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[Frumple]

I know you didn't say to eliminate police 100%, but Frumple did: I said you can't eliminate police 100%, and Frumple was the one that disagreed with that analysis.

100% elimination of police is the only scenario I'm talking about, in response to Frumple and only in response to Frumple.

BTW back to Frumple's original point, before modern civilian police forces ... it's not like they didn't have law enforcement and everything was just magically ok. They used soldiers / militia. The rise of civilian police forces occurred during the period of rapid urbanization for a reason. So if it's harking back to how they used to do things then you'd put the state militias in instead of city police.

Man, you keep typing my username but I think you might actually want to go back and check my original posts. Unless your habitual edit sprees jammed something in there while I was replying again, they weren't how you're portraying them. Beyond that I said literally fuckall about pre-modern police.

My original disagreement was with the farcical statement cops do sod all for home security now. Not your 100% whatever the hell you're going off on. Pretty sure not even my second post had much to do with that, but I guess I made the mistake of not quoting and expecting one of your posts to not go through repeated edits

[Cthulhu]

Jesus you guys really like to nitpick aspects of things people say that have nothing to do with the points they're actually trying to make.

My point regarding the formation of modern police wasn't that no sort of law enforcement existed.  It was that there was a point in time where police forces ****as we know them today**** came into existence, which are pretty damn unique and distinct from the rest of history in general.  And my point was never that this is proof that we can just poof away police and everything will be fine.  It was to address the idea that the concept of doing so is something so inconceivably radical, as people tend to make this out be something that would make civilization completely impossible, and I found some reactions here reminiscent of that.  My point was not to say that we should go back.  My point was that the structure of law enforcement that we are used to is not necessarily what it has to be, and was only using historical precedent to establish that point.

Yup @ Scriver. The argument is that there wasn't actually any such time before policing in some sense, nobody said there was such a "time of chaos". We still have police well before 200 years ago, they just weren't professionally organized. That's the actual point. It was just probably a worse type of policing to be honest.

Well you were literally arguing that what I and others were talking about, ****which was not the complete abolishing of law enforcement not a single person said that****, would result in rampant murder, rape, and slavery.  Which pretty easily gives the impression that you're making modern police out to be the only thing keeping humanity from descending into violent chaos.

So you're arguing that making every legal won't cause more things that are currently illegal to occur? Basically you'd be legalizing murder, rape, slavery, etc. There have to be at least a few people who, if police literally didn't exist would think "well dang, I'm going to kidnap me some sex slaves". Hell, breeding sex slaves would be legal. And you're asking "what could go wrong if the police didn't exist". Like, fucking everything could go wrong. Before the idea of "modern police forces" they did in fact have laws, you could be arrested. There were armed people who enforced the laws. This idea that there was no "policing" and everything was fine is bullshit.

That link is about the violence of war. There's very little doubt we live in the least crimal time throughout history. Well, at least if you go by the words of that famous Swedish statistician guy.

So what?  Besides the point.  It's still a shitload of violence.  It's what future generations will focus on when learning about our era, the same way we tend to focus on violence when learning about previous eras.  Yet violence doesn't define the daily experience of our lives, and I doubt it did for previous generations, either, who lived without modern police.  Just a point of perspective against a certain sort of chronological snobbery that has a tendency to become central to discussions like this.

Since I was also in the medieval violence thing, to be clear I agree with all this.  The point I was making was that, as far as I've read, violent pre-modern societies had many factors in common with violent parts of the US today, including the specific rates of violence (Maybe even more, depending on your view of feudalism; effectively stateless societies preyed upon by a violent upper class that could abuse them with impunity?).  We fixed things, we can fix them again, but it's a long-term, complicated problem because violent crime is an adaptive response to material conditions and it sustains as long as those conditions sustain and likely for at least a generation afterward.

Sorry, but as pepper spray is a chemical weapon of mass destruction, I'm going to have to take it off the list. 

You say that as a joke, but a guy who threw a tear gas grenade back at the police got booked for assault with a deadly weapon.  I guarantee the same would happen if you got a hold of a baton launcher.
 They play by different rules than we do.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Who's joking? I'm 100% on board with a complete ban on tear gas and pepper spray for cops.

[Egan_BW]

Maybe if a weapon isn't allowed in warfare maybe it should not be allowed in general.

[SalmonGod]

So what are the functions which are unique to a police force, which wouldn't be better served by some other type of professional?  I recognize the following.

1.  Arresting suspects following a report of a crime, which should only be necessary in a minority of cases in our modern age of surveillance.  Can be revisited if we dismantle the surveillance state.
2.  Responding to reports of violence in progress, with the intent to minimize harm to everyone as much as possible, including suspects
3.  Partial involvement in investigation

As I understand, this is a minority of what police actually do, and it seems to me like restricting them to specifically these duties with appropriate cuts to size/funding would be incredibly dramatic.  Not abolition, no.  But it would be a dramatic departure from police in their current form.

[Cthulhu]

Maybe if a weapon isn't allowed in warfare maybe it should not be allowed in general.

Seattle is currently bolting their newest fence to the concrete, setting up long-term cordoned protest zones.  It certainly feels like they're taking a war footing to this protest.

The previous setup they had was concrete barricades which were installed wrong and were quickly dismantled.  Had they not dismantled them, that guy who drove into the protest probably would've hit a bunch of people.  Curiously, he had his gun jungle rigged.

So place your bets ladies and gents.  Did he drive there to kill a bunch of people, or is he a cop?  Or is it both?

[SOLDIER First]

So place your bets ladies and gents.  Did he drive there to kill a bunch of people, or is he a cop?  Or is it both?

What's the difference?

[Cthulhu]

It is suspicious to say the least that the police set up what were supposed to be immovable barricades hours before a guy attempted to plow into a crowd that otherwise would've been trapped by those barricades.

[SalmonGod]

So place your bets ladies and gents.  Did he drive there to kill a bunch of people, or is he a cop?  Or is it both?

I was looking into this earlier today.  I think he is either a cop or an ally from some local fascist group.

Spoiler: This is him right after the shooting.  I was doubtful at first, because it's outrageous enough even for me to deserve some skepticism.  But the visual of the person matches exactly.  That building in the background matches up with the video footage.  And there was just such an empty space between the crowd and the police line at that moment. (click to show/hide)

And then police report on twitter that they have "taken him into custody".

[Rolan7]

Who's joking? I'm 100% on board with a complete ban on tear gas and pepper spray for cops.

This.  Tear gas is pain gas, it's like hot sauce directly applied to one's eyeballs.  You ever rub your eye after cutting an onion?  Or after handling some Tabasco?  It's small beans, but it fricken stings.  Imagine that misted everywhere while people are shouting at you. 
Just move out, right?
Move out where?  Did you just open your eyes?  Get rekt!
What an effective crowd control tool - blind a bunch of angry people!  Now they'll surely leave!

[ChairmanPoo]

Yeah, exile was effectively a death sentence.  But still more respectable, imo, than a literal death sentence.  "We don't necessarily want you to die, but we can't live together with you, either.  This is the best that can be done."

But shunning has also been a common method of punishment throughout history, and was not a death sentence.  Also doesn't need to be permanent and can be practiced on a spectrum.  Humans being social creatures, everyone in your community suddenly refusing to directly socially acknowledge your existence is actually incredibly harsh, while also being not directly violent or necessarily likely to result in harm to livelihood.  I remember it being a major subject of my 101 anthropology class as a point of comparison with modern societies.  Can't find any handy links right now that cover it more generally that way.  They all focus narrowly on specific cultures.  And I don't have time right now to go digging.

Not that these are necessarily practical in our modern circumstances.  Just to prevent drifting from the point - it's about historical violence and humanity's natural inclination to violence being commonly overstated.

I disagree. Amish do that and it doesn't work. Shunning, I mesn 

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Alright, since we're talking functions recently, here's a short layout of my conception for the "divide the police" plan that people keep coming back to. It's no abolishing capitalism, but I think it'd do fairly well and I hope it will help those of you skeptical of such a plan visualize it. All the organizations here would be separated to prevent esprit de corps from developing, and as it happens some of them are separated already!

Traffic & Parking Enforcement
Armament - NONE
Citation Powers - YES
Arrest Powers - NO
Mandatory Division - YES

Metermaids and traffic cops. No, they don't need arrest power and they certainly don't need guns. If someone doesn't pull over it's more dangerous for everybody to chase them, type their license plate into the system with dash photo attached and move on. Ticket will be mailed. Vehicular rampage to lethal threat response, license plate offenders to arrest & arraignment.

Drug & Substance Enforcement

ABOLISH

I could see the need for a force to, say, track down people making nerve gas. But people don't generally do that and the Feds are the ones who go after them when they do. People are growing weed and cooking meth, which should be addressed by decriminalization and social welfare programs. More LSD use could probably do our society some good anyway.

Fire & Building Code Enforcement
Armament - BATON & TAZER
Citation Powers - YES
Arrest Powers - NO
Mandatory Division - YES

Well, you know the Fire Marshals already, or you do if you've ever owned a commercial building. Honestly, I'd say of all the existing divided responsibilities these guys have the best enforcement-to-violence ratio. They're not squeaky clean, but they take their stuff seriously and I'd trade them with standard cops in a heartbeat. Some are currently allowed to carry guns and some aren't, I think that's a bit much but I also know how completely crazy some small business tyrants are about being regulated.

Hunting, Fishing, & Wildlife Enforcement
Armament - PISTOL & RIFLE
Citation Powers - YES
Arrest Powers - YES
Mandatory Division - NO IF URBAN COUNTY

Another pre-existing group, Rangers. And the first group I'm giving any actual guns, because grizzly bears do not respond to welfare programs. As with all divisions, this one would still only have enforcement powers within their area and scope, i.e., you can kick people out of the park for being drunk, but not cite them because they were drinking underage. Not that my fantasy law reforms use criminal charges to handle underage drinking. Anyway, people don't go around chanting "Fuck The Park Wardens" so I think minimal change is needed here. Might be nice to use them as a sort of EPA Police for wilderness areas, though.

Immigration & Customs Enforcement

ABOLISH

Undocumented immigration is an administrative affair and as unstoppable as drug use, seek green card reform not border walls. Also, probably prosecute everyone currently working for the federal ICE.

Investigation & Forensics
Armament - NONE
Citation Powers - NO
Arrest Powers - NO
Mandatory Division - YES

Maybe they'll actually investigate a house robbery or two like this. But I doubt it.

Arrest & Arraignment
Armament - TAZER & BATON STANDARD, PISTOL IF DANGEROUS
Citation Powers - NO
Arrest Powers - YES
Mandatory Division - YES

Behold, a pig! Or what's left of them. This group is here for a specific reason - to enforce arrest warrants. Ideally this will be minimal as the system will be designed to request appearance at court first, and only then issue a warrant. They would also perform lethal threat response if that division is not present in an area, though most such incidents seem to happen in cities or suburbs so this is less likely. If there is absolutely a need to guard an area, these guys and not LTR are the ones. Subject to increased penalties if convicted of a crime.

Lethal Threat Response
Armament - AUTOMATIC RIFLE, TAZER, & FLASHBANG
Citation Powers - NO
Arrest Powers - YES
Mandatory Division - NO

SWAT roles. To be deployed against mass shooter or siege incidents and certainly not for any kind of house raiding or riot response, let alone all the other bullshit existing SWAT are used for. Subject to military-style code of justice and increased penalties if convicted of a crime. I'm not entirely sure what to do with these fellows the 99% of the time they're not needed, maybe a reservist kind of thing with rotating shifts. If the firefighters can handle boredom, so can these.

Internal Affairs & Oversight
Armament - PISTOL (IA) / NONE (OS)
Citation Powers - COPS ONLY
Arrest Powers - COPS ONLY
Mandatory Division - YES

Behold, a metapig! Maybe they'll be not completely useless if they're not the same organization. Also, that's just the IA side. Oversight is of both IA and the other cops, and are either elected or appointed by the municipal government. Other people have written in detail how IA reforms and civilian oversight boards work, but as long as they actually do their job instead of following the thin blue line this is task accomplished. IA are subject to increased penalties if convicted of a crime.

Cybercrime
Armament - KEYBOARD & MOUSE
Citation Powers - NO
Arrest Powers - NO
Mandatory Division - NO

We do kind of need this, don't we? It might be better to get it out in the open, because any larger police department is definitely snooping through people's email and such already. I thought about this being part of an "anti-scam" group but then I remembered that scamming isn't strictly illegal.

Mental Welfare Services
Armament - NONE
Citation Powers - NO
Arrest Powers - NO
Mandatory Division - YES

No more fucking shooting people on "welfare checks". If you must have such things, it needs to be like this. Mental healthcare and crisis certification required, preferably based out of hospitals entirely. If you're thinking "but what if they're threatening to shoot themselves, that means they have a gun", I have never even once heard an EMT,  therapist, or family member say they wanted the cops around in that scenario.

There's a whole host of legal and practice reforms that would have to go along with this sort of thing, and the existing cops would probably rather start a civil war than let it happen, but regardless I hope this is the kind of thing that helps understand what changes could be made in this fashion. This one doesn't take stretching the imagination that much to see it's probably better than the status quo.

[Frumple]

Lethal Threat Response
Armament - AUTOMATIC RIFLE, TAZER, & FLASHBANG
Citation Powers - NO
Arrest Powers - YES
Mandatory Division - NO

SWAT roles. To be deployed against mass shooter or siege incidents and certainly not for any kind of house raiding or riot response, let alone all the other bullshit existing SWAT are used for. Subject to military-style code of justice and increased penalties if convicted of a crime. I'm not entirely sure what to do with these fellows the 99% of the time they're not needed, maybe a reservist kind of thing with rotating shifts.

Iirc the areas that basically do this have that answer be regular/near-constant training. You more or less need that to be able to have people able to respond to that kind of high risk/tension situation without fucking up or getting fucked up one way or another, from what I understand.

[JoshuaFH]

Internal Affairs & Oversight
Armament - PISTOL (IA) / NONE (OS)
Citation Powers - COPS ONLY
Arrest Powers - COPS ONLY
Mandatory Division - YES

Behold, a metapig! Maybe they'll be not completely useless if they're not the same organization. Also, that's just the IA side. Oversight is of both IA and the other cops, and are either elected or appointed by the municipal government. Other people have written in detail how IA reforms and civilian oversight boards work, but as long as they actually do their job instead of following the thin blue line this is task accomplished. IA are subject to increased penalties if convicted of a crime.

I think a single different organization is not sufficient to ensure the kind of prudence, thoroughness, and impartiality that a auditing body like this would need to be. That is, a single organization, over time, might simply become complacent, entrenched in their positions, and corrupted by the political ambitions of themselves and their superiors. In order to actually do the job that society needs them to do, I imagine there'd need to be something like 10 or more competing bodies that that each have their own section of the United States as their jurisdiction; and the trick being that the assignment of these jurisdictions is randomly altered every year.

So you'd have groups of itinerant auditors that are shuffled around every year, staying in a location long enough to both inspect their given jurisdiction, and to report on any carelessness that the previous Auditor is guilty of, effectively policing both their charges and eachother. The large number of organizations prevents any one of them from falling into corruption without all the others noticing. The short length of time means they can't set down any roots or form any attachments to their given area. The randomness guarantees that noone can make plans or form meaningful friendships with the inspectors/auditors. Ideally, the career track of an auditor would be very short, probably no more than 5 to 10 years, so that the auditors themselves don't get burnt out from the work and so that the roster of auditors don't become well-known among their charges.

I think the biggest downside would be that because all these organizations would have to be federal, working above and over the states, that the states might feel that their rights are being constantly stomped on. It's a small price to pay for uniformity in the standards and application of law.

Of course, the people at the top, to create these organizations in the first place, would have to want justice in the first place; as opposed to just having a posse of gunmen to strongarm dissidents.

[Cthulhu]

There are probably some passive police functions that require lethal armament they can be rotated through.

In more seattle car news, weird threatening vehicles are showing up more frequently at the protests, a car with no license plate pulled up a few hours ago and idled, then faked a charge and peeled out.  No idea who he was, but just eyeballing he looks like a cop to me.  No concern his face is on camera.  Could just be whitesup though, for all its reputation as muh antifa muh portland the northwest is a hotbed.  Oregon was originally founded as a white sanctuary and at one time had KKK members in pretty much every state government seat.