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CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

litany of gulps posted:

In this whole conversation, you entire defense was that you posted some random article alongside your hysteria about the idea of no police. You're at best frantic that your property rights might be infringed, you can't even tangentially engage with the actual concepts of police reform.

Okay.

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ElCondemn
Aug 7, 2005


Beefeater1980 posted:

Ok so what alternative models are there to uniformed police? Off the top of my head I can think of a few:

- Hands-off police enforcement (state still enforces but without visible police presence. Upsides: less visible intimidation. Downsides: I mean it’s a secret police basically. The lack of transparency probably makes abuse worse. Included only for completeness).

- Consensual enforcement (state doesnt enforce but relies on consent for people to show up in court and comply with penalties. Upsides: low potential for abuse. Downsides: what if people don’t consent?)

- Community policing (local communities enforce their own rules. Upsides: strong enforcement, low potential for external abuse, high degree of community buy-in. Downsides: You’d need some kind of reciprocal mechanism to protect strangers from abuse when outside their own community. It’s also probably not possible to have effective protection of minorities within a community without the backup of an external authority).

- Private law enforcement (local powerful individuals or groups enforce their own rules. Upsides: Strong enforcement, low potential for external abuse. Downsides: Likely to result in arbitrariness, lots of potential for abuse within system.)

Remove deadly (and "less deadly") weapons from police, and prosecute them like any normal citizen. Then it doesn't matter which "system" a community picks, they just need to be held accountable for their crimes.

Vahakyla
May 3, 2013
I genuinely believe that very strong accountability and prosecution accuracy would solve most law enforcement issues after we get away from the beat police attempting to enforce minor rules. There’s no non-stop collision path, and fuckery is swiftly dealt with.

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

ElCondemn posted:

Remove deadly (and "less deadly") weapons from police, and prosecute them like any normal citizen. Then it doesn't matter which "system" a community picks, they just need to be held accountable for their crimes.

Vahakyla posted:

I genuinely believe that very strong accountability and prosecution accuracy would solve most law enforcement issues after we get away from the beat police attempting to enforce minor rules. There’s no non-stop collision path, and fuckery is swiftly dealt with.

Can this start at the national level, or does it have to be state-based? Surely there's a lot that can be done even at the presidential level to make sure cops don't get away with poo poo, even if it's tying something to funding increases or grants or something? I have no idea.

ElCondemn
Aug 7, 2005


CelestialScribe posted:

Can this start at the national level, or does it have to be state-based? Surely there's a lot that can be done even at the presidential level to make sure cops don't get away with poo poo, even if it's tying something to funding increases or grants or something? I have no idea.

I'm sure there are lots of ways to do it, but no elected officials are proposing anything to fix the situation. The states that are attempting to do something are doing the bare minimum and aren't having much success. There is currently no political will to hold police accountable despite over 100 days of protests and riots.

There are plenty of countries who don't have cops murdering people like they do in the US.

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

ElCondemn posted:

I'm sure there are lots of ways to do it, but no elected officials are proposing anything to fix the situation. The states that are attempting to do something are doing the bare minimum and aren't having much success. There is currently no political will to hold police accountable despite over 100 days of protests and riots.

There are plenty of countries who don't have cops murdering people like they do in the US.

What's the way forward, then? Is it just attaching the movement to one particular outcome like getting rid of qualified immunity? Tackle that first, then move on to something else?

ElCondemn
Aug 7, 2005


CelestialScribe posted:

What's the way forward, then? Is it just attaching the movement to one particular outcome like getting rid of qualified immunity? Tackle that first, then move on to something else?

Direct action.

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

ElCondemn posted:

Direct action.

What is it that you suggest?

Iamthegibbons
Apr 9, 2009
This thread is absolutely insane to me as someone from across the pond. I don't suppose it's actually likely to happen, but the notion of abolishing the police seems quite wild. I guess you guys can be the experiment eh?

Seems like a more sensible start might be either abolish minor offences or move them into civil proceedings at least. I'm not sure what is expected to happen when you just cut budgets without changing anything else.

E-Tank
Aug 4, 2011

CelestialScribe posted:

What is it that you suggest?

Collaborate with others whom seek to protest this. Stand against police brutality. Join protests. Shout. Refuse to be shut down. Refuse to be ignored. Disrupt society because that's the only thing that gets this poo poo done. Protests that disrupt the flow of things rich and powerful people like will get more of a response simply because they'll be more disturbed by them, see: The senate coming together to fast track FCC pay to ensure they could go home for their 'vacation' during the Obama presidency and the republican temper tantrum.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Iamthegibbons posted:

This thread is absolutely insane to me as someone from across the pond. I don't suppose it's actually likely to happen, but the notion of abolishing the police seems quite wild. I guess you guys can be the experiment eh?

Seems like a more sensible start might be either abolish minor offences or move them into civil proceedings at least. I'm not sure what is expected to happen when you just cut budgets without changing anything else.

I am also from the UK and it makes perfect sense. Because I remember what the police did during the miner's strikes, how they handled hillsborough and who they blamed for it, what happened when ian tomlinson was murdered by a cop, they aren't here for us, they're here to beat and kill whoever the government tells them to. The only reason they don't do it as much as the US is because the government doesn't find it necessary, yet. But they are the same in kind, killers on standby, nothing more.

Computer Serf
May 14, 2005
Buglord
Defund the police and prison industrial complex and put all the money saved into education, rehabilitation, public housing designed by cool architects that actually incorporate community spaces and then just deputize one person in every block and put guns in the fire extinguisher cases problem solved

Beefeater1980
Sep 12, 2008

My God, it's full of Horatios!






I mean round my way the police beat you to death and then release an official story that you died “playing hide and seek” with other suspects.

E: We tend not to have too many mass protests though, funny that.

Vahakyla
May 3, 2013

ElCondemn posted:

I'm sure there are lots of ways to do it, but no elected officials are proposing anything to fix the situation. The states that are attempting to do something are doing the bare minimum and aren't having much success. There is currently no political will to hold police accountable despite over 100 days of protests and riots.

There are plenty of countries who don't have cops murdering people like they do in the US.

While we definitely should defund the police and move the money elsewhere, what you said is fairly uniquely american out of western countries. While cops aren't without their issues in other countries, this wanton disregard is pretty drat american where you can do whatever the gently caress you want and no repercussions will ever happen, and people will crawl to lick your boots. Including the body count, which is wack compared to other countries. Europe is at 550 million people, with US at 310, and hoooo boy do the numbers not match up on deaths.

Americans absolutely love police violence. There is far less bootlicking in Europe, but so is there less blind troop worship. The police and thin blue line and all the wacky cop shows come from the US. Lots of police shows produced in Europe are very cut and dry "A government employee solves puzzling crimes, never smiles". For example, an extremely long running swedish police movie series called Beck never saw the titular character even draw his weapon. Beck was never seen with his weapon, but he was seen a couple times politely asking a suspect to come with him. He never drove fast, he never romanced women. While it is pop culture, I do think it shows fundamental differences in how people view police. It also had one episode where one of Beck's detectives tries to help a fellow officer in a bad fight and shoots one of the perps in the thigh, and still has to work against significant paperwork and frowning.

Beefeater1980
Sep 12, 2008

My God, it's full of Horatios!






There’s something to that about expectations. The US is definitely an outlier. Years ago I lived in the UK and in popular culture there didn’t have remotely the same presentation that killing power is necessary as in the US, although there’s some cultural convergence since the early 2000s.

To get British police routinely murdering people you have to go back to when it was a superpower with the ability to go police people it didn’t care about. After that the peak of bad behaviour was the stuff Owlfancier mentioned: gross negligence at sports matches and routinely fitting people up for crimes they didn’t do. In other words, what you’d expect from a community police force that was operating with people it thought was part of the same community. Then tensions over immigration kicked off again, but slowly compared to the rhetoric, so it took a while for that to filter back into the police.

From China that seems pretty tame and fictional police here routinely kill people, but real life police here still mostly accept that they are on the same side as the people they police* so the abuses tend to be locally powerful people taking advantage not the police as a group normally loving with large parts of the population they are supposedly serving.

* Except in non-Han-majority areas, shockingly enough, but those are a much smaller proportion of China than they are of the US.

fool of sound
Oct 10, 2012

CelestialScribe posted:

Can this start at the national level, or does it have to be state-based? Surely there's a lot that can be done even at the presidential level to make sure cops don't get away with poo poo, even if it's tying something to funding increases or grants or something? I have no idea.

How can you take a strong stance against police abolition if you acknowledge that the current situation is untenable but also don't at least have a general idea for how the police could be effectively reformed? Deriding options for change as too radical or too difficult without providing an alternative is implicit support of the status quo.

Vahakyla
May 3, 2013
Also police power reduction, or increase of accountability, can be just like the political bus. We take the one going to the right direction, the end doesn’t have to be mapped out and every step doesn’t have to be planned.

Jaxyon
Mar 7, 2016
I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

CelestialScribe posted:

How exactly am I doing that?

By quoting statistics that say that some percentage of the black community disagrees.

That's fine, they can disagree, because, and I hope you understand, minorities aren't a hive mind. They can disagree like anyone else because they are human beings with the full range of expression experiences.

Polling can show public support not be there for a thing that is undoubtedly good. Some expamples:

1) Anti-miscegenation laws were under 50% approval when they passed

2) "Black Lives Matter" as a phrase was under 50% until recently, when it wasn't.

Current polling of ideas that are outside the current overton window doesn't add anything to the discussion. You need to make them relevant through your posting.

Yuzenn
Mar 31, 2011

Be weary when you see oppression disguised as progression

The Spirit told me to use discernment and a Smith n Wesson at my discretion

Practice heavy self reflection, avoid self deception
If you lost, get re-direction

Jaxyon posted:

By quoting statistics that say that some percentage of the black community disagrees.

That's fine, they can disagree, because, and I hope you understand, minorities aren't a hive mind. They can disagree like anyone else because they are human beings with the full range of expression experiences.

Polling can show public support not be there for a thing that is undoubtedly good. Some expamples:

1) Anti-miscegenation laws were under 50% approval when they passed

2) "Black Lives Matter" as a phrase was under 50% until recently, when it wasn't.

Current polling of ideas that are outside the current overton window doesn't add anything to the discussion. You need to make them relevant through your posting.

Polling also isn't the greatest indicator of whether you should do something or not.

Know what was super unpopular? Civil rights and MLK and the polls of that day were pretty overwhelmingly opposed to not only King but the whole civil rights movement.

Just like always change has to be dragged kicking and screaming, but it still requires doing. I'm not a fan of softening language, I mean abolish police because there is no iteration of what our laws have created as the State's enforcement arm that don't directly put my life at risk. It's not even an economic thing anymore, I'm still affected even though socioeconomically I pay per capita one of the highest % of taxes to my local and State police - sure as hell doesn't stop me from being pulled over constantly without reason. I'm just lucky that those events are the worst i've had to deal with recently, other people were not so lucky. I've never gotten pulled over while going to the gun Range and the fact that my chances of coming out of that interaction alive is non zero, the whole thing has to go.

Jaxyon
Mar 7, 2016
I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Yuzenn posted:

Polling also isn't the greatest indicator of whether you should do something or not.

Yes that's what I was trying to say. That's why CelestialScribe sealioning in with polling and then saying "I was just trying to add data I don't know why you're upset" is pointless.

Cpt_Obvious
Jun 18, 2007

Vahakyla posted:

I genuinely believe that very strong accountability and prosecution accuracy would solve most law enforcement issues after we get away from the beat police attempting to enforce minor rules. There’s no non-stop collision path, and fuckery is swiftly dealt with.

The problem is systemic. At the end of the day, wealthy people are going to need violence to protect “their” property from the needs of the many. Landlords will require violence to evict a tenant. Banks will require violence in order to force people out of their houses. Stores require violence to stop the hungry from eating. At the end of the day, inequality MUST be forced upon a populace especially a desperate one, and capitalism is a system that not only necessitates inequality but whose sole focus is to create as wide a gap as possible.

Yuzenn
Mar 31, 2011

Be weary when you see oppression disguised as progression

The Spirit told me to use discernment and a Smith n Wesson at my discretion

Practice heavy self reflection, avoid self deception
If you lost, get re-direction

Jaxyon posted:

Yes that's what I was trying to say. That's why CelestialScribe sealioning in with polling and then saying "I was just trying to add data I don't know why you're upset" is pointless.

Oh for sure I was quoting your post in agreement vs what CS is posting

Vahakyla
May 3, 2013

Cpt_Obvious posted:

The problem is systemic. At the end of the day, wealthy people are going to need violence to protect “their” property from the needs of the many. Landlords will require violence to evict a tenant. Banks will require violence in order to force people out of their houses. Stores require violence to stop the hungry from eating. At the end of the day, inequality MUST be forced upon a populace especially a desperate one, and capitalism is a system that not only necessitates inequality but whose sole focus is to create as wide a gap as possible.

Yes, but this is then a discussion of capitalism, the marketplace, private property, and the fundamental forms of government. Law enforcement is part of all that, and governmental force has to exist in all forms of government, I believe.

However, let's just take an example of Norway or Finland. The police very rarely, if ever, kill people. There are few isolated cases of police brutality, that are viewed very negatively, and people do not really go hungry, and don't end up homeless minus some few expections.

The law enforcement in this case is not fundamentally dissimilar to the US, it just exists in a society that has far less of the negative qualities you describe, and it also has increased accountability for the enforcers.

The Oldest Man
Jul 28, 2003

The Seattle OPA would like you to know that pepperspraying that 7 year old was fine because someone else was trying not be beaten in their vicinity

quote:

Myerberg’s office did not sustain the complaint against the officer who pepper-sprayed the seven-year-old, concluding instead that the officer had not intended to spray the child and therefore hadn’t violated department policy. The OPA wasn’t able to interview the child or his father (who was pepper-sprayed alongside his child) after the family’s legal counsel didn’t respond to the OPA’s interview requests.

However, based on body camera footage and officer testimonies, the OPA found that the father and child were standing behind a woman who was trying to wrestle away an officer’s baton; when that woman ducked, the pepper spray hit the child. The bodycam footage also appeared to disprove the father’s claim that he and his child had been praying with members of their church just before the incident: the footage showed the father yelling obscenities at officers in the lead-up to the incident.
https://publicola.com/2020/09/18/opa-releases-first-findings-from-spd-protest-response-complaints/

The Oldest Man
Jul 28, 2003

Portland tonight. I'm sure this is also fine.

https://twitter.com/1misanthrophile/status/1307214168789889024

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

Cpt_Obvious posted:

The problem is systemic. At the end of the day, wealthy people are going to need violence to protect “their” property from the needs of the many. Landlords will require violence to evict a tenant. Banks will require violence in order to force people out of their houses. Stores require violence to stop the hungry from eating. At the end of the day, inequality MUST be forced upon a populace especially a desperate one, and capitalism is a system that not only necessitates inequality but whose sole focus is to create as wide a gap as possible.

Even in a society where private property is eliminated, there are plenty of cases where law enforcement are required that have nothing to do with private property.

CelestialScribe fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Sep 21, 2020

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

CelestialScribe posted:

I've contributed to the discussion with a relevant piece of data. If you disagree with the take, explain why.

Nearly everyone in America is subject to propaganda, which includes ideas like "we need police and if we didn't have them there would be murderers and thieves everywhere." Black people are not somehow immune to this, so it isn't strange for many of them to have the opinion "it would be good if we had the police, except not bad." The conclusion that "it's impossible to have 'the police, except not bad'" isn't one most people will come to because it isn't an intuitive idea within our society/culture.

The vast majority of people in the US form their opinions on various things within the context of what US society/media present as "reasonable/realistic ideas." So they'll naturally have misconceptions about the role of the police and believe that policing can somehow be made better without eliminating it as an institution, because eliminating it is something that US society/culture generally treats as a ridiculous position.

The same thing applies to a topic like healthcare. Approval for a public option is higher than approval for single-payer not because people have some genuine preference for the former, but because they don't have a clear understanding of what the results of implementing either would be. If you could somehow magically show them "a world with single-payer healthcare or an NHS" and "a world with a public option," the vast majority would prefer the former. But with just the question in a poll, people can only rely on their own dubious understanding of what the result of a policy would be.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

CelestialScribe posted:

Even in a society where private property is eliminated, there are plenty of cases where law enforcement are required that have nothing to do with private property.

Such as?

There's a logical leap between "there are currently undesirable behaviors that law enforcement responds to other than property crimes" and "law enforcement and a criminal justice system is required to deal with them". It's just not an obvious leap because the leap has been made for you time and again, countless times over your life. But it's an assumption nonetheless.

Police don't prevent crime. At best, they respond to it. So if your goal is to reduce behaviors such as assault, rape, or murder, you're not doing that with prisons and cops. The criminal justice system exists to punish people, not to increase safety.

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

Ytlaya posted:

Nearly everyone in America is subject to propaganda, which includes ideas like "we need police and if we didn't have them there would be murderers and thieves everywhere." Black people are not somehow immune to this, so it isn't strange for many of them to have the opinion "it would be good if we had the police, except not bad." The conclusion that "it's impossible to have 'the police, except not bad'" isn't one most people will come to because it isn't an intuitive idea within our society/culture.

The vast majority of people in the US form their opinions on various things within the context of what US society/media present as "reasonable/realistic ideas." So they'll naturally have misconceptions about the role of the police and believe that policing can somehow be made better without eliminating it as an institution, because eliminating it is something that US society/culture generally treats as a ridiculous position.

The same thing applies to a topic like healthcare. Approval for a public option is higher than approval for single-payer not because people have some genuine preference for the former, but because they don't have a clear understanding of what the results of implementing either would be. If you could somehow magically show them "a world with single-payer healthcare or an NHS" and "a world with a public option," the vast majority would prefer the former. But with just the question in a poll, people can only rely on their own dubious understanding of what the result of a policy would be.

This is a completely fair analysis, and it's all the more reason why - if you're advocating for abolishing the police - you need crystal clear examples and use cases about what will happen in a society without them.

For instance, let's say someone has a stalker. Right now they can go the police and get a restraining order. If the stalker breaks that restraining order, the police have cause to arrest that person, etc, etc. In a system without police, how do situations like this work?

I think those are the types of concrete examples people are looking for. If you're going to show them a better world, you need to lead them - and anticipating the edge cases and circumstances like that are critical to implementing that vision.

Note, what I'm saying isn't an argument for keeping police as they are, it's for implementing clear communications about what people can expect if you abolish the police. They want narrative and assurance.

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

cheetah7071 posted:

Such as?

There's a logical leap between "there are currently undesirable behaviors that law enforcement responds to other than property crimes" and "law enforcement and a criminal justice system is required to deal with them". It's just not an obvious leap because the leap has been made for you time and again, countless times over your life. But it's an assumption nonetheless.

Police don't prevent crime. At best, they respond to it. So if your goal is to reduce behaviors such as assault, rape, or murder, you're not doing that with prisons and cops. The criminal justice system exists to punish people, not to increase safety.

I mean, as an example, let's take something like assault. Guy #1 punches guy #2. I think we'd all agree we want guy #1 to have to make amends in some way. By what mechanism does that happen, if not through law enforcement? (Not saying cops, I'm saying, law enforcement. Surely there needs to be an independent force that gathers evidence, etc.)

Right now, police would arrest guy #1, he'd show up in court, face some sort of punishment (obviously doesn't always happen this way, just using this as an example).

If we remove police from this situation, guy #2 is left with a civil case against this guy. But by what mechanism does he gain evidence? Who compels him to show up in court?

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
Like, for your example of a stalker, I know someone who has a stalker. He assaulted one of her coworkers, went to prison briefly, and is now back out on the street, trying to find her. She has to hide her name on our websites and she still gets occasional hints that he's on her trail. From her description, he sounds very clearly mentally ill in some way. The police are fundamentally not helping her right now, because that's not how police function. We, her friends, colleagues, and family, are the ones protecting her from this man right now.

e: I was writing this before your reply

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

cheetah7071 posted:

Like, for your example of a stalker, I know someone who has a stalker. He assaulted one of her coworkers, went to prison briefly, and is now back out on the street, trying to find her. She has to hide her name on our websites and she still gets occasional hints that he's on her trail. From her description, he sounds very clearly mentally ill in some way. The police are fundamentally not helping her right now, because that's not how police function. We, her friends, colleagues, and family, are the ones protecting her from this man right now.

Yeah, and that sounds horrible. But wouldn't you agree that your situation isn't ideal?. Like, in an ideal world, wouldn't there be an independent force that deals with this guy?

To me what you're describing is a failure of the system, and the state you're in now where your friend is dependent on loved ones for protection, doesn't sound great!

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

CelestialScribe posted:

I mean, as an example, let's take something like assault. Guy #1 punches guy #2. I think we'd all agree we want guy #1 to have to make amends in some way. By what mechanism does that happen, if not through law enforcement? (Not saying cops, I'm saying, law enforcement. Surely there needs to be an independent force that gathers evidence, etc.)

Right now, police would arrest guy #1, he'd show up in court, face some sort of punishment (obviously doesn't always happen this way, just using this as an example).

If we remove police from this situation, guy #2 is left with a civil case against this guy. But by what mechanism does he gain evidence? Who compels him to show up in court?

How does anyone benefit from the court case and punishment in this scenario. Like literally "nothing happens" and the two people are left to deal with the fallout the hard way seems better to me than the state stepping in and arresting the guy in this scenario

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

cheetah7071 posted:

How does anyone benefit from the court case and punishment in this scenario. Like literally "nothing happens" and the two people are left to deal with the fallout the hard way seems better to me than the state stepping in and arresting the guy in this scenario

I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a society where people can get away with assaulting people for no reason. Having that guy fined, sent to community service, etc, is far better than letting him walk free. It sends a terrible message that the strong can prey on the weak.

So to answer your question, who benefits? The victim, and society.

CelestialScribe fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Sep 21, 2020

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

CelestialScribe posted:

Yeah, and that sounds horrible. But wouldn't you agree that your situation isn't ideal?. Like, in an ideal world, wouldn't there be an independent force that deals with this guy?

To me what you're describing is a failure of the system, and the state you're in now where your friend is dependent on loved ones for protection, doesn't sound great!

But it's a paradigm that can't help but fail. Either you lock people like that up forever, and then for every person who legitimately poses a lifelong threat (and probably needs therapy more than jail) you lock up a thousand people forever who committed crimes of passion, or you judge based on the acts that already happened, and let people like him free. Hell, we already have an insanely overzealous prison complex and he's still free. I shudder to think of ow big they'd swell to reach a point where he is locked up for life.

So like, yeah, in this specific case, this is a case where "lock him up forever" is better than doing nothing (though some sort of mental health service is very likely better than either), but a criminal justice system that routinely makes decisions like that would have to be a nightmarish dystopia.

CelestialScribe posted:

I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a society where people can get away with assaulting people for no reason. Having that guy fined, sent to community service, etc, is far better than letting him walk free. It sends a terrible message that the strong can prey on the weak.

So the benefit is that it sends a message to future would-be assaulters? If that was how it worked, you'd expect to see lower rates of crime in places with more police or harsher penalties. But you just don't see that. It's a fundamentally broken paradigm of public behavior modification.

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

cheetah7071 posted:

But it's a paradigm that can't help but fail. Either you lock people like that up forever, and then for every person who legitimately poses a lifelong threat (and probably needs therapy more than jail) you lock up a thousand people forever who committed crimes of passion, or you judge based on the acts that already happened, and let people like him free. Hell, we already have an insanely overzealous prison complex and he's still free. I shudder to think of ow big they'd swell to reach a point where he is locked up for life.

So like, yeah, in this specific case, this is a case where "lock him up forever" is better than doing nothing (though some sort of mental health service is very likely better than either), but a criminal justice system that routinely makes decisions like that would have to be a nightmarish dystopia.

I'm not saying lock him up for life, or even send him to jail.

quote:

So the benefit is that it sends a message to future would-be assaulters? If that was how it worked, you'd expect to see lower rates of crime in places with more police or harsher penalties. But you just don't see that. It's a fundamentally broken paradigm of public behavior modification.

So is the solution that unprovoked assault is now legal, by default?

In that scenario, how can society achieve true justice, if justice is whatever the wronged party says it is? Situations get out of control fast. Road rage turns into assault, which turns into someone pulling out a weapon, which turns into someone firing it. It's easy to see how assault escalates into something more. As a society with police, shouldn't we have a plan in place to deal with that rather than just, "let the victim sort it out"?

I dunno, a society where we don't have a mechanism for dealing with unprovoked attacks like that (not necessarily murder, just assault etc) is not a society where I want to live. If someone attacks me unprovoked, I want that person punished in some way, I don't want the administration of justice left up to me.

Like, I know people in this thread are giving me poo poo for focusing on this type of stuff when there is a much, much more important issue at hand: that unarmed black people are being killed in terrible numbers. But if the goal is to move towards a society with no police, these edge cases absolutely need to be thought through and addressed. That's how you lead people to a better world - through articulating a vision.

CelestialScribe fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Sep 21, 2020

ElCondemn
Aug 7, 2005


CelestialScribe posted:

I'm not saying lock him up for life, or even send him to jail.


So is the solution that unprovoked assault is now legal, by default?

In that scenario, how can society achieve true justice, if justice is whatever the wronged party says it is? Situations get out of control fast. Road rage turns into assault, which turns into someone pulling out a weapon, which turns into someone firing it. It's easy to see how assault escalates into something more. As a society with police, shouldn't we have a plan in place to deal with that rather than just, "let the victim sort it out"?

I dunno, a society where we don't have a mechanism for dealing with unprovoked attacks like that (not necessarily murder, just assault etc) is not a society where I want to live. If someone attacks me unprovoked, I want that person punished in some way, I don't want the administration of justice left up to me.

Like, I know people in this thread are giving me poo poo for focusing on this type of stuff when there is a much, much more important issue at hand: that unarmed black people are being killed in terrible numbers. But if the goal is to move towards a society with no police, these edge cases absolutely need to be thought through and addressed. That's how you lead people to a better world - through articulating a vision.

I think you’re misunderstanding the point. The point is that the current system does not solve these problems, abolishment will not substantially change how it currently works (other than removing the extraction of money and state violence from the parties involved).

Why does abolishment require a solution to your edge cases? Wouldn’t it be fine to just abolish and benefit from the removal of state violence? New systems can always be created to solve your edge cases, but keeping the current system does not help resolve those issues in any way.

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

ElCondemn posted:

I think you’re misunderstanding the point. The point is that the current system does not solve these problems, abolishment will not substantially change how it currently works (other than removing the extraction of money and state violence from the parties involved).

Why does abolishment require a solution to your edge cases? Wouldn’t it be fine to just abolish and benefit from the removal of state violence? New systems can always be created to solve your edge cases, but keeping the current system does not help resolve those issues in any way.

I don't fully agree here. There are plenty of people who have been assaulted, who have seen the person who assaulted them fined in court, etc.

But if we're going to talk about new systems, then great! That's what this thread is for. What would those new systems be for dealing with issues like this?

I'll use an anecdote to make things easier:

One of my good friends was assaulted several years ago at a music festival. I can't remember what it was about, but it was fairly trivial (over a previous relationship). This guy broke my friend's arm. The guy was arrested and fined. No criminal conviction.

In a situation without a law enforcement mechanism to arrest / charge / fine that person, what recourse would my friend have against that guy?

Please note: I'm not saying "police", I'm saying, some form of law enforcement mechanism.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
Did that punitive justice unbreak your friend's arm, or make them safer from future armbreakers? Like that's a really lovely thing that happened to them but I don't see where in the story the police helped and performed a function that would be lost in a post-police world

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CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

cheetah7071 posted:

Did that punitive justice unbreak your friend's arm, or make them safer from future armbreakers? Like that's a really lovely thing that happened to them but I don't see where in the story the police helped and performed a function that would be lost in a post-police world

The police arrested the guy, they noted his confession, they interviewed witnesses, they presented that evidence in court.

If we're abolishing police, are these tasks being conducted by a separate force, like a new unit of government specifically designed for these types of crimes? If so, that's fine, I'm just trying to understand how that works.

And if we decide that we don't want those tasks to be completed, doesn't that mean in practice that the guy who broke my friend's arm just gets off free?

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but what I hear you suggesting is that in a post-police world, people will just be left to sort out those disputes on their own. Isn't that dangerous?

To take your example, what you're saying is that in a post-police world, not only would my friend's arm remain broken, but he wouldn't be assured that the guy who broke his arm was punished for the crime as well!

CelestialScribe fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Sep 21, 2020

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