Do we even need police?

[Adamede]

Wut?!?! Hell nope. Why does that remind me of China and Nazi Germany?!

My first thought was the Roman praetorian guards, which as we all know ends really well.

What are you talking about, nothing brings stability quite like auctioning off the throne to the highest bidder!

[Adamede]

i think law enforcement is need for a safe state (to ensure domestic tranquility, one might even say), but reforms must take place to end police brutality

While I fully understand your feelings that law enforcement can create a safe state (and order), I want to emphasise that police have never been effective in creating "law and order". Reforms themselves cannot end brutality and other abuse such as assault or failure to enforce laws equally- although they may be effective in reducing them, I don't see anything significant enough gaining political support anywhere (and such extensive reforms might as well be replaced by abolition).

The interests of the (bourgeoise) state and citizens also differ, but that's a post I'll write when my keyboard is cooperating.

And getting rid of police (and the state) won’t solve anything either.

[Asturias-Galicia]

In my opinion police is needed in order to keep the peace in a country. A country withput peace is nothing.

[Kubra]

Wut?!?! Hell nope. Why does that remind me of China and Nazi Germany?!

My first thought was the Roman praetorian guards, which as we all know ends really well.

Hey they put in Claudius
He was alright

[SD_Film Artists]

1. It is derailment and not what I asked or stated. This isn't about the problematic police.
2. You are also privileged to never had to call for them in your time of need, and to even state that the way you did is honestly kind of repulsive because it shows how grossly ignorant you are to the world.

This thread is about the necessity of police, you claim police are necessary due to preventing abuse, Cordel told you how police cause a great deal of abuse themselves.
About your second point: what would police be able to help me with if I did need assistance? If there's a robber I'm afraid their case solving rate is rather low, and if it's a murderer or kidnapper I'm already dead or worse.

Part of policing is about deterrence. A would-be murderer or thief would be less likely to carry it out if there's efficient law enforcement and hearing that their fellow murderer mate got jailed the other day.

[Adamede]

1. It is derailment and not what I asked or stated. This isn't about the problematic police.
2. You are also privileged to never had to call for them in your time of need, and to even state that the way you did is honestly kind of repulsive because it shows how grossly ignorant you are to the world.

This thread is about the necessity of police, you claim police are necessary due to preventing abuse, Cordel told you how police cause a great deal of abuse themselves.
About your second point: what would police be able to help me with if I did need assistance? If there's a robber I'm afraid their case solving rate is rather low, and if it's a murderer or kidnapper I'm already dead or worse.

In the case of those examples you give the police are needed in order to catch those who are committing those crimes.

[Ifreann]

Police are often seen as something necessary to protect lives, prevent crime, and preserve order. However, in practice this has rarely been the case in countries around the world. Instead, cases abound where police have failed to complete their duties, and instead not only bring harm to their communities through brutalising and terrorising their residents through beatings and sexual assault, continuously place business interests above the common people's, and preserving property instead of lives among others. Instead, some policy makers propose replacing police with solutions we know to be effective, such as rehabilitation of criminals as opposed to punitive punishment, decriminalising non-violent crimes, and spend more on mental health care, housing and education.

What do you think about police abolition entirely (in all nations) ? I support immediate reforms to reduce police power and provide more funding to welfare initiatives that reduce incentives and necessity for crime, with a long term plan of removing police as an institution.

I support this plan, because then my industry buddies and I can charge you and other out-of-touch-with-reality idealists $300/hr to ensure your survival in the world you'll create. Or, you can take your chances with the crackheads and general other denizens you've thus far been privileged to not have to deal with- and contrary to what you might think, spouting social theory won't stop anyone intent on making your things their things.

I don't see why people would need mercenaries to deal with drug addicts or thieves. The police have shown that armed force does not solve these problems. You and your colleagues would be worse than useless.

---

It solves a good number of problems.

No it doesn’t. A functioning society needs law and order. I would think the attempted coup in Washington would prove why police are needed.

To let the mob into the Capitol?

[The Two Jerseys]

This thread is about the necessity of police, you claim police are necessary due to preventing abuse, Cordel told you how police cause a great deal of abuse themselves.
About your second point: what would police be able to help me with if I did need assistance? If there's a robber I'm afraid their case solving rate is rather low, and if it's a murderer or kidnapper I'm already dead or worse.

In the case of those examples you give the police are needed in order to catch those who are committing those crimes.

But the police can't catch all of those criminals, so clearly it's better to just throw in the towel and catch none of those criminals...

[Adamede]

In the case of those examples you give the police are needed in order to catch those who are committing those crimes.

But the police can't catch all of those criminals, so clearly it's better to just throw in the towel and catch none of those criminals...

But violence doesn’t work either so don’t bother defending yourself either.

[Ifreann]

In the case of those examples you give the police are needed in order to catch those who are committing those crimes.

But the police can't catch all of those criminals, so clearly it's better to just throw in the towel and catch none of those criminals...

We've been catching criminals for as long as we've had laws, maybe instead of just catching people and then doing something horrible to them we look at why they're doing crimes in the first place and deal with that. Instead of going to a lot of effort hunting down thieves and beating them up and throwing them in prison, we could probably just find out what it is they want that's motivating them to steal and just give that to them. If someone is stealing to fuel a drug habit, let's just set them up with an addiction counsellor and give them free drugs.

[Adamede]

But the police can't catch all of those criminals, so clearly it's better to just throw in the towel and catch none of those criminals...

We've been catching criminals for as long as we've had laws, maybe instead of just catching people and then doing something horrible to them we look at why they're doing crimes in the first place and deal with that. Instead of going to a lot of effort hunting down thieves and beating them up and throwing them in prison, we could probably just find out what it is they want that's motivating them to steal and just give that to them. If someone is stealing to fuel a drug habit, let's just set them up with an addiction counsellor and give them free drugs.

Becuase that does fuck all when there’s a serial killer running around or a human trafficking ring kidnapping kids and selling them into sex slavery.

Police and prison don’t have to mean torture and execution, and while prevention is preferable it will never be 100% effective at stopping crime. As such you will need police.

[The Two Jerseys]

We've been catching criminals for as long as we've had laws, maybe instead of just catching people and then doing something horrible to them we look at why they're doing crimes in the first place and deal with that. Instead of going to a lot of effort hunting down thieves and beating them up and throwing them in prison, we could probably just find out what it is they want that's motivating them to steal and just give that to them. If someone is stealing to fuel a drug habit, let's just set them up with an addiction counsellor and give them free drugs.

Becuase that does fuck all when there’s a serial killer running around or a human trafficking ring kidnapping kids and selling them into sex slavery.

Or when you have white collar criminals stealing money out of pure greed.

[Ifreann]

We've been catching criminals for as long as we've had laws, maybe instead of just catching people and then doing something horrible to them we look at why they're doing crimes in the first place and deal with that. Instead of going to a lot of effort hunting down thieves and beating them up and throwing them in prison, we could probably just find out what it is they want that's motivating them to steal and just give that to them. If someone is stealing to fuel a drug habit, let's just set them up with an addiction counsellor and give them free drugs.

Becuase that does fuck all when there’s a serial killer running around or a human trafficking ring kidnapping kids and selling them into sex slavery.

But it does a lot to deal with thieves. And a similar principle would probably work for those crimes as well. Obviously we can't give serial killers people to kill, but we can give them therapy before they ever become serial killers. We can destigmatise mental health problems so that people are willing to go to a therapist before they kill someone. Or if people are selling children into sex slavery, what do they want that money for? Can't we just give them whatever it is they want? Or make it so the thing they want can't just be bought for cash? Change the conditions in society that cause people to do such horrible things to make money instead of hoping that the police will be able to find every person doing a horrible thing to make money.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Yes we need police.

[Ifreann]

Becuase that does fuck all when there’s a serial killer running around or a human trafficking ring kidnapping kids and selling them into sex slavery.

Or when you have white collar criminals stealing money out of pure greed.

So maybe we should stop organising society so as to make the conditions of one's life dependent on the amount of money one has.

[Page]

All of you saying "someone has to stop the serial killers!", yes someone will have to stop the serial killers and I suppose by doing that job you could say that person is police but that does not mean we cannot abolish police/law enforcement as an institution and start over.

The police are a seriously harmful institution throughout most of the world, especially in America where many people are more afraid of cops than gangsters and where calling 911 when someone has a mental health makes it more likely that they'll die.

[Adamede]

Becuase that does fuck all when there’s a serial killer running around or a human trafficking ring kidnapping kids and selling them into sex slavery.

But it does a lot to deal with thieves. And a similar principle would probably work for those crimes as well. Obviously we can't give serial killers people to kill, but we can give them therapy before they ever become serial killers. We can destigmatise mental health problems so that people are willing to go to a therapist before they kill someone. Or if people are selling children into sex slavery, what do they want that money for? Can't we just give them whatever it is they want? Or make it so the thing they want can't just be bought for cash? Change the conditions in society that cause people to do such horrible things to make money instead of hoping that the police will be able to find every person doing a horrible thing to make money.

I’m at work so I can’t really give this the breakdown and response it deserves, but I will say that I think you all are just misunderstanding the entire position of the people who are saying that police are a necessary element of society. Nobody, and especially me, is claiming that they’re perfect angles who have never done no wrong or that they’re not needing reform.

There exists real evil, and crime prevention will never ever be effective enough to end all crime. And that’s where the police, or the authorities of that’s a better word, come in. Their job in modern societies is to catch active criminals that are actively committing crimes. When you reach the point that people are actively committing crimes than prevention is useless.

You can’t use crime prevention to stop an active serial killer on a killing spree, you can’t use crime prevention to force an active sex offender to go to therapy, you can’t use crime prevention to stop the smuggling of contraband, including people, when it it is actively happening.
When you reach the point of crimes being an to belt committed, that’s when you u thing in the executive authorities, known to us as the police.

The police abolitionist position is effectively the same as saying that since fires still happen we should get rid of firefighters and replace them with fire prevention measures, when the truth is that fire prevention measures are not meant to replaces fire fighters because they can’t actually fight fires, just as crime prevention measures are not meant to replace police because they can’t actually stop crimes once they’re in the act of being committed or have already been done.

Do you see the point now?

[Adamede]

All of you saying "someone has to stop the serial killers!", yes someone will have to stop the serial killers and I suppose by doing that job you could say that person is police but that does not mean we cannot abolish police/law enforcement as an institution and start over.

The police are a seriously harmful institution throughout most of the world, especially in America where many people are more afraid of cops than gangsters and where calling 911 when someone has a mental health makes it more likely that they'll die.

Abolishing the current police and laws and than reforming them isn’t the same thing as actually abolishing the police and laws.

[Adamede]

Or when you have white collar criminals stealing money out of pure greed.

So maybe we should stop organising society so as to make the conditions of one's life dependent on the amount of money one has.

Then society becomes about the amount of power/fame/status/etc that some one has.

[Ifreann]

All of you saying "someone has to stop the serial killers!", yes someone will have to stop the serial killers and I suppose by doing that job you could say that person is police but that does not mean we cannot abolish police/law enforcement as an institution and start over.

The police are a seriously harmful institution throughout most of the world, especially in America where many people are more afraid of cops than gangsters and where calling 911 when someone has a mental health makes it more likely that they'll die.

What gets me about all these appeals to "But the serial killers!" is...what serial killers? The serial killers that people seem to be worried about threatening us all if we abolish the police tomorrow are the serial killers who were active decades ago. Can anyone tell me, off the top of their heads, what serial killers plagued our societies in the 2010s?

[Ifreann]

So maybe we should stop organising society so as to make the conditions of one's life dependent on the amount of money one has.

Then society becomes about the amount of power/fame/status/etc that some one has.

And you can't very well get paid in fame for selling children into sex slavery, so problem solved.

[Adamede]

Then society becomes about the amount of power/fame/status/etc that some one has.

And you can't very well get paid in fame for selling children into sex slavery, so problem solved.

No, but you can build power connections with it. And the famous and powerful seem to have quite a taste for the those rings.

I mean I hate to break it too you but rape but was a thing long before money was ever developed.

The basis of your arguments seem to be hinged on that we’re on the cusp of developing a perfect utopian society where nobody wants for anything and as such all crime will go away.

[SD_Film Artists]

Becuase that does fuck all when there’s a serial killer running around or a human trafficking ring kidnapping kids and selling them into sex slavery.

But it does a lot to deal with thieves. And a similar principle would probably work for those crimes as well. Obviously we can't give serial killers people to kill, but we can give them therapy before they ever become serial killers. We can destigmatise mental health problems so that people are willing to go to a therapist before they kill someone. Or if people are selling children into sex slavery, what do they want that money for? Can't we just give them whatever it is they want? Or make it so the thing they want can't just be bought for cash? Change the conditions in society that cause people to do such horrible things to make money instead of hoping that the police will be able to find every person doing a horrible thing to make money.

It sounds like it'll be incentivising crime. What ever happened to just not doing something because it's wrong? I could profit immensely from robbing a bank, but I don't because it's wrong. And for the people who don't care about it being wrong, there's the police. The thieves of the hatton garden heist were (mostly) later caught by the police's 'flying squad'.

[Sanghyeok]

Becuase that does fuck all when there’s a serial killer running around or a human trafficking ring kidnapping kids and selling them into sex slavery.

Or when you have white collar criminals stealing money out of pure greed.

Police doesn't go after white collar crime anyways.

[Ifreann]

And you can't very well get paid in fame for selling children into sex slavery, so problem solved.

No, but you can build power connections with it.

So we make it so you don't get have power by having connections. Get some democracy going on here, do an anarchism.

And the famous and powerful seem to have quite a taste for the those rings.

I mean I hate to break it too you but rape but was a thing long before money was ever developed.

But human trafficking organisations weren't, and that was what your brought up. Let's not go shifting goalposts.

The basis of your arguments seem to be hinged on that we’re on the cusp of developing a perfect utopian society where nobody wants for anything and as such all crime will go away.

I think we could prevent a lot of crime in society if we decided to address criminogenic conditions instead of trying to just punish criminals. I don't think that society would necessarily be perfect or totally crime free. Just better.