THE POLICE PROBLEM
The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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Yeah it might be better at this point to just build something new instead of trying to reform the police so extensively. Make them the enforcement arm and cut funding while we replace the overall thing with a much healthier system.
I generally agree with you though, although I'll admit I probably want punishment from time to time on cases I hear about. Those are a pretty small fraction though of all cases, which is important to keep in mind. Our justice system seems to be designed around that small number of high profile cases. It should be the opposite, where we design the system for the majority of non violent crimes.
In fairness, a part of civilization's responsibility is separating our baser instincts from what we actually do. What we want is not always what is right, even in cases a majority of us want it. That's why the US's Founding Fathers spoke of "Tyranny of the Majority".
I've been a victim of crimes before. No violent ones, but there was significant damage for the 20-year-old me who had to deal with the aftermath. My knee-jerk reaction was "I hope they catch the bastard and throw the book at him". But society isn't about making our urge for revenge a reality. In fact, justice was historically often the opposite, assigning judgement consequences so that a mob of people with knives and rope would not.
I worked in the search area for the Marathon Bomber. He went to the same college my mother did when she was his age. There was a lot of emotion around that situation as you might imagine. But one thing struck me. Many of the victims' families pushed against the death penalty because in Massachusetts we don't really believe in it. We can be above our desire for revenge, seeking instead for the betterment of everyone.
I would say right now it's designed around solving crime by locking everyone in cages for a long time. As a society, we have a bad habit of "us/them" attitudes with various classes, and criminals are one of them. Once empathy dies, we cannot fathom "what's fair" and instead focus on "who is that person trying to be soft on crime?" The person advocating for the criminal is seen as "Just as bad". Hell, just look at the way people think of criminal defense attorneys. Nobody seems to consider that their job is trying to prevent injustice and to keep people from being locked in cages for extended periods of times.
Well said, especially about defense attorneys. A fair justice system requires that someone provide a legal defense for someone who may appear clearly guilty. Likewise, there has to be a prosecutor to provide an opposing argument. In weighing those two arguments against each other, we can understand what really happened, and that's what both the defense and plaintiff should want.
Revenge is certainly an interesting thing. I think it has its place, and it's important to know when that is and isn't. If someone hurts a loved one of mine deliberately and has no remorse, I don't think I could advocate for forgiveness. If it was an accident or they felt remorse though, I don't think I'd be capable of vengeance. It would be like murdering someone in cold blood at that point.
Either way, even if they were unrepentant, that's what we have the justice system for. The person who is wronged probably won't act rationally until they've made their peace with it. We can probably tie that to several global conflicts, where there is no independent arbiter. They just take irrational actions that lead to more violence.