Do we even need police?

[Sanghyeok]

Cordel and I have proposed both preventative measures and responding measures such as unarmed patrols of either former convicts (already being used in several US cities) or volunteers.

And that’s not enough. There comes a point where force, or at least an armed response, needs to be used.

And your neighborhood watch isn’t cut out for that, and an armed mob isn’t a good idea either, even if they are a bunch of locals.

Which is where Nikoleras's suggestion of a small enforcement agency could be useful.

[Adamede]

And that’s not enough. There comes a point where force, or at least an armed response, needs to be used.

And your neighborhood watch isn’t cut out for that, and an armed mob isn’t a good idea either, even if they are a bunch of locals.

Which is where Nikoleras's suggestion of a small enforcement agency could be useful.

His suggestion is just the same thing as modern police forces but making them worse at actually responding to situations.

[Nilokeras]

That's a specific technical definition for a group dealing with international armed conflict, I could talk in fishing jargon but it would be fucking weird.

You may think it's weird but it's also the universal legal definition of 'civilian' so I honestly don't know what to tell you.

Humanity hasn’t changed in any significant way in at least 80k years. I doubt we’re going to change to any great extent in another thousand either.

Ah, the good ol' appeal to nature.

[Sanghyeok]

Which is where Nikoleras's suggestion of a small enforcement agency could be useful.

His suggestion is just the same thing as modern police forces but making them worse at actually responding to situations.

No because as I've mentioned 1) there are countries which already separate policing functions, 2) our preventative measures using some of policing's funding will be effective in preventing crime, and 3) policing as it exists today is already terrible at responding to situations.

[Adamede]

That's a specific technical definition for a group dealing with international armed conflict, I could talk in fishing jargon but it would be fucking weird.

You may think it's weird but it's also the universal legal definition of 'civilian' so I honestly don't know what to tell you.

Humanity hasn’t changed in any significant way in at least 80k years. I doubt we’re going to change to any great extent in another thousand either.

Ah, the good ol' appeal to nature.

Better than placing your bets on the hope that someday utopia will be achieved.

However I thinks its apparent that will be achieved long before anything of actual value comes out of this thread.

[Sanghyeok]

You may think it's weird but it's also the universal legal definition of 'civilian' so I honestly don't know what to tell you.



Ah, the good ol' appeal to nature.

Better than placing your bets on the hope that someday utopia will be achieved.

If I'm not mistaken, the New York Times predicted humanity would never achieve flight as late as 1902.

[Adamede]

His suggestion is just the same thing as modern police forces but making them worse at actually responding to situations.

No because as I've mentioned 1) there are countries which already separate policing functions

To the extent he was talking about?

, 2) our preventative measures using some of policing's funding will be effective in preventing crime,

Doesn’t refute my statement.

and 3) policing as it exists today is already terrible at responding to situations.

Doesn’t make any of your “alternatives” actually better. And frankly that’s why I’m for the citizen try being armed.

Now I’ve got better ways to waste my time, as it’s apparent nothing of actual value will come form this thread.

[Nilokeras]

Better than placing your bets on the hope that someday utopia will be achieved.

Who said anything about utopia?

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

A true utopia is unattainable because one person's idea of a utopia may be another person's idea of a dystopia.

[Picairn]

If I'm not mistaken, the New York Times predicted humanity would never achieve flight as late as 1902.

In 1961, Khrushchev promised that the USSR would have built a communist society by 1980.

Didn't work out so well for the USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism_in_20_years

Perhaps utopia is still a very long and treacherous way ahead.

[Sanghyeok]

If I'm not mistaken, the New York Times predicted humanity would never achieve flight as late as 1902.

In 1961, Khrushchev promised that the USSR would have built a communist society by 1980.

Didn't work out so well for the USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism_in_20_years

Perhaps utopia is still a very long and treacherous way ahead.

Brezhnev was not the smartest or most capable fellow, although even then I don't think the material circumstances would have allowed them to succeed. My point is that we'd be rather silly to claim anything will happen by a certain time, but to claim something is impossible by that date is probably wrong as well.

[Labbos]

OK, so someone works out who committed the crime. If they see the mugger do they let him run away because it's not their job to arrest him? And the bailiff tracks him down and serves him some papers? Fine, neither of them sounds like they're police. But when the day of the trial rolls around, and the mugger doesn't show up, what happens now? Does the bailiff serve him another court document? And if he ignores that too?

I guess what I'm getting at, is who forces somebody who refuses to cooperate to turn up in court against their will? Because that person sounds like they're the police.

Well lets say the mugging happens with just civilian witnesses, which is the vast majority of cases. The victim reports it to the prosecutorial service, which canvases witnesses, pulls CCTV etc. They identify the perpetrator and based on the evidence get a warrant out for their arrest if they think it's unlikely the person will show up to court of their own free will. The warrant gets handed off to the bailiffs, who can conduct the arrest. Again the main distinction is the separation of the people who conduct the arrest and can act in a paramilitary manner if the need arises from the actual initiation of criminal charges and the authorization of arrests. A bailiff in this case cannot initiate criminal charges on their own and cannot arrest people on their own authority - they are executing the orders of a civilian service to which they are completely subordinate. Compare that with the powers of a police officer, who can on their own authority and discretion initiate criminal charges and arrests and are only subject to post hoc review of their actions.

OK, thanks for explaining that. The bailiffs are still police because they're enforcing the law through the use of force.

What if while they're arresting the mugger they come across somebody building a bomb to carry out an imminent terrorist attack, do they wish that person a nice day and fill out form 73C when they get back to the office to let the prosecutorial service know?

What is there's something similar to what happened at Capital Hill. Who takes action there, and who decides what action they should take?

[SD_Film Artists]

Which is where Nikoleras's suggestion of a small enforcement agency could be useful.

His suggestion is just the same thing as modern police forces but making them worse at actually responding to situations.

Indeed it sounds like much of this is just police but with a 'community' rebranding. I reiterate that the police started off as (and in some countries still is) a way for unarmed citizens to police their community rather than relying on the military or private guards.

Change will occur. At what pace such change will occur is not something you and I can predict, but we can be sure society in 1,000 years will be completely foreign to us. After all 70 years ago our species was confined to Earth's atmosphere, 120 years ago we were confined to land, 200 years ago it took three months to reach Edo from London.

One thing that's never changed is the belief that the current society is the pinnacle of advancement.

C.S Lewis and atompunk would like a word with you. As for Sanghyeok's post, that is dealing with science whereas this policing issue is about basic human nature. Policing may change but the criminal incentives like greed and anger will still be there.

[Dogmeat]

Right now, she would need to find an officer and file a report, what difference would it make for her post police abolition to find a non-traffic officer and file one to them? Not to mention she would need to pray that police (who solve only 10% of larceny cases) would even be able to help find the culprit in the first place.

Let's replace the purse snatching with physical assault. Is a traffic cop supposed to just sit there and watch someone beat someone else to a pulp because it's not his job to police that?

Cops in New York literally did that. And the courts ruled that they weren't obligated to step in.

[Des-Bal]

Cops in New York literally did that. And the courts ruled that they weren't obligated to step in.

That matters because there's no difference between being able to take no action and being required to take no action.

[Kubra]

you really have no intention of going for a line with substance, do you?

Like what?

Study what impact psychiatrists / social workers have on crime and how cost-effective they are compared to police? Sure, let's do that, then roll out more or fewer of them if we find them useful. An evidence-based approach, rather than one based on dogma.

Change police changing and policies? Sure.

Train police differently? Sure.

Get rid of police and hope that something else we change drives crime to zero at the same time? No. Get rid of crime, then we'll have no need for police. And that is the topic of this thread, "Do we even need police?". Not reform. Not restructuring. Just "should anyone in the world be responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the maintenance of public order?". And so far I've seen nobody come up with an alternative that isn't "make someone else the police and we'll pretend they aren't really police".

Nobody is making the claim that our approach to crime is perfect world-wide and shouldn't change. The question being asked is whether we need police. Do you think we do, in some form or other? I certainly do.

>Study what impact psychiatrists / social workers have on crime and how cost-effective they are compared to police? Sure, let's do that, then roll out more or fewer of them if we find them useful. An evidence-based approach, rather than one based on dogma.
Yes, precisely, let's do that. It is, after all, a much more relevant and contentious topic.
We could talk historical forms of police abolition. The USSR's secret police aside, they decided not to call their regular police "police" for obvious reasons, which ironically worked out to something more structurally militarised than what we expect of civilian police (well, apart from the American kind am I right), a not-police that may have been in some way worse than regular ol' police. Isn't that a much more fun and much more *substantial* topic, and one that arguably supports your own views?

[Labbos]

We could talk historical forms of police abolition. The USSR's secret police aside, they decided not to call their regular police "police" for obvious reasons, which ironically worked out to something more structurally militarised than what we expect of civilian police (well, apart from the American kind am I right), a not-police that may have been in some way worse than regular ol' police. Isn't that a much more fun and much more *substantial* topic, and one that arguably supports your own views?

Having different people work as police isn't abolishing the police, even if they're called something else.

And why do you think that a militarised police being worse than regular police supports my views? Sure, that's going to be better than no police, but I live in the UK and am very happy that the police I see don't regularly carry guns and that judges are the ones who sign arrest warrants. But also that the police can also arrest you on the spot rather than waiting for somebody else to make the decision if they catch you doing something. And then the decision to prosecute or decide how long a suspect is held is once more in the hands of judges.

Sometimes this thread reads as though it's from a US perspective, with the assumption that the US system is the best, and so any problems should be solved with radical solutions rather than looking for best practices from around the planet.

[Sanghyeok]

We could talk historical forms of police abolition. The USSR's secret police aside, they decided not to call their regular police "police" for obvious reasons, which ironically worked out to something more structurally militarised than what we expect of civilian police (well, apart from the American kind am I right), a not-police that may have been in some way worse than regular ol' police. Isn't that a much more fun and much more *substantial* topic, and one that arguably supports your own views?

Having different people work as police isn't abolishing the police, even if they're called something else.

And why do you think that a militarised police being worse than regular police supports my views? Sure, that's going to be better than no police, but I live in the UK and am very happy that the police I see don't regularly carry guns and that judges are the ones who sign arrest warrants. But also that the police can also arrest you on the spot rather than waiting for somebody else to make the decision if they catch you doing something. And then the decision to prosecute or decide how long a suspect is held is once more in the hands of judges.

Sometimes this thread reads as though it's from a US perspective, with the assumption that the US system is the best, and so any problems should be solved with radical solutions rather than looking for best practices from around the planet.

Many people do tend to argue from the US perspective, given most users seem to come from there. But even as someone who has lived in countries where police plays a different role including unarmed police, where problems come not only from policing but also justice systems, and where police are far more accountable to the people, I still support further movements towards abolition. Some countries are generally better than the US, but that's no reason to stop there.

[Sanghyeok]

His suggestion is just the same thing as modern police forces but making them worse at actually responding to situations.

Indeed it sounds like much of this is just police but with a 'community' rebranding. I reiterate that the police started off as (and in some countries still is) a way for unarmed citizens to police their community rather than relying on the military or private guards.

One thing that's never changed is the belief that the current society is the pinnacle of advancement.

C.S Lewis and atompunk would like a word with you. As for Sanghyeok's post, that is dealing with science whereas this policing issue is about basic human nature. Policing may change but the criminal incentives like greed and anger will still be there.

Did you read our proposal on abolishing several functions of police or moving them to other ministries?

[Nilokeras]

The bailiffs are still police because they're enforcing the law through the use of force.

According to what definition?

What if while they're arresting the mugger they come across somebody building a bomb to carry out an imminent terrorist attack, do they wish that person a nice day and fill out form 73C when they get back to the office to let the prosecutorial service know?

What is there's something similar to what happened at Capital Hill. Who takes action there, and who decides what action they should take?

I encourage you to read the rest of the thread and piece together yourself based on what I've said what you think the answer is.

I reiterate that the police started off as (and in some countries still is) a way for unarmed citizens to police their community rather than relying on the military or private guards.

That is very much not the actual history of formalized police services.

[SD_Film Artists]

I reiterate that the police started off as (and in some countries still is) a way for unarmed citizens to police their community rather than relying on the military or private guards.

That is very much not the actual history of formalized police services.

After the Peterloo massacre the police were made/reformed to work to the doctrine of 'policing by consent'.

https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/f ... _CH_01.pdf

The above section has referred to the progress and nature of police reform being influenced by a desire not to create a police force under the central direction of central government. This intention also influenced the philosophy of policing, which is the focus of this section.Reforms to policing in England and Wales during the nineteenth century sought to establish the principle of policing by consent. This approach was embodied in the ‘General Instructions’ issued to members of the newly-formed Metropolitan Police in 1829, which were echoed in the ‘Nine Principles of Police’ (Reith, 1956: 287–288). These declarations emphasised the importance of the police service operating with the support of those they policed, and the concern to secure a system of policing by consent influenced a number of developments affecting the manner in which the delivery of policing was constructed in its formative years.

The desire to dispel the image of the reformed police service as arbitrary and overbearing extended beyond the powers given to police officers and affected the weaponry with which they were provided. It was assumed that there was an inverse correlation between the resort to physical force and obtaining the cooperation of the public for the task of policing. As a result, police officers were not routinely armed and merely carried a truncheon which was designed for their personal protection. The absence of weaponry that could be used in an offensive posture was designed to ensure that when the police were required to intervene to uphold law and order, they would initially rely on ‘persuasion, advice and warning’ (Reith, 1956: 287) and only if this failed would they use physical force, which should be the minimum that was required to achieve their objective. This concern was also evident in the choice of colour for police uni-forms, which were frequently blue or brown but never red, the colour associated with the military.

---

Did you read our proposal on abolishing several functions of police or moving them to other ministries?

why does crime still exist at such high rates even after police have existed for so long?

Do you seriously think that a police Sergeant is surprised that crime still exists a decade into his career? Police aren't expected to remove crime entirely as to remove crime is to remove human nature. We will always have crime as long as there is greed and anger.

Indeed, the claim that "police help prevent crime" or "police solve crime" has been debunked time and again, particularly by Kowani's excellent post, which I encourage everyone to read if they haven't yet.

In my 16 years on NSG I've never seen someone exault a post so much. I know Kowani posted, I could direct you to some of Adamede's posts too.

As mentioned, our idea is gradually decreasing crime to extremely low levels throughout with continued improvement. Evidence tends to suggest that crime tends to decrease with increased education, which is one of our proposals- to shift budgets away from police and towards education. Similarly, our proposed increase in welfarehas been effective thus far in preventing all sorts of criminal offenses, and an increase would again be greatly effective by improving people's lives and genuinely decreasing incentives for crime (not to mention morally correct). Combined with mental health treatment to assist those at
elevated risk of violent activity especially since 40% of people in certain prisons are with psychiatric issues, lesser rules on drugs, helping nonviolent offenders, and other policies, the overall crime rate should be lowered even further. In time, police may be replaced entirely with unarmed intervention teams, further deterring crime with increased emphasis on community responsibility, and lower level volunteer forces.

You've basically just described UK policing but with more welfare. How much more money shall we throw at welfare before we get our utopia? More to the point, is there any precedent to this or is it all just guessing? Education can work, though it would best work if part of a more united, perhaps nationalistic culture. If we get segregated cultures then we get people like Bilal Abdullah who was well educated but was a terrorist.

[Parxland]

Obviously not. We'd be much better off with communist tryhards and/or white supremacists telling everybody what to do!

/s

[Des-Bal]

According to what definition?

Every non-idiotic one. A force tasked with policing is a police force.

[Nilokeras]

After the Peterloo massacre the police were made/reformed to work to the doctrine of 'policing by consent'.

Which is great, but doesn't change the fact that most modern police forces were creations of the state and capital that were reformed to incorporate consent in their functioning in some cases, and not self-organizing bodies of citizens as your post implies.

According to what definition?

Every non-idiotic one. A force tasked with policing is a police force.

Circular definitions are non-idiotic now? News to me.

[SD_Film Artists]

After the Peterloo massacre the police were made/reformed to work to the doctrine of 'policing by consent'.

Which is great, but doesn't change the fact that most modern police forces were creations of the state and capital that were reformed to incorporate consent in their functioning in some cases, and not self-organizing bodies of citizens as your post implies.

I never said that they were self-organising in a grass-roots militia kind of way, although since you mention it there was some de-centralisation (and continues to be to varying extents); for example the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 allowed Borough Councils to organise a police force.