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I know it's important to come up with some ideas on how to replace the current system, answering the question "What do we do instead?" Is worth doing, but I think in a lot of ways it's also a distraction. To me the main question should be: "Is what we have now better than nothing?" I would argue that probably it is not, right now we have what is essentially state funded armed gangs doing literally anything they want, sometimes what they want to do coincides with things we would like them to do, but often it doesn't, how much of that do we put up with? How many shootings prevented are worth the shootings they do? How many criminals off the street are worth the criminals in uniform? What we do to replace the police as they are now is important sure, but I don't know if figuring that out is a higher priority than tearing the current system out by the roots.
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Jun 10, 2020 09:51
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Pustulio posted:What we do to replace the police as they are now is important sure, but I don't know if figuring that out is a higher priority than tearing the current system out by the roots. If that’s what must be done, then it must be done. But what strategies should be implemented to handle the transition period? I know a lot of people don’t want to acknowledge it, but there are problems that we as a society would need to address. Police do solve some crimes, after all.
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Jun 10, 2020 10:06
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You aren't quite getting my point, there is an excellent argument to be made that having literally nothing in place would be better than what we have, so if the opportunity to tear down the existing system arises, we should grab it even if we don't have a new one ready to go. I'm not saying crime would disappear without what we have or that people wouldn't get hurt, just that fewer people would get hurt without the police than letting them continue. Also by all means let's talk about what should replace it because having literally nothing probably wouldn't be super great in the long term. I am just saying when people ask what the solution is and demand we figure out every little detail of that before even considering scrapping the current system, agreeing to that demand is not particularly helpful. In some ways it's similar to how we have to get through the crowd of people after every protest who insist that we "condemn the violence" before we can talk about the reason the protest happened in the first place. Yes the violence may not have been ideal, but that isn't the point right now.
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Jun 10, 2020 10:24
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E-Tank posted:(Also apologies in advance if Medium is poo poo, I haven't really vetted the site) It's basically a blog site.
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Jun 10, 2020 14:03
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Couple of things: There's a really wonderful FREE virtual event this Friday with actual factual abolition activists. If you can make the time I highly recommend signing up and donating. I saw something on Twitter about spots filling up, but I think it will be hosted on YT as well. Also PLEASE DONATE if you can, even if you can't attend. On the Road With Abolition: Assessing Our Steps Along the Way posted:How can we assess which proposals to support or to oppose in our organizing? What are some abolitionist proposals? Join Dean Spade, Woods Ervin & Kamau Walton from Critical Resistance, K Agbebiyi from Survived and Punished NY and Mariame Kaba from Project NIA and Survived & Punished to discuss these questions and more. Join us for this conversation to deepen our shared analysis and to discuss how we use abolition as a politic, practice and framework to move us toward liberation and self-determination. Ruth Ann Gilmore spoke on the Intercepted podcast this week, very pro click: https://twitter.com/intercepted/status/1270709080630403072 Activists are pushing back against proposed bans on things...that are already banned. https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/1270686434933059586 Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jun 10, 2020 |
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Jun 10, 2020 15:23
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Examples of exemplary US police forces: - US Capitol police - FBI agents - Military police of all branches They're just chilling, like all y'all. No us-v-them. Beat cops could learn a thing attitude and outlook wise from them.
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Jun 10, 2020 17:15
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Dominoes posted:Examples of exemplary US police forces: I was in the Navy, MA's are worse than beat cops because they are double heros, sailors and cops, no one in the military likes the base police, them wearing the same uniform doesn't stop them from acting like cops in the rest of the country.
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Jun 10, 2020 18:01
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Yeah none of those are any better than your normal cop, you just have less exposure to them. Trouble in reform-land, apparently. https://twitter.com/karolle/status/1270565490054893568 The cops have pissed off the webcomic guys, which is how you know they really messed up. https://twitter.com/deepdarkfears/status/1270153775559237635?s=19 More on that social workers as cop replacement angle: https://twitter.com/MyHarmReduction/status/1270745987770912768 Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jun 10, 2020 |
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Jun 10, 2020 18:26
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CelestialScribe posted:If that’s what must be done, then it must be done. But what strategies should be implemented to handle the transition period? I know a lot of people don’t want to acknowledge it, but there are problems that we as a society would need to address. Police do solve some crimes, after all. drat dude, this is an EXCELLENT question. Thank god you are here to point out that people should think about strategies for transition. If it weren't for the good faith concern of folks like you I don't think we'd make any progress on this issue at all!
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Jun 10, 2020 19:13
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If this thread isn’t for discussing those types of issues, then what is it for?
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Jun 10, 2020 21:55
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CelestialScribe posted:Police do solve some crimes, after all. Not really. Most of police work has nothing at all to do with solving crimes. Or preventing crimes. TV and movies aren't real.
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Jun 11, 2020 01:22
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Verso is offering another free e-book on policing that is absolutely worth your time to read. https://twitter.com/VersoBooks/status/1270827604069810178 Interesting thread here: https://twitter.com/sam_lavigne/status/1270716267876343808
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Jun 11, 2020 01:50
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Jaxyon posted:Not really. What is the mechanism by which some crimes are solved then in the current system?
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Jun 11, 2020 04:14
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CelestialScribe posted:What is the mechanism by which some crimes are solved then in the current system? Most aren't. Especially if the victim is a brown person or a woman. The current system isn't about justice, it's about imprisoning people. Police aren't even involved in the majority of theft, and by that I don't mean "not called" I mean it's literally it's not even in their purview. The vast majority of police work could be done better by social workers.
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Jun 11, 2020 04:16
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Jaxyon posted:Most aren't. I didn't say most are. I said some are. You're not even understanding what I'm saying. Follow my thread: - If the police system as it currently stands must be torn down, then it must be torn down - During this transition period, there are some serious crimes that police do solve that will need to be addressed (e.g. homicide). - How do we address those? The answer to this cannot be, "police only solve X percentage of murders", because replacing that with nothing means that 0% of those murders, or whatever, get solved. I'm asking, if we're tearing the police down, what do we do in the interim? That was what I was replying to.
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Jun 11, 2020 04:23
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CelestialScribe posted:I didn't say most are. I said some are. Are you expecting that we tear down all police departments in a single day, and then just sit there like "oh poo poo somebody did a crime we didn't think of this"? This is similar to assuming reparations are just cash handouts everyone gets on a Friday and thats it. Are you seriously asking this question or are you asking people their opinions on what they would ideally do?
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Jun 11, 2020 04:37
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Jaxyon posted:Are you expecting that we tear down all police departments in a single day, and then just sit there like "oh poo poo somebody did a crime we didn't think of this"? I'm literally asking, what does the transition look like? How would it work? I literally asked that exact question. The OP says this: quote:What does actual police reform look like? Do we actually need police? How do you go about enforcing laws with or without them? I think these are all great thought experiments and I think there can be some real good info and resources and ideas shared. Forgive me for asking questions that are actually in the scope of the thread. It seems to me that most people just want to say, "it's been done elsewhere, let's do it and not care about the details". If that's what this thread is for, then fine, but that's not a robust discussion and not what's suggested in the OP.
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Jun 11, 2020 04:40
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CelestialScribe posted:I'm literally asking, what does the transition look like? How would it work? I literally asked that exact question. There's a lot of writing elsewhere so I'm not going to go into detail but the outline would be: - Dramatically scale back police force and heavily regulate it oversee it - Decriminalize much of the police busy-work - increase social funding - increase social workforce - As police work is phased out phase in a new, much better trained and planned security/investigation team that doesn't have it's roots in slave catching - as most "crimes" aren't murder or violent assault, this new group is much smaller. As for exactly how this transition goes? I don't know, I can't predict the future, we're not there yet. Like, from an organizational standpoint, i'd assume as you're eliminating the police you'd have your new investigative people running in parallel for a short time and then pull the plug on the old PD, but I don't see how getting that granular is relevant.
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Jun 11, 2020 05:03
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Jaxyon posted:There's a lot of writing elsewhere so I'm not going to go into detail but the outline would be: Cool, thread over then.
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Jun 11, 2020 05:04
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CelestialScribe posted:Cool, thread over then. What do you need more detail on?
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Jun 11, 2020 05:06
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Jaxyon posted:What do you need more detail on? I just think it's ironic that in a thread specifically marked for discussion about how a world without policing would work, what it would like, etc, that everyone instead just says "read these books", and "I don't know what it would be like, we aren't there yet". I mean...great, what is there left to discuss?
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Jun 11, 2020 05:08
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CelestialScribe posted:I just think it's ironic that in a thread specifically marked for discussion about how a world without policing would work, what it would like, etc, that everyone instead just says "read these books", and "I don't know what it would be like, we aren't there yet". I mean...great, what is there left to discuss? It's a complex subject and you sound like you're not actually interested in discussing it, but rather concern trolling it. What happens in the transition to single payer? Is there a point where we unhook the patients from the old system and plug them into the new Government respirator? Why won't people answer my question?
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Jun 11, 2020 05:17
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Jaxyon posted:What happens in the transition to single payer? Is there a point where we unhook the patients from the old system and plug them into the new Government respirator? Why won't people answer my question? ...do you understand there are complex consequences of moving from a major system to another? That's a really weird comparison to make. It's not just as easy as, "you're on the government plan now!" And even if it was from an individual's perspective, it still has huge ramifications for companies, tax ramifications, policies, etc. It's just super loving weird to basically create a thread that's all about discussing details, then say, "gently caress the details, who gives a poo poo". I am interested in discussing it, which is why I'm asking: if we start from the premise that the police system as we know it should be abolished, what does that transition period look like? But it looks like you're not really interested in discussing that, just repeating that it should be done, over and over. So whatever.
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Jun 11, 2020 05:27
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CelestialScribe posted:...do you understand there are complex consequences of moving from a major system to another? That's a really weird comparison to make. It's not just as easy as, "you're on the government plan now!" And even if it was from an individual's perspective, it still has huge ramifications for companies, tax ramifications, policies, etc. I've asked you what you want more details on. I understand that there's a huge amount of complexity, I've already said that. What part do you want more detail on?
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Jun 11, 2020 05:34
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Haven't caught up on the thread yet, but I've been reading through this account from an ex police officer. Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759 Edit: turned the page and seen its already been posted. My bad, worth reading though if you missed it first time. Especially the part on training and how the police department usually works in lockstep with the city government and is rarely totally rogue. Baka-nin fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Jun 11, 2020 |
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Jun 11, 2020 08:40
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I've reread the thread to try and understand the abolish position accurately, it seems its referring to the use of lethal force? For example in the essay posted above the former cop refers to most of his calls as community policing calls, noise complaints disagreements etc. It gets slightly confusing at this point because to be able to deal with these low level antisocial calls (drunk and disorderly for example, or noise complaints) you still have to have police, just not necessarily authorized to use lethal force. Am I following here or missing something integral?
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Jun 11, 2020 08:49
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flashman posted:I've reread the thread to try and understand the abolish position accurately, it seems its referring to the use of lethal force? For example in the essay posted above the former cop refers to most of his calls as community policing calls, noise complaints disagreements etc. What makes a person "police"?
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Jun 11, 2020 09:01
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Authority to coerce behavior on behalf of the state To elaborate; the state ranging from municipality to federal government depending on the scope of the issue flashman fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jun 11, 2020 |
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Jun 11, 2020 09:03
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No, we do not need people with the authority to coerce behavior on behalf of the state to deal with noise complaints. A person trained in conflict resolution and de-escalation would be significantly better at solving noise complaints than our current system.
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Jun 11, 2020 09:13
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Eminai posted:No, we do not need people with the authority to coerce behavior on behalf of the state to deal with noise complaints. A person trained in conflict resolution and de-escalation would be significantly better at solving noise complaints than our current system. Without a coercive lever there's no way to make someone be quieter. Have you never attended parties that got out of hand? Is the guy going to ask nicely or what? Even if the answer is do nothing and fine them or whatever you still have to enforce payment. The state (or community whatever you want to call it) needs a mechanism for enforcing the collective will. Edit: to nip in the bud a focus on a relatively trivial offense like loud parties one can easily extrapolate the thought chain to something much more significant, like a business violating the civil rights act. Without the ultimate threat of arrest the community is left with no avenue to change this behavior. flashman fucked around with this message at 09:49 on Jun 11, 2020 |
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Jun 11, 2020 09:20
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An interesting example, given 'noise complaints' are one of the primary excuses used for white people to call the police on nonwhite people for the crime of having a birthday party for their children, talking to friends, or listening to music in their garage in broad daylight, and have them be intimidated, brutalised, murdered and enslaved. While a business violating the civil rights act already has precedent as something police never respond to, and requires escalating lawsuits to get any sort of response.
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Jun 11, 2020 12:50
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Ghost Leviathan posted:An interesting example, given 'noise complaints' are one of the primary excuses used for white people to call the police on nonwhite people for the crime of having a birthday party for their children, talking to friends, or listening to music in their garage in broad daylight, and have them be intimidated, brutalised, murdered and enslaved. While a business violating the civil rights act already has precedent as something police never respond to, and requires escalating lawsuits to get any sort of response. No one is arguing for noise complaints to end up with people being "intimidated, brutalised, murdered and enslaved" though, or arguing for the status quo of civil rights violations not being addressed so this post only serves to some how imply racism? Not sure what the goal of it is actually besides to say "status quo bad". If you'd prefer you can change noise complaint to nonpayment of fines, driving without a license, or any other petty offense against the agreed upon social contract in a community. flashman fucked around with this message at 13:00 on Jun 11, 2020 |
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Jun 11, 2020 12:56
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Ghost Leviathan posted:An interesting example, given 'noise complaints' are one of the primary excuses used for white people to call the police on nonwhite people for the crime of having a birthday party for their children, talking to friends, or listening to music in their garage in broad daylight, and have them be intimidated, brutalised, murdered and enslaved. While a business violating the civil rights act already has precedent as something police never respond to, and requires escalating lawsuits to get any sort of response. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get a baby to sleep while your neighbours pump massive bass fuelled music at 2am, but it isn’t fun. Asking politely didn’t stop the problem. In a world that relies more on neighbourhood policing, how does the community deal with that issue? This is a perfectly reasonable question to ask - and one that communities will ask if police are defunded. So why does this thread have such a hard time answering it? If every question from a community is met with “concern trolling” then you’re never going to convince communities to get on board. And even if they aren’t on board, the question still remains: how does society deal with something like a noise complaint?
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Jun 11, 2020 13:34
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It would seem logical for the first responder to a noise complaint to not be armed or authorised to use force. I'm from the UK and I don't really have a problem with there being cops whose job is entirely to shoot people in emergencies, but bringing deadly force into every complaint is asking for it to show up where it isn't warranted.
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Jun 11, 2020 14:11
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Gort posted:It would seem logical for the first responder to a noise complaint to not be armed. No one here is suggesting they should be.
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Jun 11, 2020 14:13
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CelestialScribe posted:No one here is suggesting they should be. That's the status quo, though. US cops responding to a noise complaint are armed. To add a little context, the population of Greater Manchester in the UK is 2.7 million people. Chicago Illinois has a population of 2.7 million people. Greater Manchester police force has 200 authorised firearms officers. The Chicago Police Department has 12,000 officers, all of whom (I presume) are routinely armed. Gort fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Jun 11, 2020 |
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Jun 11, 2020 14:13
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Gort posted:That's the status quo, though. US cops responding to a noise complaint are armed. I think you misunderstood me - I don’t think people who respond to noise complaints should be armed.
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Jun 11, 2020 14:23
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Gort posted:That's the status quo, though. US cops responding to a noise complaint are armed. Once again no one has said police who attend noise complaints must be armed. Why argue against a position that no one holds?
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Jun 11, 2020 14:23
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flashman posted:Once again no one has said police who attend noise complaints must be armed. Why argue against a position that no one holds? The point is that no agent of violence should show up at all. If this is really a noise complaint problem, there is no need for violence or threats. Just be adults and talk it out.
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Jun 11, 2020 14:25
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flashman posted:Once again no one has said police who attend noise complaints must be armed. Why argue against a position that no one holds? About 10 seconds after I posted I edited it to say, "It would seem logical for the first responder to a noise complaint to not be armed or authorised to use force."
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Jun 11, 2020 14:29
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