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[Folly]

An organization with hundreds of thousands of members has existed for hundreds of years and consumed a major portion of state budget, all the while overwhelmingly failing to perform the singular task for which they exist. Yet they have brainwashed the overwhelming majority of the population into believing that they are in fact performing their task through elaborate media propaganda schemes. Any incidents cited of this organization actually doing their job are outliers and flukes which do not actually represent their overall function.

Or...

Said organization exists and typically performs the task for which it was created, and generally functions in the way that the majority of the population believes. Incidents where they fail to perform their function are outliers and flukes which get blown out of proportion by News media seeking to sensationalize everything for the sake of ratings.


Which of these scenarios seems more plausible?

[martinuzz]

When I was 4 I called the cops from a neighbors house to ask them to help because I was scared my dad was going to kill my mom.

The next day he was let out and came home.

Next time it escalated and I got the cops to come, while my mother sat on her knees in the front yard, scalp torn open, as I begged the cops to do something to stop him before he killed her, they said I should go inside, it's late, and did nothing. I learned as a little kid that cops will not help you.

You're discussing edge cases like they're a majority, do you think there are more cases like yours or mine?

I am truly sorry you had this experience, and it is horrible.  But you cannot claim from this personal incident that all cops are bad, and anyone who has experienced otherwise has listened to too much copaganda.

It's like being robbed by a black guy once in your life, and then saying for the rest of your life that all black people are evil bastards and anyone who says otherwise has been listening too much to negroganda.

Here you are the one discussing an edge case like a majority.

And I do get it, what happened to you is sadly not a single incident.  It happenes more often.  But there's plenty of good cops out there who would have acted like human beings and helped you and your mom.  You just were unfortunate enough to live in a place where the police were bad apples. 

Or maybe not even the police themselves, maybe the city budget / policy makers had ordered the police not to interfere in domestic disputes.

[Frumple]

I mean, last I checked investigation et al rates for various crimes are fairly known and fairly fucking abysmal. Most domestic abuse is not addressed by the police. Most theft/burglary/etc. is not addressed by the police beyond maybe an incident report. Most rapes are not. Most sexual assaults are not. Most assaults are not. Most traffic violations are not. Most fraud is not (and damn sure isn't handled by normal cops regardless). It's too damn early for me to actually dig up the numbers again, but they're probably pretty easy to search up so far as the US goes. The list just goes fucking on. I mean think maybe murder is like the one area where their proverbial batting average approaches decent, and there's still shittons of murders that go unsolved and largely unaddressed. Shit ain't "edge case", more like "coin flip if you're bloody lucky, lol if you're not".

Max's argument there isn't so much "bad" (though they'd definitely argue that otherwise ha), it's "mostly fucking useless", and so far as I'm aware that statement is more accurate than it's not.

[ChairmanPoo]

I disagree. Even if they are dismal at researching whatever, it doesnt follow that they are useless. As by being present they might (and I would say, certainly are) preventing worse things from happening. There *IS* a reason why all societies have some form of law enforcement.

[Max™]

My argument is that I was inoculated against copaganda by my fucked up childhood, but remained aware of it.

It's all over the place, I completely understand why someone who wasn't aware of how fucked up and wrong it is might believe it, it's an understandable enough thing.

I'm aware that attacking a belief is not the best way to defuse it, and I'm hoping that offering an out whereby you can discard the belief without being at fault can prove useful in the future.

People believe cops are helpful and necessary, they have been inundated with false representations of what cops are and what they do.

Being told your previous understanding of reality is incorrect, and indeed that it was only instilled so others could perpetuate a system which harms others, is very uncomfortable, so it's important to me to remind others that it is not your fault for believing this, it does not make you a bad person to have thought this and it is ok to update your beliefs in this situation without guilt.

[Frumple]

I disagree. Even if they are dismal at researching whatever, it doesnt follow that they are useless. As by being present they might (and I would say, certainly are) preventing worse things from happening. There *IS* a reason why all societies have some form of law enforcement.

I mean, in the US it was to catch escaped slaves :V

And I didn't say entirely useless. Just mostly. More likely to do sod all for you than otherwise. Which, again, from what I understand of solved and unsolved crime rates is just flat true.

[martinuzz]

High crime solve rates are an utopia that only exists in nations that have gone 100% Big Brother.

[Frumple]

Literally just talking better than 50/50. Beyond that, that's... kinda' the point. High crime solve rates (especially relative to incidents in general, not just reported ones) basically don't bloody happen. Which should say all that needs to be said about actual police efficacy and how likely one is actually going to help with any particular crime

[martinuzz]

Yea but without some form of police force, crime solve rates will be 0%.

[Max™]

I disagree. Even if they are dismal at researching whatever, it doesnt follow that they are useless. As by being present they might (and I would say, certainly are) preventing worse things from happening. There *IS* a reason why all societies have some form of law enforcement.

I mean, in the US it was to catch escaped slaves :V

And I didn't say entirely useless. Just mostly. More likely to do sod all for you than otherwise. Which, again, from what I understand of solved and unsolved crime rates is just flat true.

Thank you, didn't see that until a second ago, but yeah, cops existed to catch slaves. Now they exist to protect capitalist interests which need a steady supply of workers afraid of poverty, i.e. they exist to shoot poor people or lock them up for being poor, more or less.

[martinuzz]

You are confusing cops with the law here.
The law indeed, in most of our societies, mostly exists to protect capitalist interests, and has done so at least since modern law systems developed in ancient Rome.
Police are just the poor buggers who are sent out on the streets to enforce the law.

And that is more of a discussion for the Late Stage Capitalism thread but it is underlying the issue here as well.

[Frumple]

I mean, max ain't confused, often enough the cops break the law to do what they're talking about, and have to rely on a brutally rigged justice system to keep them in a job and out of jail. The law's commonly enough pretty shit, but you can generally rely on cops to make things even shittier, stateside at the absolute least.

[Cthulhu]

I would focus much more heavily on the police brigandry than I would on public ownership of weapons at this point in time. That "Thin Blue Line" needs to be expunged with prejudice-- THEN we can talk about removing guns from private owners within city limits. (Or rather, enforcing proper safety regs are met for storage, handling, and liability of those weapons, such that the costs of ownership outweigh the benefits, and people naturally seek to be rid of them for convenience. Like it should be.)

If you fix the police/carceral industrial complex you eliminate the reason for city-dwellers to own guns, but you also eliminate the reason for them to not have guns.

But it seems like we're going in circles on the actual police discussion.  Yes, police occasionally do enforce laws and solve crimes, but most of the laws they enforce and the crimes they solve are not making you safer and could be eliminated with no or positive net effect on societal wellbeing.

[ChairmanPoo]

My question is how do you deal with crime without a police force.

[Cthulhu]

You and other people have asked that several times and your question's been answered several times.