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Counterpoint: I do not want police. I do not want policing to exist. I do not want the police to have a single penny of public funds. The slogan is not the pro

by moate 5y ago

Counterpoint: I do not want police. I do not want policing to exist. I do not want the police to have a single penny of public funds. The slogan is not the problem. People wanting police in its current form are the problem.

autoexec 5y ago
Without any police how would you suggest people in a city deal with a murder? Who would investigate it? Who would arrest the person responsible? Who would enforce contracts? What would stop anyone from taking anything they could take by force? Not wanting police publicly funded (“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” style) is absurd enough, but to think that policing as a whole doesn't need to exist at all is a new take I hadn't seen before. What's the alternative?
- moate 5y ago
  https://defundthepolice.org/alternatives-to-police-services/ https://defundthepolice.org/alternatives-to-police-services/
  - autoexec 5y ago
    I appreciate the responsive, but that's a very poorly thought out piece. It gives a very small number of very specific cases where police (supposedly) aren't needed at all, and others where they could be replaced but fails to say what they'd replace them with beyond "civilian services". The police are a "civilian service". Police officers are civilians. It also fails to address what the difference is between police and "civilian services" that perform exactly the same function, what will stop the new service providers from becoming exactly what the current one has become, or how breaking up the current organizational structure into multiple entirely separate organizations tasked with extremely limited roles would produce greater efficiencies and effectiveness. I agree that police are poorly suited for mental health work and I think we would be much better off getting mental health professionals in that role to help the person in crisis, probably along with police backup (for safety). Police do a very poor job of both helping people with mental illness and keeping people safe while responding to mental health crisis, but with oversight and accountability they could do one of those things very well. I agree that traffic cops don't need to be armed to the teeth to pull over speeders and that they shouldn't use unmarked cars, but I think it's pretty useful that when they pull someone over they can see if they are a wanted criminal, determine if the car they are driving has been stolen, and arrest people who are intoxicated. They can do those things because they are working under a single organization. The cop pulling over speeders has access to criminal databases updated by other police officers in other departments (like the ones dealing with homicide, missing persons, and stolen cars) and can take dangerous people to a jail cell to be watched over by jailers who are also other police officers. Having all those different types of officers under one umbrella organization means that hiring practices, training, and polices can be consistent between them, that inter-departmental communications can flow easily, and that oversight can be simplified and consolidated. Imagine how much more work it would take to get multiple different "civilian" organizations to work together, handle passing around access to highly sensitive information securely, and to monitor them all individually. They entirely hand-wave police preventing and stopping violence by saying that "In most incidents of violent crime, police are responding to a crime that has already taken place." which is great for "most incidents" but none of the rest of them. They say police are "ill-equipped" to investigate crime, ignoring the fact that every crime that has ever been investigated and justice was served happened because they did their job. Yes, there are problems, but no alternative organization has ever done a better job and they say nothing about why or how their "specialized service" would. Ultimately their plan to replace police with "New Police but somehow also not connected to an institution of policing" isn't compelling. All of the fundamental problems with oversight and regulation are still unsolved. All of the problems with police unions and the relationship between law enforcement and the court system are still unsolved. It's "New Police", but less organized, and less capable. It's a whole lot easier to reform and manage one system, than try to reform and manage countless separate unaffiliated systems trying to do the exact same job in different ways. Change is needed, and not all of their ideas are terrible, but there's no reason we couldn't accomplish them without making the problem larger and harder to manage and there's no indication on that website as to why that wouldn't be case with hundreds of totally separate New Police forces doing the same essential job of policing.
    - moate 5y ago
      https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/12/21283813/george-floyd-blm-abolish-the-police-8cantwait-minneapolis https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/12/21283813/g... https://www.8toabolition.com/ https://www.8toabolition.com/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol... https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/05/30/bad-apples-come-from-rotten-trees-in-policing/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/05/30/bad-ap... https://www.livescience.com/evidence-police-brutality-reform.html https://www.livescience.com/evidence-police-brutality-reform...
      - autoexec 5y ago
        That pretty much sums up what I've seen so far. A lot of differing ideas about what defending the police means where the most extreme voices (abolish the police for example) offer zero explanations on how a society can get by without any law enforcement or why their alternatives would fair any better while more moderate takes deal solidly with reforming the system that we have. I do get the frustrations expressed by those taking the more extreme view, but it comes off as more of an emotional outburst than a path forward. It's understandable to be frustrated and outraged enough to want to abolish policing entirely at this point, but it's also not constructive or helpful. The good thing is that everybody is pretty clear on what the problems are, but I fear that those seeking radical/counterproductive changes to society like getting rid of police entirely will hold back the rest of us either by rejecting anything that doesn't burn the justice system to the ground, or by convincing others that there's no hope in reformation of what we have today while offering no actual solutions leading people to feel helpless and defeated at a time when the message people need is "Change is possible and necessary, we just need to insist on it and work to make it happen"

by moate 5y ago

autoexec 5y ago

Without any police how would you suggest people in a city deal with a murder? Who would investigate it? Who would arrest the person responsible? Who would enforce contracts? What would stop anyone from taking anything they could take by force? Not wanting police publicly funded (“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” style) is absurd enough, but to think that policing as a whole doesn't need to exist at all is a new take I hadn't seen before. What's the alternative?

moate 5y ago
https://defundthepolice.org/alternatives-to-police-services/ https://defundthepolice.org/alternatives-to-police-services/
- autoexec 5y ago
  I appreciate the responsive, but that's a very poorly thought out piece. It gives a very small number of very specific cases where police (supposedly) aren't needed at all, and others where they could be replaced but fails to say what they'd replace them with beyond "civilian services". The police are a "civilian service". Police officers are civilians. It also fails to address what the difference is between police and "civilian services" that perform exactly the same function, what will stop the new service providers from becoming exactly what the current one has become, or how breaking up the current organizational structure into multiple entirely separate organizations tasked with extremely limited roles would produce greater efficiencies and effectiveness. I agree that police are poorly suited for mental health work and I think we would be much better off getting mental health professionals in that role to help the person in crisis, probably along with police backup (for safety). Police do a very poor job of both helping people with mental illness and keeping people safe while responding to mental health crisis, but with oversight and accountability they could do one of those things very well. I agree that traffic cops don't need to be armed to the teeth to pull over speeders and that they shouldn't use unmarked cars, but I think it's pretty useful that when they pull someone over they can see if they are a wanted criminal, determine if the car they are driving has been stolen, and arrest people who are intoxicated. They can do those things because they are working under a single organization. The cop pulling over speeders has access to criminal databases updated by other police officers in other departments (like the ones dealing with homicide, missing persons, and stolen cars) and can take dangerous people to a jail cell to be watched over by jailers who are also other police officers. Having all those different types of officers under one umbrella organization means that hiring practices, training, and polices can be consistent between them, that inter-departmental communications can flow easily, and that oversight can be simplified and consolidated. Imagine how much more work it would take to get multiple different "civilian" organizations to work together, handle passing around access to highly sensitive information securely, and to monitor them all individually. They entirely hand-wave police preventing and stopping violence by saying that "In most incidents of violent crime, police are responding to a crime that has already taken place." which is great for "most incidents" but none of the rest of them. They say police are "ill-equipped" to investigate crime, ignoring the fact that every crime that has ever been investigated and justice was served happened because they did their job. Yes, there are problems, but no alternative organization has ever done a better job and they say nothing about why or how their "specialized service" would. Ultimately their plan to replace police with "New Police but somehow also not connected to an institution of policing" isn't compelling. All of the fundamental problems with oversight and regulation are still unsolved. All of the problems with police unions and the relationship between law enforcement and the court system are still unsolved. It's "New Police", but less organized, and less capable. It's a whole lot easier to reform and manage one system, than try to reform and manage countless separate unaffiliated systems trying to do the exact same job in different ways. Change is needed, and not all of their ideas are terrible, but there's no reason we couldn't accomplish them without making the problem larger and harder to manage and there's no indication on that website as to why that wouldn't be case with hundreds of totally separate New Police forces doing the same essential job of policing.
  - moate 5y ago
    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/12/21283813/george-floyd-blm-abolish-the-police-8cantwait-minneapolis https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/12/21283813/g... https://www.8toabolition.com/ https://www.8toabolition.com/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol... https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/05/30/bad-apples-come-from-rotten-trees-in-policing/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/05/30/bad-ap... https://www.livescience.com/evidence-police-brutality-reform.html https://www.livescience.com/evidence-police-brutality-reform...
    - autoexec 5y ago
      That pretty much sums up what I've seen so far. A lot of differing ideas about what defending the police means where the most extreme voices (abolish the police for example) offer zero explanations on how a society can get by without any law enforcement or why their alternatives would fair any better while more moderate takes deal solidly with reforming the system that we have. I do get the frustrations expressed by those taking the more extreme view, but it comes off as more of an emotional outburst than a path forward. It's understandable to be frustrated and outraged enough to want to abolish policing entirely at this point, but it's also not constructive or helpful. The good thing is that everybody is pretty clear on what the problems are, but I fear that those seeking radical/counterproductive changes to society like getting rid of police entirely will hold back the rest of us either by rejecting anything that doesn't burn the justice system to the ground, or by convincing others that there's no hope in reformation of what we have today while offering no actual solutions leading people to feel helpless and defeated at a time when the message people need is "Change is possible and necessary, we just need to insist on it and work to make it happen"