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[Iduno]

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

"Without police, who's going to commit all of the crimes?"

I have known police personally, watched them work, and needed their help. For decades. I have never seen a cop do anything to stop, prevent, or properly investigate any crime ever. "There's nothing we can do about that." I've seen plenty of rapes, violence, looting, torture, destruction, and one murder from them.

[Loud Whispers]

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?

Or perhaps that the Police tactic of force+1 means that surrender & cooperation are actively disincentivised, because the police will always use more force than is necessary, even for encounters warranting NO force at all

"Without police, who's going to commit all of the crimes?"

I have known police personally, watched them work, and needed their help. For decades. I have never seen a cop do anything to stop, prevent, or properly investigate any crime ever. "There's nothing we can do about that." I've seen plenty of rapes, violence, looting, torture, destruction, and one murder from them.

I've seen police stop riots, terrorist attacks, drunken fights, school kids stabbing each other. Most police can do around here is try and set up profiles when known assaulters, muggers and burglars eventually get caught to set up convictions, and that's after their budget's been cut to hell. So I think a well-run, well-trained and well-funded police force could be a useful tool, as long as it was part of the civilian populace and not a class unto its own

[Dunamisdeos]

not a class unto its own

Well thars yer problem right thar.

Put simply, we have a systemic and cultural police problem. It's not about the officers, or the quality of person of the officer, it's about the entire setup that I can put on a blue shirt and somehow I am now a morally unassailable hero.

[Max™]

Worth noting, nobody has guns over there across the pond where LW is... I mean for fuck's sakes, they put out APB's like "DISGRUNTLED SCOT WAS SPOTTED WITH A SERRATED KITCHEN KNIFE AT CODSWALLOP AND NANCYPOOMPH STREET" and people flip their shit and run away.

[Dwarf_Fever]

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?

What I'm saying is that the US has a violent culture with lots of guns, and most people in this thread aren't dealing with the root of the issue. This is also why you are 10x more likely to be shot by a non-cop.

Trying to address the issue without getting to the root of the problem is just as likely to make it worse as it is better.

Without [an oppressive police force] the population would have the ability to band together and force positive change

Nothing is stopping you from doing that now. Unless by "band together and force positive change" you mean forming an organized crime syndicate and taking the use of force into your own hands.

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

Stories about cops just doing their jobs are boring and don't make media headlines. People do go looking for the violent stuff, never examples of cops just doing a decent job.

I've seen plenty of rapes, violence, looting, torture, destruction, and one murder from them.

It was really nice of them to let you stand there and watch them rape, murder and torture people, unless of course they were raping and murdering you, I suppose.

[Max™]

First of all I'm not letting this be lost on the last page:

Worth noting, nobody has guns over there across the pond where LW is... I mean for fuck's sakes, they put out APB's like "DISGRUNTLED SCOT WAS SPOTTED WITH A SERRATED KITCHEN KNIFE AT CODSWALLOP AND NANCYPOOMPH STREET" and people flip their shit and run away.

I am goddamn proud of that and I probably shouldn't be.

Second: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cops+doing+a+good+job
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cops+doing+a+bad+job

There's lots of both, but without videos of cops kneeling on dudes as they beg for their fucking life nobody would believe it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

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?

Psychology has made a lot of shifts and discoveries over the many decades it has been studied, but one principle has never wavered: Everything comes out somehow. A person who experiences mental stress in one way may succeed in suppressing it directly, but like a beachball held underwater, it will push out with ever-greater force the second it can find an outlet.

The violence and suffering in America doesn't have a single thing to do with the guns. It's everything to do with that. The person who works themselves into an empty stupor, so they come home to drink and terrorize their family, and raise children who will themselves drink and terrorize those around them. The people who road rage, who end up on cellphone freakout videos, who torture animals and laugh about it. The people who stoke their rage and their illness until they shoot up a church for the glory of the white race. The people who are in sickness and pain all the time yet don't have a single medically-definable illness. The people who lay down and wait to die and the people who don't wait around for death to find them first. The people who get by on fantasizing violence for every minor slight and can't see what the problem is with that. The people who learn the statistic that somewhere between a third to a full half of humanity is afflicted with a mental illness at any given time and then go vote Republican because they want common sense and lower taxes, damn it!

Why shouldn't the cops be riddled with neo-Nazis? Why shouldn't they pull the trigger on protestors? Our government put their fingers on the trigger to begin with, they've got no existence but to pull it. What else would they ever do, face that they aren't the sheepdogs, that their lives are just as broken and pointless as the people they keep in line? That the bitch didn't have it coming? That they don't really have the power to look at a person and see if they're guilty? Anybody with that kind of sense would never end up a cop to begin with, they'd blow their own brains out if they ever really had to accept the truth of the matter.

That is America, and that is what is wrong with us as a people. This society thinks it's above reproach and worships its own death at the same goddamn time. And without fixing that nothing else can be really fixed, but that means admitting we have a problem and deciding to do something real about it, which I don't really see happening.

[Loud Whispers]

Worth noting, nobody has guns over there across the pond where LW is... I mean for fuck's sakes, they put out APB's like "DISGRUNTLED SCOT WAS SPOTTED WITH A SERRATED KITCHEN KNIFE AT CODSWALLOP AND NANCYPOOMPH STREET" and people flip their shit and run away.

Notably, the police are all unarmed

Well thars yer problem right thar.

Put simply, we have a systemic and cultural police problem. It's not about the officers, or the quality of person of the officer, it's about the entire setup that I can put on a blue shirt and somehow I am now a morally unassailable hero.

quality may also be a problem

Among the topics covered during these exchanges, delegates learn how to suppress and infiltrate demonstrations, and how to coordinate with the media over coverage, Deadly Exchange found.

The training also involved sales of "crowd-control" weapons exchanged between the two governments, including US-made tear gas canisters that were heavily used in protests in Oakland, California in 2011 and Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, as well as Israeli surveillance technologies.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is among those to have criticised police - including departments in Oakland, Baltimore, Ferguson and Boston - for contracting tech companies to use surveillance software to profile residents based on their religion, race and political affiliation, the report said.

This lends more credence to reports that plain clothes police started bricking stores before the riots began. Agent provocateurs within the crowd

[Dwarf_Fever]

This lends more credence to reports that plain clothes police started bricking stores before the riots began. Agent provocateurs within the crowd

"It was a guy wearing jeans and t-shirt, obviously he was a cop."

[TD1]

I don't believe anyone is saying there's nothing wrong with the police. Reform is being called for from nearly every corner. People are simply arguing for the necessity of law enforcement.

Of course, saying the police do nothing useful (based upon anecdotal and video-phone evidence) is simply ludicrous. Prisons are full of people who the judicial system say are guilty, from murderers to rapists to thieves. If you don't trust the judicial system itself, that is a separate issue; the police went out and found suspects, brought them to trial, and shipped them to prison.

That is the crux, though by no means the sum, of their job.

My (anecdotal!) experience of UK police - officious bastards and comforting presence. I got stopped and given a £60 fine for driving a car one day from being taxed. And, when my sister's house was being put under siege by a crazy woman who thought my sis was harbouring her errant son (she wasn't; didn't stop the woman from posting threatening messages and cursing and throwing things) the police tracked the woman down, warned her, found her son and suggested he talk to her, and came into my sister's house for a cup of tea and a comforting chat.
There was also some suggestion of a police presence but the issue deflated. Can't recall why - maybe the son sorted it.

Notably, the police are all unarmed

Yep totally all unarmed you're not forgetting a part of the UK nope all good LOOK AWAY.


Also after the eight new posts this post is woefully behind the times.

[wierd]

The US will *NEVER* treat mental illness as something *OTHER* than what can be treated with a pill and forgotten about, because anything else "Hurts the bottom line!"

Giving employees mental health that is more than just a shitty assed hotline? TOO EXPENSIVE! People would take time off for bullshit "I feel bad in my head!" reasons instead of adding to shareholder value! THE HORROR!

Actually paying people a fucking living wage? "We have to compete internationally with 3rd world economies that can swamp us with sheer numbers!!! We *HAVE* to keep wages low! HONEST!! (no, not really, it's totally so we can please our corporate overlords because we were bought up like a hunk of meat, and now they want Eternally Increasing Profits(tm) from us, and we just GOTTA obey!) --and/or--  "We will go out of business if we increase the costs of our products commensurate with an actual increase in the necessary standards of living! (nevermind that this is only because THE ENTIRE FUCKING ECONOMY is tanking wages in the name of the holy god of Mammon, and so any price increase puts the product outside the reach of consumers. Hail Profits!)"


No. it will never happen.  The "Too big to fail" crowd would have to implode spectacularly before that could ever HOPE to be a reality here in the states.  I am actually hoping (quite strongly) that the economic upheval caused by the covid virus succeeds where all our legislators and congressional representatives have failed miserably for the past 50 years-- Forcing a massive correction away from consolidated finance and large retailer giants, and back toward a seething throng of small operators, due to massive bankruptcies due to the protracted and profound decline in necessary demand curves needed to sustain those lumbering and abusing behemoths.

The path would be painful, terrible and dark, but once that shit is cut out, new growth can actually happen, REAL economic growth can happen again without nazgul lawyers with IP portfolios that cover everything from the fucking wheel to sunshine preventing new entries to market,  and perhaps maybe, JUST MAYBE, the new small-time operators will actually GIVE A FUCK about their employees, wages will improve, and then mental health will improve.

Until then? Nope-- The god of mammon decrees you will take your soma and like it, citizen.

[Dwarf_Fever]

The US will *NEVER* treat mental illness as something *OTHER* than what can be treated with a pill and forgotten about, because anything else "Hurts the bottom line!"

Yeah, besides the glorification of violence and proliferation of guns, this is another huge "root cause" - the US is, at heart, plutocratric.

The degree to which the police prioritize protecting money/the wealthy in the US is mostly relative to the amount of undue influence and power the US system affords the privileged.

No matter what you do to the police, you won't make the problem go away until you address this. But you might make the problem worse.

[Loud Whispers]

Yep totally all unarmed you're not forgetting a part of the UK nope all good LOOK AWAY.

Also after the eight new posts this post is woefully behind the times.

I mean yeah besides counter-terror police we've also got loadsa bombins, hammers and stabbies, but that's part and parcel innit

[/sadiq]

[TD1]

Northern Irish police carry guns.

[SalmonGod]

Without [an oppressive police force] the population would have the ability to band together and force positive change

Nothing is stopping you from doing that now.

Hah.  Hahah.  Hahahahaahahahhahahahahah