I’m not an anarchist looking for the abolition of police as a concept.
But the institution of policing in America needs a Truth and Reconciliation commission. Complete top to bottom scrapping and rework. And a lot of pigs need to go to prison for a long time.
While this is definitely needed, I don’t think it’s a starting point.
IMO, a good place to start is instituting policies requiring LEOs/PDs carry liability insurance. Similar to doctors and other medical practices (in the US). An officer is found guilty or misconduct or violating a citizen’s right? Penalties are taken out of their insurance and their premium increases. Can’t afford the premium? Guess who’s looking for a new job?
The way I see, the pigs can keep their criminal immunity, but civil matters will have a more direct financial incentive for them to behave like they have morals.
That’s another “market economy” solution.
Maybe start with the training. It’s ridiculously short in the US compared to European countries where the training takes usually multiple years, before you’re allowed to go on your own
Police have unions (They function as professional organizations, but legally they are labor unions) largely to block legal changes like this. To defeat them, you’d need to somehow pass legislation on the state and federal level that mortally undermines the power of all labor unions in the USA. This would have knock-on effects for all US workers, as unions fight for and uphold labor protections that benefit those outside their ranks. For instance, two day weekends and 40 hour work weeks.
It seems clear to me that ending QE - Which is merely a judicial policy, it’s not even law - Is by far the more potent, simple, and safe avenue of attack. But I’m interested in your thoughts on the above proverbial gun that police unions hold to the head of every US laborer.
Imagine a world where the top priority of the police team (not “force”) was to help and support the people. “Help” includes stopping confirmed bad guys but also includes finding the homeless a safe place to sleep.
Send all police trainees to social work school.
What a world that would be.
I think you’re right but for the wrong reasons - I think it would be an absolute net positive effect but I still think the lines should be drawn between policing and social work and healthcare issues. Fair warning, I’m from the UK which has it’s own issues with policing but nothing on the clusterfuck scale as it is across the pond.
Sending police officers (and ambulance staff, maybe even coastguard - in the civilian sense, not the American branch of the military) to do two or four weeks of social work attachment would work wonders. It would provide a great insight into the difficulties and behaviours of those in social or mental crisis, and give more soft tools to recognise and resolve issues.
That said, it shouldnt be policing agencies going to social work or mental health calls in the first place. People in crisis are often acting irrationally or unpredictably due to the very nature of the crisis they’re experiencing, and when a lethal weapon is an optional available to the responders, then you’ll have a less than spectacular outcome on occasions.
Ideally, additional funding should be centered around social work and mental health teams - perhaps having first responders for both so you don’t have cops wading in with the best of intentions, and confronting something they aren’t the best people to be dealing with - where a mental health ambulance or a social work rapid response team would bring a welfare call to a far safer conclusion.
I absolutely get that my view is very UK-skewed but if you keep putting armed cops into situations like that - then the public will get hurt, cops will get hurt, the taxpayer coughs up a fortune in legal costs … all of which could fund better ways to respond to the homeless, the stressed, the neurodiverse, and other non-criminal issues that people phone in with good intentions.
Here in Portland, Oregon the city has a relatively new agency called Portland Street Response, tasked with responding to non-emergency calls located in public places. They have social work and related training, show up with a big van full of supplies, are unarmed, and trained in de-escalation. Sometimes if the call holds the possibility of escalating, they will show up with an armed police officer who’s job is to be on the periphery if needed. The program has been wildly successful and popular, is expending, and it’s largest most vocal opposition is… The Portland Police Bureau.
Part of what I would call the PSA - Public Service Agency, so named due to the consistency with Public Service Announcements - would be patrol vehicles (Ford Transit Connect, RIP) that are marked with attention grabbing (not camouflaged) vehicles that help citizens with daily public issues.
• Need some assistance / instructions on how to get unemployment or other public assistance? We got you covered.
• Need some basic first aid and / or a call for an EMT? We got you covered.
• Need some information about how to get jobs, update a resume, or understand your skill set? We got you covered.
We need to remove most of the police from the streets, and inject the streets with helpful people who want to improve the cities, and help to mitigate the issues that cause a rise in crime.
We need to build a system of citizen empowerment.
IMO finding the homeless a safe place to sleep shouldn’t be the job of the police. You don’t call the police when there’s a fire, you call firefighters. You don’t call the police when someone’s injured, you call an ambulance. Why would law enforcers be involved in helping a homeless person find shelter?
Maybe in this case you could expand the scope a bit. Police are responsible for public safety, and it’s unsafe to sleep on the streets. OTOH, policing is law enforcement, deterring and investigating crime, etc. Homeless people are often committing crimes, either trespassing, loitering, using drugs, etc. It would almost certainly be better for them to be helped by someone who doesn’t care about that part, and just wants them to get a safe place to sleep and a warm, healthy meal.
Instead of giving more jobs to police, shrink the police budget and hire new people to do those non-policing jobs.
IMO finding the homeless a safe place to sleep shouldn’t be the job of the police.
Completely fair. Their job should be to call a social worker whose job it would be to find the homeless a safe place to sleep. This is in contrast to what police presently do.
Also get rid of the police Union as it currently is because apparently it is a major reason for a lot of the systemic issues being faced.
I have no problem with unions per-se, but when police officers break rules, they need to be held accountable and that simply doesn’t happen most of the time because of the unions and even when held accountable, it’s a slap on the hand and worst case, work in the city next door.
You’ve also got to demilitarise the police. End 1033 and claw back every iota of military gear. End killology training. Fund social workers to replace many of their duties. Etc etc etc too many things to name. It’s so bad that anything approaching adequate reform sounds insanely radical
This is it IMHO, as long as the problems pile up (or get made up) and don’t get solved by police, they’re allowed to spend more and more public money on armored vehicles and other crap that doesn’t help the community. This spending is what allows them to be both incompetent and wasteful or downright dangerous. “Follow the money”; who earns from all this?
This is just the “bad apples” take, repackaged. You think bad actors are to blame, and that if you weed them out the institution will be cleansed. You miss that the problem is the institution itself and it’s very nature, not individual actors. If you reformed the institution to not be this way… Then you’d effectively be doing abolition, the thing you think that you’re not looking to do. And it would likely be a much more radical change than you envision it to be.
I am looking for a reform of the institution.
Complete top to bottom scrapping and rework.
What I mean is that I am rejecting the anarchist notion that there should be no such thing as law enforcement, reformed or otherwise. Because they reject the notion of a state at all.
You think you’re looking to reform it, but I think you’re actually looking to abolish it and you don’t yet realize that. If you understand that the problem is institutional and not individual, and you intend to reshape the institution to correct this, if you are actually effective and complete in those efforts (And sensitive to why a law is enforced rather than merely the act of doing so for it’s own sake) you will probably wind up with something that looks like community defense. Which is fundamentally different from policing in both form and mission.
Why abolish fundamentally violent and corrupt organizations when you can collaborate?
Most privileged take.
Only the most off-kilter revolutionary would consider that suggestion “collaboration.”
And I suppose I’d be shot as a “collaborator” in your ideal upheaval of society?
Also, stop calling them cops
This “cop” word has this cool power connotation
Call them police officer, that is what they are
Subjective. I don’t find the word cop all that cool, and nowadays it gives me a negative impression. Police Officer sounds just like a formal title, like Representative, Principal, Judge, etc.
Police Officer gives them an air of professionalism they don’t deserve in most cases. Nobody says ‘cops’ who are also happy to see them.
