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On the whole, I would consider the police a valuable workforce with some reservations. The vast majority are not performing egregious violations of civil right

by mc32 4y ago

On the whole, I would consider the police a valuable workforce with some reservations. The vast majority are not performing egregious violations of civil rights. What we see in the news are the exceptions. That said, I don't see a usable alternative --even considering the abuse. It's a human system--and maybe a remote robotic AI assisted system would be worse-- so it suffers from human fallibility. A system without police is worse. You will have gangs and vigilantes take over who will be worse than police forces (yes, I know police in Venezuela are indistinguishable from violent gangs --but I'm talking about most police forces in advanced economies). Without a police force you get what we saw in the Wild West and what they got in Somalia --gangs and warlords and outlaws and whatnot. I'm not saying don't strive for improvement -what I am saying is we must allow discretion (an example of what happens with lack of discretion is what happens with mandatory sentencing) Even in China, you want a police force over no police and the police in China are even less concerned with civil rights and offer more discretion to the "right" people. In Russia, I would say it's closer to a draw as they are pretty corrupt, but your gangs are still worse. Thinking in idealistic fashion is an okay exercise but we also need to face reality and the reality is that people cannot "police themselves" adequately.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
> The vast majority are not performing egregious violations of civil rights. What we see in the news are the exceptions. I can not see it this way, and I have earned that honestly. I have lived much of my life in poverty and addiction and across decades and dozens of interactions, not a single cop treated me with dignity and respect while I was homeless. Now I can code, can afford a dentist and $300 boots, and we get along fine! The violations are not the exception, they are build in to the system. The violations against people like you, against who I am now, those are exceptions. But in general? No. I'm not arguing for lawlessness here. I am saying we should not be funding a hostile paramilitary force to harass the citizens we have already failed in other ways.
- mc32 4y ago
  When I was young I too had encounters with them and it was less than ideal. But I also feel that without them there society would be worse off. Yes, there can be improvement and they definitely need to better weed out bad apples (they need to better detect criminals within their ranks --just like the clergy needs to and schools need to). But also realize they are doing what society is asking them to do. Allowing some discretion is what allows them to ignore homeless in the park or in a ditch or wherever the locality finds unofficially permissible. If they followed the letter of the law in many places, they'd have to call in the paddy wagon way more often.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Do you have any concrete suggestions for improvement besides defunding the police?
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Do you have any suggestions for dinner besides food? The answer is the answer, sorry you don't like it.
    - mc32 4y ago
      The larger issue is how do we manage a society to follow accepted norms. Most jurisdictions have elected to choose a police force, but smaller ones --not sure how extendable that is-- use councils or elders or whatnot. These can also end up in weird derailments on occasion. In large societies, the US, India, China, Panama, etc., with many strangers living among each other in large settlements, how do we, uhhh, "police" the population? Or how do we manage the population from infringing/violating each other's rights?
      - giraffe_lady 4y ago
        So, I don't know, necessarily. I'm not a sociologist or philosopher or anything else that would give me particularly strong insight on how we can structure society to meet our goals. But that doesn't discredit my discernment that policing as we have it is overall a harmful system that needs to change so significantly that it will be unrecognizable from it's current form. > Or how do we manage the population from infringing/violating each other's rights? Do we manage it now? Do police do that? If they do the US should be one of if not the safest country in the world. Is it? The very clear evidence is that police don't accomplish this goal, or that this is not the goal of police. My belief, earned through experience, is that keeping us safe, "preventing crime" is not what police do. And what they is do is not something we should want or endorse. Yes, we will need "policing" the norms of society, management of the boundaries between individual rights, reaction to transgressions against them. But what we have isn't effective at that anyway, so why are we so invested in keeping it? We can do better and the police themselves have no interest in helping us figure out how.

by mc32 4y ago

giraffe_lady 4y ago

> The vast majority are not performing egregious violations of civil rights. What we see in the news are the exceptions. I can not see it this way, and I have earned that honestly. I have lived much of my life in poverty and addiction and across decades and dozens of interactions, not a single cop treated me with dignity and respect while I was homeless. Now I can code, can afford a dentist and $300 boots, and we get along fine! The violations are not the exception, they are build in to the system. The violations against people like you, against who I am now, those are exceptions. But in general? No. I'm not arguing for lawlessness here. I am saying we should not be funding a hostile paramilitary force to harass the citizens we have already failed in other ways.

mc32 4y ago
When I was young I too had encounters with them and it was less than ideal. But I also feel that without them there society would be worse off. Yes, there can be improvement and they definitely need to better weed out bad apples (they need to better detect criminals within their ranks --just like the clergy needs to and schools need to). But also realize they are doing what society is asking them to do. Allowing some discretion is what allows them to ignore homeless in the park or in a ditch or wherever the locality finds unofficially permissible. If they followed the letter of the law in many places, they'd have to call in the paddy wagon way more often.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
Do you have any concrete suggestions for improvement besides defunding the police?
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Do you have any suggestions for dinner besides food? The answer is the answer, sorry you don't like it.
  - mc32 4y ago
    The larger issue is how do we manage a society to follow accepted norms. Most jurisdictions have elected to choose a police force, but smaller ones --not sure how extendable that is-- use councils or elders or whatnot. These can also end up in weird derailments on occasion. In large societies, the US, India, China, Panama, etc., with many strangers living among each other in large settlements, how do we, uhhh, "police" the population? Or how do we manage the population from infringing/violating each other's rights?
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      So, I don't know, necessarily. I'm not a sociologist or philosopher or anything else that would give me particularly strong insight on how we can structure society to meet our goals. But that doesn't discredit my discernment that policing as we have it is overall a harmful system that needs to change so significantly that it will be unrecognizable from it's current form. > Or how do we manage the population from infringing/violating each other's rights? Do we manage it now? Do police do that? If they do the US should be one of if not the safest country in the world. Is it? The very clear evidence is that police don't accomplish this goal, or that this is not the goal of police. My belief, earned through experience, is that keeping us safe, "preventing crime" is not what police do. And what they is do is not something we should want or endorse. Yes, we will need "policing" the norms of society, management of the boundaries between individual rights, reaction to transgressions against them. But what we have isn't effective at that anyway, so why are we so invested in keeping it? We can do better and the police themselves have no interest in helping us figure out how.