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

Re: How much do we need the police?

#91

Post by peterwwillis » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:48 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #3

I know folks don't always click through, so I'll highlight what I found most insightful: > Part of our misunderstanding about the nature of policing is we keep imagining that we can turn police into social workers. That we can make them nice, friendly community outreach workers. But police are violence workers. That's what distinguishes them from all other government functions. ... They have the legal capacity to use…

Abroad in well-developed nations with healthy economies, violent police aren't so much a thing. Our police mimic our own American society, which is inherently violent and promotes criminality (through a draconian justice system that has been dolling out harsh penalties for minor crimes for decades, allows white collar crime to thrive, promotes racial injustice through segregationist state laws, removes social support for the vulnerable people who are most likely to become criminals through necessity, etc). And we're surprised that within this framework, the authorities abuse all the latitude we give them. American police aren't uniquely screwed up, they're just American.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#92

Post by sgillen » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:49 PM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #81

jbay808 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This framing of the police seems very strange to my Canadian sensibilities. I'm curious about whether Americans largely agree with this description.

Canadians do not have violent warlords on their streets. You don't understand what it's like to live in our (mainly South Western) cities, and live with threats of drive-by shootings, vandalism, and getting caught in gunfire. My dad worked driving around downtown LA and surrounds for 20 some odd years and there was more than a few times he was caught in gang-based gunfire. This was in the 80s and 90s mostly, and thin…

Wrt to the drugs, even if the gangs switch to something else for their income, surely it won’t be nearly as profitable as the drug trade? Still seems like you could deal a serious blow, especially against the cartels.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#93

Post by tathougies » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:49 PM UTC

jbay808 wrote: post #35

js2 wrote: post #3

I know folks don't always click through, so I'll highlight what I found most insightful: > Part of our misunderstanding about the nature of policing is we keep imagining that we can turn police into social workers. That we can make them nice, friendly community outreach workers. But police are violence workers. That's what distinguishes them from all other government functions. ... They have the legal capacity to use…

This framing of the police seems very strange to my Canadian sensibilities. I'm curious about whether Americans largely agree with this description.

To directly answer your question, I -- a brown man -- have never had a bad interaction with police. I assume Canadians are also annoyed when given tickets, but really police have been nothing but helpful, and I feel free to approach police officers and ask questions.

My dad -- also brown -- has also had the police called on him (usually because he's berating someone at a store or something), and the cops have only ever diffused the situation, never added to it.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#94

Post by tathougies » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

sgillen wrote: post #92

tathougies wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadians do not have violent warlords on their streets. You don't understand what it's like to live in our (mainly South Western) cities, and live with threats of drive-by shootings, vandalism, and getting caught in gunfire. My dad worked driving around downtown LA and surrounds for 20 some odd years and there was more than a few times he was caught in gang-based gunfire. This was in the 80s and 90s mostly, and thin…

Wrt to the drugs, even if the gangs switch to something else for their income, surely it won’t be nearly as profitable as the drug trade? Still seems like you could deal a serious blow, especially against the cartels.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/first-drugs-then-oil-now...

It doesn't seem that way at all. They will just mutate. There's lots of illegal stuff to sell, that cannot reasonably be legalized.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#95

Post by pacala » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #3

I know folks don't always click through, so I'll highlight what I found most insightful: > Part of our misunderstanding about the nature of policing is we keep imagining that we can turn police into social workers. That we can make them nice, friendly community outreach workers. But police are violence workers. That's what distinguishes them from all other government functions. ... They have the legal capacity to use…

Another interesting fragment:

> Q: Are the interactions that are happening right now between police and protesters something that you think is predictable? Or is this something new that we haven't seen before?

> A: It's not completely new; it's just the intensity of it compared [with], let's say, five years ago during the Eric Garner and the Mike Brown protests. What we're seeing is really an immediate escalation to very high levels of force, a high degree of confrontation.

> And I think part of it is driven by deep frustration within policing, which is that police feel under assault, and they have no answer. They trotted out all the possible solutions: police-community dialogue sessions, implicit bias training, community policing, body cameras. And it just didn't work. It didn't make any difference. And so they ran out of excuses.

> So the protests today are a much more kind of existential threat to the police. And the police are overreacting as a result.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#96

Post by Uhhrrr » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

remember_george wrote: post #72

Uhhrrr wrote: post #41

It's true that police are asked to be solutions for social problems for which they are unsuited. However, the reason this interview is topical has to do with someone paying for cigarettes with a possibly counterfeit bill and refusing to give them back. That seems to me to be an entirely reasonable reason to call the police.

Seeing how George Floyd moved to Minneapolis to do ministry work I bet he didn’t even know the bill was counterfeited.

AFAICT we still don't even know whether the bill was actually counterfeit. It's not a useful fact for either side of the Culture War.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#97

Post by jorblumesea » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #87

jorblumesea wrote: post #29

One of my current frustrations with American politics is how radical everything has become. The debate is now, either we don't have any police and defund them, or, we allow them to continue being completely unaccountable. Neither of those situations sound ideal. It feels like Europe and other places have a much more reasonable and nuanced view. Police get funded, and well funded, but the job requirements are strict,…

> The debate is now, either we don't have any police and defund them, or, we allow them to continue being completely unaccountable. Did you read the article? The roadmap he laid out seems to be the middle ground you're looking for.

I'm not talking about the article. I have no doubt that NPR will make a very reasonable and completely ignored opinion. I see many people on my social media groups actively fighting for complete defunding. This article just reminded me how lacking the current popular debate is in light of these protests. Not ironically, 100% serious that removing all police and having social services will fix things.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#98

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #3

I know folks don't always click through, so I'll highlight what I found most insightful: > Part of our misunderstanding about the nature of policing is we keep imagining that we can turn police into social workers. That we can make them nice, friendly community outreach workers. But police are violence workers. That's what distinguishes them from all other government functions. ... They have the legal capacity to use…

[deleted]

Re: How much do we need the police?

#99

Post by downerending » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #3

I know folks don't always click through, so I'll highlight what I found most insightful: > Part of our misunderstanding about the nature of policing is we keep imagining that we can turn police into social workers. That we can make them nice, friendly community outreach workers. But police are violence workers. That's what distinguishes them from all other government functions. ... They have the legal capacity to use…

> police are violence workers

That's a rather pejorative way of expressing the point. (Thanks NPR.) It would be better to say that policing is about protecting law-abiding citizens from people who are acting antisocially and often violently.

Many of those people are simply criminals. They belong in prison, and often force is required to get them there.

Others are experiencing mental-health problems to varying degrees. Some force may be required, but it's a lot to ask that policemen also serve as social workers, psychologists, etc. The place I live has a parallel organization to provide this, and they work hand-in-hand with the police. It seems to work pretty well.

The lack of such a parallel organization is not a failing of policing, though. It's a failure our elected politicians, and perhaps ultimately ourselves.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#100

Post by Animats » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 11:54 PM UTC

Police in the US do now have jobs others used to do. Big cities used to have more social workers to deal with street people and such. There were "the men in the white coats" who hauled crazies off to mental institutions. Political parties had more boots on the ground - in the days of machine politics, you could talk to the block captain about getting a job.

All those jobs were dumped on cops, who aren't that good at it.

Especially dealing with crazies and druggies, and having no good place to send them.

On the other hand, cops are too hard to fire. It's not like they're stack-ranked. The bottom few percent are not fired for underperforming. Bad cops are a minority, but they're not ex-cops soon enough.