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[Frumple]

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

Folks without a gun and functionally unlimited licence to use it, trained to deal with specific issues, seems to be the general proposition I've seen, if it really needs to be said again. Most of the shit cops do, most crimes and ways of dealing with crime, do not require the powers most cops have, and would be staggeringly better dealt with by someone with meaningful training specific to the issue. So you defund the police, then fund social workers, investigative specialists, conflict mediators, and so on.

Maybe there's room or necessity for a (much smaller) organization that handles active violent situations, but that ain't most of what cops do and they shouldn't be getting paid to do a (shitty) job of the rest of it, especially when the results is a great deal of harm for a great many people that don't need more harm in their lives.

Anyway, if any of y'all got medium access, either free articles left or membership or a way around the paywall, here is a pretty good article by a former cop on the kind of shit their internal culture is, as well as some suggestions and whatnot as to what could help. They touch on a lot of what's been touched on in the recent bits of discussion

[ChairmanPoo]

Folks without a gun and functionally unlimited licence to use it, trained to deal with specific issues, seems to be the general proposition I've seen, if it really needs to be said again. Most of the shit cops do, most crimes and ways of dealing with crime, do not require the powers most cops have, and would be staggeringly better dealt with by someone with meaningful training specific to the issue. So you defund the police, then fund social workers, investigative specialists, conflict mediators, and so on.

That wont cut it. How will those folks without a gun deal with armed criminals?

Maybe there's room or necessity for a (much smaller) organization that handles active violent situations, but that ain't most of what cops do and they shouldn't be getting paid to do a (shitty) job of the rest of it, especially when the results is a great deal of harm for a great many people that don't need more harm in their lives.

No "maybe" about it... you WILL need an armed corps. With this you're arguing police reform, not police abolishment.

Anyway, if any of y'all got medium access, either free articles left or membership or a way around the paywall, here is a pretty good article by a former cop on the kind of shit their internal culture is, as well as some suggestions and whatnot as to what could help. They touch on a lot of what's been touched on in the recent bits of discussion

That the police system in the US is flawed is a no-brainer, but it doesn't follow that no police is needed.

[scriver]

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.

The case handling statistics for social services aren't exactly stellar either, you know.

[Frumple]

Sure, but they also don't tend to regularly brutalize people they interact with, last I checked

Their funding also tends to be pretty shit. Maybe they'd be better if you swapped the relative pay around and whatnot? Just a thought.

That wont cut it. How will those folks without a gun deal with armed criminals?

I mean, presumably the same way cops tend to. Which is to say they don't, because they show up after the armed criminals are gone and exist basically for cleanup and little else.

That the police system in the US is flawed is a no-brainer, but it doesn't follow that no police is needed.

I mean, have I suggested that, yet? I've noted they're mostly fucking useless and most of their money would be better off going elsewhere, but I don't recall saying anything about complete abolition, yet. I'm sympathetic that it might take complete abolition and rebuilding from the ground up to do much about the situations in the states, but that's 'cause they're staggeringly fucked up and probably need to be pulled out root and all. But is there no place for 'em? I'unno. Most of the time it feels like they're already not here, so maybe it doesn't make much of a difference.

---

Any case, if you want to see some representative suggestions (from the article linked above),

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

They're pretty decent ones.

[ChairmanPoo]

I mean, presumably the same way cops tend to. Which is to say they don't, because they show up after the armed criminals are gone and exist basically for cleanup and little else

Counterpoint: if there is no police force whatsoever the gap would be filled by private security (for the wealthy) and gangs (for everyone else) and things would jump from little accountability to no accountability

I don't recall saying anything about complete abolition

I dont know if you said it in particular.You certainly seemed to be arguing in that direction but I'm not going to quote hunt. There were people here arguing for complete abolition.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

Agreed with caveats. Extraordinary situations demand extraordinary judgement calls.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

I can agree with this

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Strong misgivings about this one. Being one does not exclude from the other

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Most countries with public healthcare have said insurance covered by hospitals.  Btw the legal situation of medical practice and malpractice in the US is kind of silly

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly

I can roll with this one with caveats. I certainly do agree that military hardware shouldnt be present in every police force however small, and should be reserved for special (and highly trained) intervention teams. Which should be reserved for their intervention time, and spend whichever time is off intervening training on what to do and what not to do (which would indeed be expensive and a good reason for these not being an universal feature of police forces in itself).

[Dwarf_Fever]

The "get rid of cops" discussion is exactly like trying to tell anti-vaxers why we need vaccinations. "Yes, we need to ensure their quality, but yes, we also have to have them." Generally, people that don't have much knowledge of history or organized crime, and don't have references in their mind of what sort of things happen in these areas.

In fact, I am sure there are populated places in the world right now without effective policing, aka a war zone or disaster area. (They often have plenty of guns around, though.)

Among the developed nations, the US has the most guns and is notorious for celebrating violence. You are surprised this culture, where kids grow up thinking Dirty Harry is cool, produces violent police? And that people get shot - in general? How are you going to isolate the cops from the very culture that produced them?

Although I'm generally for the idea of unarmed cops (and reform in general), again, it will be all that much harder in the US for various reasons including above.

[TD1]

The "get rid of cops" discussion is exactly like trying to tell anti-vaxers why we need vaccinations. "Yes, we need to ensure their quality, but yes, we also have to have them." Generally, people that don't have much knowledge of history or organized crime, and don't have references in their mind of what sort of things happen in these areas.

In fact, I am sure there are populated places in the world right now without effective policing, aka a war zone or disaster area.

Among the developed nations, the US has the most guns and is notorious for celebrating violence. You are surprised this culture, where kids grow up thinking Dirty Harry is cool, produces violent police? And that people get shot - in general? How are you going to isolate the cops from the very culture that produced them?

But sic semper tyrannis!

[Dwarf_Fever]

But sic semper tyrannis!

Haha, I haven't even touched the idea of dealing with that whole mindset. Only the fact that cops are immersed in it. Try to keep it to one herculean task at a time...   

[Dwarf_Fever]

Speaking of the over-glorified violence in US culture, and the easy availability of firearms, here's how this sort of thing bears out...

I am 100% unsurprised. Yeah, you're more likely to get shot by a cop in the US than elsewhere, but you're 10x more likely to just get shot by some rando or criminal.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[TD1]

Wow, and Canada's literally just next door.

[SalmonGod]

I'll throw in that I've had my home robbed twice, and police did absolutely nothing either time.  I've met many others who have been through the same, including police neglecting to do anything even when they had solid evidence as to who it was that robbed them.  I don't think I've ever met someone in person who has a single positive story about police interaction/aid. 

On the other hand, I've been subject to some minor harassment by police a couple times.  And I've known several people who have been subject to severe harassment/violence/negligence by police, including permanent injury, gross mishandling of rape/domestic abuse, and a co-worker losing family to negligence of a medical condition.

I disagree with this notion that humanity's default state is this violent barbarism that will wash over everything as soon as the police aren't around to deter it.  In fact, one prevalent source of violence in the USA, right-wing terrorism, would probably go on the decline without the active support of law enforcement.  That's a far more serious threat, **which the police are well known at this point to actively enable**, than random street gang violence or the mafia or a pandemic of home invasions or cannibals in facepaint and loincloths or whatever else we're imagining lurking in dark corners all around us just waiting for police to go away so they can emerge into the light and terrorize us.  I just don't see the world that way, and we're likely not going to agree on this point.

Counterpoint: if there is no police force whatsoever the gap would be filled by private security (for the wealthy) and gangs (for everyone else) and things would jump from little accountability to no accountability

And it would still be better, because those groups would be much smaller and less powerful.  I would rather face a hostile encounter with a gang that only has its membership and some guns than with the police that represents the full force of the state.  If you find yourself in a hostile situation with police, you are just fucked.  Just fucked.  Period.  The force of the state is against you.  If you successfully defend yourself in one encounter with police, there will be another encounter soon after and you will be guaranteed not to survive it.

The wealthy and businesses already do private security.  Nothing's different there.

And if the other alternative I'd be looking at is gangs, then yes.  Absolutely.  Give me the gangs that don't have the force of the state behind them instead of the gangs that do have the support of the state behind them.  Please.  Yes.  As a lower middle-class white person, I might be a little worse off, I admit.  But far more people would be much, much better off, including many that I care about.

I don't recall saying anything about complete abolition

I dont know if you said it in particular.You certainly seemed to be arguing in that direction but I'm not going to quote hunt. There were people here arguing for complete abolition.

Nobody has said it is their ideal.  Not me or Max or MSH or Frumple, who seem to be the 4 most outspokenly anti-police posters here.

The point we have been making is that complete police abolition would be better than having police anything like they are now.  Radical structural reforms and reduction in size and power are our ideal.  We seem to be in agreement on that.  But if that's not achievable, then complete police abolition would be the next best thing, and in some respects seems more easily achievable in the near term.  To achieve the ideal, the whole force probably just need to be completely dismantled and rebuilt.  As it is it's so deeply rotten that there is likely not much salvageable from it, and abolition is politically and procedurally probably the most likely means of achieving the dismantling step before rebuilding.

[Max™]

Hell, Folly was trying to use argumentum ad absurdum by asking if it was really likely that cops are so fucked up and useless or if a few of us just had bad experiences.

Yet most people do not realize cops started in the US as slave catchers, which shows the... folly, if you will, of his argument.

I mean, I grew up poor, always been poor, I never had any illusions about cops helping me past age 4, maybe before assuming those of us saying they're bastards are crazy, check and see what your life was like first?

[TD1]

It's a problem with anecdotal evidence; you have to live it to believe it.

[SalmonGod]

Speaking of the over-glorified violence in US culture, and the easy availability of firearms, here's how this sort of thing bears out...

I am 100% unsurprised. Yeah, you're more likely to get shot by a cop in the US than elsewhere, but you're 10x more likely to just get shot by some rando or criminal.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ok - so does this provide anything in terms of what effect police have on this rate of violent crime?  I assume you believe that it would be even worse without police?  Because I have the opposite interpretation - that we have a wildly powerful police force in comparison to all those other countries, which mysteriously correlates with us also having higher rates of violent crime.

Maybe it's because police protect a status quo that actively pushes most of those who live under it into a state of terminal desperation and hopelessness that weakens the inhibition to violent behaviors?  Maybe the size and power of our police force is directly proportional to the size and severity of these structural issues, and an oppressive police force is the only way for such a broken society to sustain itself, because without that the population would have the ability to band together and force positive change?

[Max™]

It's a problem with anecdotal evidence; you have to live it to believe it.

It was anecdotal before everyone had cameraphones, now it's just public record: cops are bastards, there aren't countless examples because people just go looking for this shit, it's because if people don't pull out a phone and record it, nobody believes them.

I mean shit, I got compared to some of the most vile disgusting pieces of shit on earth just now, there is nothing lower than an antivaxxer to me, those people kill babies for "muh freedoms" and they get away with it by being white suburban piece of shit moms mostly.

When facts say cops kill people more than they help, when video evidence shows them doing this casually, when actual cops come out and say they're bastards, maybe the people defending the cops are the antivaxxers here, because they're arguing from a position of privilege and ignorance, not me.