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You know, systems were established for a reason. It's not like the cash bail system was some ridiculous fanciful notion that someone created to torture the po

You know, systems were established for a reason. It's not like the cash bail system was some ridiculous fanciful notion that someone created to torture the poor. We have arrested people pay cash bail so that we have some forcing function to ensure that they don't flee. And maybe a little bit to provide people the incentive not to commit crime in the first place. I don't know why, but that seems to be considered discriminatory these days. Maybe if people are experiencing hardship from being held in jail, they should try not to commit crimes? What I fear about all the social justice movements is that when you get into nitty-gritty details, the symbols that activists want to believe in (eliminating discrimination) do not actually improve the lives of people experiencing disadvantage in society very much when the actual plan of what to do materializes from the advocates of change. Dismantle the police? I think the people worst served by this idea are the poor and powerless being victimized by crime every day. They need more police presence and enforcement of law and order for their neighborhoods, not less. Think about the side effects of the symbols you want fulfilled. And if all your involvement is sitting in your white neighborhood and not having to deal with the effects of your advocacy, maybe you shouldn't be so opinionated to say how things should be changed.

pySSK 6y ago
There are multiple strawpeople in your argument. 1. There are people from those actual communities asking and fighting for those things. You are assuming only suburban white advocates. 2. Cash-bail: "It's not like the cash bail system was some ridiculous fanciful notion that someone created to torture the poor." Who is saying that. The linked article is first and foremost concerned with the effect of cash-bail i.e. it affects poor people more negatively that it does rich people. It's broken system. Perhaps something like Finland's salary-based speeding ticket system would work well (but should incorporate wealth has many rich people don't have salaries). 3. Dismantle the police: the idea here is that armed police are now involved in situations where that is not required. Not only is it expensive and inefficient, but it has horrible outcomes. It's the old "if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail" problem. "They need more police presence and enforcement of law and order for their neighborhoods, not less." This has not been proven to work.
snypher 6y ago
>Maybe if people are experiencing hardship from being held in jail, they shouldn't commit crimes? However people held in jail may not have committed a crime, in fact should be presumed to be innocent even if they have committed a crime. Also at a bail hearing a judge will determine the person's risk of flight, and if they did in fact have means and motivation to flee they will be held without bail.
matsemann 6y ago
> Maybe if people are experiencing hardship from being held in jail, they should try not to commit crimes? So you're just gonna assume everyone that's arrested is guilty even before the trial? You are also misrepresenting or misunderstanding dismantling of the police. It's not necessarily about using less resources in the neighborhoods, but about using them correctly. If someone is needing a welfare check, maybe send in a person trained for this and not cops with guns blazing, for instance.
- twblalock 6y ago
  > You are also misrepresenting or misunderstanding dismantling of the police. It's not necessarily about using less resources in the neighborhoods, but about using them correctly. How about this: if you don't want to dismantle something, then don't use the word dismantle. Perfectly good words already exist for what you suggest, such as reform. If you say dismantle you should expect people to interpret it as its plain ordinary meaning: to take apart, to destroy, to get rid of, to make it not exist anymore.
  - matsemann 6y ago
    To be fair I've heard most people talking about a reform. The word dismantle was used by the other poster first, probably to skew the point by using a differently loaded word.
deleted 6y ago
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mjevans 6y ago
Cash Bail is a regressive tax upon the poor and those whom law enforcement selectively target. If someone is a danger, or a flight risk, maybe they shouldn't be out at all if that's the determination reached by a judge. -- Secondary points, the social movement. I strongly agree that Police REFORM is necessary. At least in the US things are bad enough that a not-small portion of the population feels the police are out to get them, or at best unlikely to be a positive influence on any outcome. Peace Officers are necessary. A recognition that many situations require de-escalation and a variety of social outreach to achieve the best results for both society at large and the individuals involved. Believe in reform and redemption, and apply it to everyone and everything.
- twblalock 6y ago
  > If someone is a danger, or a flight risk, maybe they shouldn't be out at all if that's the determination reached by a judge. Ok, then most people who currently qualify for bail will not get let out at all. Anyone with the means to leave town (e.g. having a car) and the motivation to leave town (e.g. being accused of a crime is a pretty good motivation for leaving town...) can be deemed a flight risk.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> You know, systems were established for a reason. Not always a good reason. > It's not like the cash bail system was some ridiculous fanciful notion that someone created to torture the poor. The evolution of modern cash bail from old pledged-money sureties, like many aspects of Gilded Age capitalism, may not have been consciously been designed for that purpose, but might as well have been. It's true that pledged-money sureties also probably wouldn't work in the modern world, which is also why other places that used them evolved away from money bail entirely rather than to cash bail, a system used as the main basis of pre-trial release in the US and the Phillipines, and pretty much nowhere else. > I don't know why, but that seems to be considered discriminatory these days. Because it, in fact, is. > Maybe if people are experiencing hardship from being held in jail, they should try not to commit crimes? You mean “should try not to be accused of committing crimes”; bail addresses pre-trial, not post-conviction, confinement, which is not even notionally based on guilt. > Dismantle the police? I think the people worst served by this idea are the poor and powerless being victimized by crime every day. They need more police presence and enforcement of law and order for their neighborhoods, not less. > Dismantle the police? I think the people worst served by this idea are the poor and powerless being victimized by crime every day. Why would you think that. > They need more police presence and enforcement of law and order for their neighborhoods, not less. There have been decades of reform on exactly that premise that have produced the accelerating crisis underlying the defund/dismantle/abolish movement. The problem is, whether or not it results in moreno police presence in the relevant neighborhoods, pushing more resources to the police at the expense of alternative uses of local funds does not produce more “enforcement of law and order for their neighborhoods”, except in the sense where “law and order” is a long-standing political euphemism for suppression of the kind of people living in those neighborhoods. Within the social justice movements themselves there is a considerable debate over whether the problem here is the basic model of law enforcement (the dismantle/abolish position) or just it's overprioritization at the cost of alternative local services, forcing it to expand it's scope beyond where it is suited (the defund position), but neither is arguing that the law does not need to be better enforced in poor and minority neighborhoods, what both are arguing is that the present system of policing is not suited to doing that, and that the experience of the past several decades has not shown that increasing resources to that system under the banner of reform is a solution. > Think about the side effects of the symbols you want fulfilled. And if all your involvement is sitting in your white neighborhood and not having to deal with the effects of your advocacy, maybe you shouldn't be so opinionated to say how things should be changed. It's mighty white of you to assume that social justice movements like BLM are all about white people in white neighborhoods tossing ideas from the sidelines but they are very much not.
pjc50 6y ago
A real example of abolishing (some) police: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54499497 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54499497 It seems the unfortunately named SARS squad were committing more crime than they were solving. > poor and powerless being victimized by crime every day Quite a few people would say, if you actually ask them in their neighbourhoods, that the people who are more likely to victimise them on a daily basis are the police. That's why all the protests have appeared.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

pySSK 6y ago

There are multiple strawpeople in your argument. 1. There are people from those actual communities asking and fighting for those things. You are assuming only suburban white advocates. 2. Cash-bail: "It's not like the cash bail system was some ridiculous fanciful notion that someone created to torture the poor." Who is saying that. The linked article is first and foremost concerned with the effect of cash-bail i.e. it affects poor people more negatively that it does rich people. It's broken system. Perhaps something like Finland's salary-based speeding ticket system would work well (but should incorporate wealth has many rich people don't have salaries). 3. Dismantle the police: the idea here is that armed police are now involved in situations where that is not required. Not only is it expensive and inefficient, but it has horrible outcomes. It's the old "if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail" problem. "They need more police presence and enforcement of law and order for their neighborhoods, not less." This has not been proven to work.

snypher 6y ago

>Maybe if people are experiencing hardship from being held in jail, they shouldn't commit crimes? However people held in jail may not have committed a crime, in fact should be presumed to be innocent even if they have committed a crime. Also at a bail hearing a judge will determine the person's risk of flight, and if they did in fact have means and motivation to flee they will be held without bail.

matsemann 6y ago

> Maybe if people are experiencing hardship from being held in jail, they should try not to commit crimes? So you're just gonna assume everyone that's arrested is guilty even before the trial? You are also misrepresenting or misunderstanding dismantling of the police. It's not necessarily about using less resources in the neighborhoods, but about using them correctly. If someone is needing a welfare check, maybe send in a person trained for this and not cops with guns blazing, for instance.

twblalock 6y ago
> You are also misrepresenting or misunderstanding dismantling of the police. It's not necessarily about using less resources in the neighborhoods, but about using them correctly. How about this: if you don't want to dismantle something, then don't use the word dismantle. Perfectly good words already exist for what you suggest, such as reform. If you say dismantle you should expect people to interpret it as its plain ordinary meaning: to take apart, to destroy, to get rid of, to make it not exist anymore.
- matsemann 6y ago
  To be fair I've heard most people talking about a reform. The word dismantle was used by the other poster first, probably to skew the point by using a differently loaded word.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mjevans 6y ago

Cash Bail is a regressive tax upon the poor and those whom law enforcement selectively target. If someone is a danger, or a flight risk, maybe they shouldn't be out at all if that's the determination reached by a judge. -- Secondary points, the social movement. I strongly agree that Police REFORM is necessary. At least in the US things are bad enough that a not-small portion of the population feels the police are out to get them, or at best unlikely to be a positive influence on any outcome. Peace Officers are necessary. A recognition that many situations require de-escalation and a variety of social outreach to achieve the best results for both society at large and the individuals involved. Believe in reform and redemption, and apply it to everyone and everything.

twblalock 6y ago
> If someone is a danger, or a flight risk, maybe they shouldn't be out at all if that's the determination reached by a judge. Ok, then most people who currently qualify for bail will not get let out at all. Anyone with the means to leave town (e.g. having a car) and the motivation to leave town (e.g. being accused of a crime is a pretty good motivation for leaving town...) can be deemed a flight risk.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> You know, systems were established for a reason. Not always a good reason. > It's not like the cash bail system was some ridiculous fanciful notion that someone created to torture the poor. The evolution of modern cash bail from old pledged-money sureties, like many aspects of Gilded Age capitalism, may not have been consciously been designed for that purpose, but might as well have been. It's true that pledged-money sureties also probably wouldn't work in the modern world, which is also why other places that used them evolved away from money bail entirely rather than to cash bail, a system used as the main basis of pre-trial release in the US and the Phillipines, and pretty much nowhere else. > I don't know why, but that seems to be considered discriminatory these days. Because it, in fact, is. > Maybe if people are experiencing hardship from being held in jail, they should try not to commit crimes? You mean “should try not to be accused of committing crimes”; bail addresses pre-trial, not post-conviction, confinement, which is not even notionally based on guilt. > Dismantle the police? I think the people worst served by this idea are the poor and powerless being victimized by crime every day. They need more police presence and enforcement of law and order for their neighborhoods, not less. > Dismantle the police? I think the people worst served by this idea are the poor and powerless being victimized by crime every day. Why would you think that. > They need more police presence and enforcement of law and order for their neighborhoods, not less. There have been decades of reform on exactly that premise that have produced the accelerating crisis underlying the defund/dismantle/abolish movement. The problem is, whether or not it results in moreno police presence in the relevant neighborhoods, pushing more resources to the police at the expense of alternative uses of local funds does not produce more “enforcement of law and order for their neighborhoods”, except in the sense where “law and order” is a long-standing political euphemism for suppression of the kind of people living in those neighborhoods. Within the social justice movements themselves there is a considerable debate over whether the problem here is the basic model of law enforcement (the dismantle/abolish position) or just it's overprioritization at the cost of alternative local services, forcing it to expand it's scope beyond where it is suited (the defund position), but neither is arguing that the law does not need to be better enforced in poor and minority neighborhoods, what both are arguing is that the present system of policing is not suited to doing that, and that the experience of the past several decades has not shown that increasing resources to that system under the banner of reform is a solution. > Think about the side effects of the symbols you want fulfilled. And if all your involvement is sitting in your white neighborhood and not having to deal with the effects of your advocacy, maybe you shouldn't be so opinionated to say how things should be changed. It's mighty white of you to assume that social justice movements like BLM are all about white people in white neighborhoods tossing ideas from the sidelines but they are very much not.

pjc50 6y ago

A real example of abolishing (some) police: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54499497 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54499497 It seems the unfortunately named SARS squad were committing more crime than they were solving. > poor and powerless being victimized by crime every day Quite a few people would say, if you actually ask them in their neighbourhoods, that the people who are more likely to victimise them on a daily basis are the police. That's why all the protests have appeared.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]