F The Police, and then what? A police/justice abolition thread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > F The Police, and then what? A police/justice abolition thread

jabby: Oct 27, 2010

Guess i'll throw in the post I made in UKMT.

jabby posted:

Extremely difficult. It has to be top-down reform, similar to how other countries have had success tackling corruption. You would need to replace multiple levels of management, probably including local politicians. Embark on a major programme of recruiting ethnic minority officers. Institute psychological screening for new recruits. Overhaul police training, with a focus on de-escalation and community engagement, and make it much, much longer. De-militarise departments, ditching the scary black uniforms and armoured vehicles and reserve heavy weapons for a select, highly-trained few. Scared cops are dangerous cops, so spend plenty on officer safety but do it the correct way: top-of-the-line body armour, an effective partner system, and large enough departments that backup is rapidly available. Bodycams at all times that can't be disabled. Make sure cops are paid well and feel valued in their jobs. Use some of your new officers to set up an effective internal investigations department. Make it easy for cops who don't want to work under your new system to leave, with early retirement and generous pensions.

Honestly there's so much you can do, but a lot of stuff isn't effective unless it's done together and there's just no political will.

The posts you and Guava made are also good. You do need functioning social services and healthcare to take that sort of pressure off the police, and to prevent the line becoming blurred between "criminal trying to hurt you" and "mentally ill person in need of help" or even "homeless person trying to exist". There's also a lot of truth to the idea that if you dress someone in a balaclava and tactical gear you reduce their humanity, both to outside viewers and in their own perception. It's a lot easier to be violent if you're viewing the world through a gas mask and know you can't be identified, so ditching that and going for protective but non-threatening uniforms with no face coverings allowed would be a top priority of mine.

tl:dr

Role - The police are for crimes, not dealing with the mentally ill, drunk, addicted or homeless. Fund your social poo poo properly instead of using the police.

Scope - Get rid of petty offences, treat drugs as a health problem not a crime. Stop "broken windows policing", all it does is create bad feeling within communities.

Organisation - More BAME officers, better training, encourage old crusty officers to retire. Most effort should go towards community policing. Stop giving the majority of officers military-grade poo poo they don't know how to use, instead keep a small highly-trained force to send after actual dangerous criminals.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2020 02:22

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 22:06

jabby: Oct 27, 2010

Yuzenn posted:

The theory suffers from blurring correlation and causation and decriminalizing those "low level" offenses bears out to be better in almost every measuring metric, we shouldn't be INCREASING the level of enforcement and the harshness of the penalties!

Broken windows is a nice theory that the people in charge grabbed hold of to justify the draconian policies they wanted to implement anyway.

I can totally buy that the quality of the shared environment matters (i.e. fix the single broken window quickly and nobody will break the rest), but that's a reason to invest in repairing/renovating urban centres and cleaning up litter. Stretching it to say that jailing the person who broke the first window for ten years is still somehow a good thing is where it breaks apart.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2020 05:27

jabby: Oct 27, 2010

Boris Galerkin posted:

So I'm catching up with USPol and people are saying "just let the community police themselves."

Is this where to talk about that because jesus loving christ. Do you want more people being lynched like Ahmaud was? Because that's what you're going to get.

Like seriously, I'm trying to listen and understand this point of view here where you think the community can police themselves without turning into the same racist hate group the police currently are, only now "it's the will of the community! " so gently caress you if you're not white (or gently caress you if you're white and live in a predominantly non-white area) you're just going to have to pack up and move?

So it'll be the same as now only we won't have to pay a police force and black people won't get lynched in predominantly black neighbourhoods?

Yeah, what are they thinking, that's crazy.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2020 08:03

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > F The Police, and then what? A police/justice abolition thread