumably reduced after a while.

Sounds good to me.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#482

Post by tathougies » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:01 PM UTC

dmode wrote: post #475

tathougies wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay great. Then why does California a state with severe gun restrictions have such a problem with gang violence? Can you please explain?

I don't think you know what you are talking about. California is experiencing the lowest level of gang violence ever. Oakland, LA, and San Francisco are seeing lowest homicide rates in decades. SF just had 35 homicides last year, compared to nearly 100 in 2007. Oakland had 75 last year, compared to close to 200 in the 90s. Based on data and stats, 3 things are true 1. CA has no gang problem 2. As South and Central po…

I don't disagree that California is safer now than ever. However, in the heydays of gang violence in CA, CA still had restrictive gun laws. They seem uncorrelated.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#483

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

metrokoi wrote: post #301

geofft wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Arming the populace? Having a bunch of untrained people police their own neighborhoods sounds like a recipe for disaster. Trump supporters and racists would be watching neighborhoods with lethal weapons. I'm not saying that Trump supporters should not be able to, but the anti-police crowd seem to not think far enough ahead to realize that taking power away from police and giving it to the people means giving it to pe…

I have firearms, and I would use them to kill credible threats to myself and my family. You seem to be saying that makes me a "Trump supporter and racist". I am neither of those things. Several of my neighbors might fit that description, but all of my neighbors are armed.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#484

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #480

P_I_Staker wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes, dude. I just don't agree with trying to ruin someones life forever, because they occasionally like to use drugs. That's not political nihilism. I don't really consider seeing a needle in the street a "third world standard of living". I don't enjoy seeing litter, but it's a reality of living in an urban area. There's beer cans, and yes people toss bottles to, so there's shards of glass in the street, and it's n…

> Yikes, dude. I just don't agree with trying to ruin someones life forever, because they occasionally like to use drugs. That's not political nihilism. I don't really consider seeing a needle in the street a "third world standard of living". I don't enjoy seeing litter, but it's a reality of living in an urban area. There's beer cans, and yes people toss bottles to, so there's shards of glass in the street, and it's…

Oh yeah, USA will turn into Japan overnight. All we have to do is give the police more resources, power, impunity.

Please be honest. No one is that dumb, especially not you. The reason Japan's streets are clean is that they are used primarily by the Japanese. They have different cultural defaults than we do, and perhaps one might say that in this respect they are just better. Japan's cops are actually drastically less aggressive and abusive than USA cops. Also, numerous Japanese have told me that they wished their drug prohibition could be repealed. If that happened, no one would expect Ginza to turn into the Tenderloin.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#485

Post by P_I_Staker » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:15 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #480

P_I_Staker wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes, dude. I just don't agree with trying to ruin someones life forever, because they occasionally like to use drugs. That's not political nihilism. I don't really consider seeing a needle in the street a "third world standard of living". I don't enjoy seeing litter, but it's a reality of living in an urban area. There's beer cans, and yes people toss bottles to, so there's shards of glass in the street, and it's n…

> Yikes, dude. I just don't agree with trying to ruin someones life forever, because they occasionally like to use drugs. That's not political nihilism. I don't really consider seeing a needle in the street a "third world standard of living". I don't enjoy seeing litter, but it's a reality of living in an urban area. There's beer cans, and yes people toss bottles to, so there's shards of glass in the street, and it's…

I can't speak for Stockholm, but I'm not trying to emulate Japan. I have great respect for the people, but they have their own social problems. I highly regard freedom, and treating social problems. That doesn't mean ignoring the issue, or extreme prison sentences.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#486

Post by mythrwy » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #367

mythrwy wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops fatally shoot about 1000 people in the US every year from what I read. The US has over 300 million people. Not nonzero but... well, you can do the math.

When I traveled to Unites States, I was told that if cops stop me, I have to keep hands on wheel otherwise they might shoot me. I got no similar advice anywhere else. In other western countries, I know cops wont shoot me if I move hands around noramly. This sort of thing add to the perception of American police.

Ya for sure. People get strange ideas from the news, I think because the news reports, well, newsworthy things. Someone being shot by a cop is news. Someone getting a warning not to speed is not.

It is true American cops do shoot more people than their counterparts in non gun owning countries. And they can get a bit jumpy until they see what a person is about, which is somewhat understandable given the environment.

The advice to keep your hands in plain sight and don't make quick movements is good. It's very unlikely you'll get shot (as per the stats above) but to help keep everyone calm and happy. It's not really a big imposition.

This probably sounds like weird advice coming from another place. But every place has it's strange things. You have to understand, America is not far removed from it's frontier days. It's always been a fairly violent country. That doesn't mean it's not in general safe, it is for the most part, it's just there are a lot of guns and a fair amount of violence compared to Sweden or some place like that.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#487

Post by chipperyman573 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #283

chipperyman573 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Vigilantism is better than a police apparatus? I don’t understand these takes.

I didn't say it was better overall, I was just responding to "I expect day 2 would have been a lot worse." from the OP

Re: How much do we need the police?

#488

Post by username90 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

loeg wrote: post #477

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of what I said. I’ve seen this video from multiple perspectives. It is absolutely not the case that it started for no reason at all. That’s a total lie. There are no “pretexts” happening. These conspiracy theories are absurd. From the ground video of this same incident, it was seen that protestors were pushing on the fence. They then deployed umbrellas, some of which were deployed over the bar…

You're just spouting falsehoods that are not shown in the video. The protestors had umbrellas for hours; they were not "deployed" shortly before officers initiated violence. Protesters were up against the fence for hours and did not push it forward substantially. The umbrella the officer grabbed wasn't in anyone's face. Note that 12,000 complaints were filed about SPD's overuse of force after that night. > you can se…

> did not push it forward substantially

At 7:00 in the video the protesters pushed the fence a couple of meters forward and almost broke the police line, that is not peaceful protesting. Pushing up a blockade against police is very aggressive, and can't be done by a single bad apple either. If protesters had been acting like this for hours then it makes sense that the police sprays them.

https://www.facebook.com/jessica.bundy.79/videos/36571421876...

Re: How much do we need the police?

#489

Post by lawnchair_larry » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:04 AM UTC

chrismcb wrote: post #479

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of what I said. I’ve seen this video from multiple perspectives. It is absolutely not the case that it started for no reason at all. That’s a total lie. There are no “pretexts” happening. These conspiracy theories are absurd. From the ground video of this same incident, it was seen that protestors were pushing on the fence. They then deployed umbrellas, some of which were deployed over the bar…

You are correct, in that "something" also starts it. It isn't that a cop just decide to start violence. But that "something" usually doesn't warrant the amount of violence. ESPECIALLY given that the protest is about police brutality. In the incident we were both referring to, you claimed "the protestors were pushing the fence" So what? That doesn't necessitate macing the entire crowd. "They deployed umbrellas" (In Se…

We’re saying a lot of the same things. I feel like you didn’t read my post carefully, and you’re making some wrong assumptions about my post.

Why do you equate my post with something that resembles saying that anything the police did was justified?

Unlike the parent, everything you said about the incident is accurate. You’ve interjected your opinion on each event of the incident, which is fine. You’re having an honest conversation. We can’t have those when we start out with hyperbole, omissions, and fabrications. Case in point, you’ve suggested alternative actions that could have been taken, which would not have been possible if we went with the original narrative. After all, if they do this for “literally no reason”, there’s no possible fix for that.

Emphasizing de-escalation sounds like a great idea. On a subsequent night, they changed their procedures to put the fence about 100 ft in front of them. That would ensure that they could not feel “threatened” or agitated by protestors partially encroaching the barrier. It also solves the problem of a mouthy kid getting right in your face and cussing you out, which might trigger a negative reaction. It looked like it went a lot better that time.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#490

Post by lawnchair_larry » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:06 AM UTC

loeg wrote: post #477

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of what I said. I’ve seen this video from multiple perspectives. It is absolutely not the case that it started for no reason at all. That’s a total lie. There are no “pretexts” happening. These conspiracy theories are absurd. From the ground video of this same incident, it was seen that protestors were pushing on the fence. They then deployed umbrellas, some of which were deployed over the bar…

You're just spouting falsehoods that are not shown in the video. The protestors had umbrellas for hours; they were not "deployed" shortly before officers initiated violence. Protesters were up against the fence for hours and did not push it forward substantially. The umbrella the officer grabbed wasn't in anyone's face. Note that 12,000 complaints were filed about SPD's overuse of force after that night. > you can se…

You’re still doing it man. Come on. Be objective. You can still be accurate and think they were in the wrong. But you’re drawing lines that were not there, mixing up unrelated events, and failing to acknowledge the contributions to the escalation on the protestor side.