Police in the US use force on at least 300,000 people each year, injuring an estimated 100,000 of them, according to a groundbreaking data analysis on law enforcement encounters.
Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group that tracks killings by US police, launched a new database on Wednesday cataloging non-fatal incidents of police use of force, including stun guns, chemical sprays, K9 dog attacks, neck restraints, beanbags and baton strikes.
The database features incidents from 2017 through 2022, compiled from public records requests in every state. The findings, the group says, suggest that despite widespread protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, overall use of force has remained steady since then – and in many jurisdictions, has increased.
My issue with this is the notion that there are thriving modern societies. Our modern world is a complex web of torture and exploitation. The police in my country (the USA) act far more as maintainers of the status quo of torture than they do protectors of the populace from violent crime
My issue with this notion is the implication that the modern world is uniquely tortuous and exploitative. Humans are violent, greedy, opportunistic apex predators. Our nobility and justice are individual and aspirational. The whole point of the complex web is to introduce friction and disincentives to that violence.
Should we try to minimize that violence? Absolutely! But our institutions are our attempt to crawl out of the jungle. Without police we’d have other violent gangs with even less oversight.
I encourage you to read Humankind by Rutger Bregman. The notion that humans are inherently animalistic, greedy, and violent has not been supported by the bulk of anthropological study throughout modern history, and his book does a good job of breaking down why there’s such a divide between the perception of so-called “human nature” and the anthropological and sociological evidence.
TLDR: humans aren’t inherently greedy, we respond to our systems and environment more than anything.
In fact, the Courts ruled they don’t actually have to protect you at all! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
EDIT: District Court
I mean, I think there are, most Nordics for one.
Whether US police is a uniquely thuggish corrupt arm of the moneyed establishment or not, is a different question.
But the way you are phrasing it I think you are skirting with the idea of anarchy as a (non) system of governance so the primary question here is if you think there is a need for any rules at all.
And if there is, how are they agreed upon, adjudicated and enforced in societies larger than a village.
https://harvardpolitics.com/nordic-racism/
And for the record. Yes. I am an anarchocommunist. If the cost of large societies is large scale violence, then maybe we should adjust our primary societal units into smaller, more communal units. The ideal government is one that protects the liberties of the populace from exploitation by others. As it stands our governments mainly function to ensure the exploitation continues. I’m not advocating the immediate abolishment of all government right now, but I want to make it clear that I don’t think a society that justifies the violence it enacts as being necessary to maintain society is worth maintaining as is. Such a society requires adjustment
Easy. The US does not have “law enforcement.”
The police have no duty to protect the law and they do not. They protect capital and only respond to crime after the fact.
You know anyone can look up arrest records and see how inaccurate your statement is.
Arrest records are also not an accurate portrayal of crime. There’s a TON of wrongful arrests out there. Like… Its a monumental problem
and if you’re not a member of the favored class they won’t respond even then. In fact, they might make your situation worse just to do it. I got pickpocketed in Louisville and the police basically told me that not having my wallet anymore was a problem I’d have to navigate on my own. Later that day they busted me for driving without a license and vagrancy because I was trying to leave Louisville to return home to VA.
I cannot emphasize enough that when people ask questions to me when I say we should dissolve the police and start anew with some new mechanism for handling crime such as “who will you call when you’re the victim of a crime” my answer is almost never the police because its very rare for them to do anything useful
