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 This came up as an interesting conversation in another thread and I figured this could bear some fleshing out. 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. As long as we stay pretty on subject I'd really like to delve into what ideas people have or have read, what works or has worked in their community, etc. Feel free to link to great reads - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-abolition-ruth-wilson-gilmore.html is one that was linked in the last thread. I'd like to try to keep this to just what we call "police" but inevitably this has to include prison/jail and other systems without Criminal Justice. I'll start off with some resources from some classical lines of thought/policing structures from my studies starting with George Kelling and the "broken windows theory - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/ ACLU - https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police Police Reforms - https://www.vox.com/2020/6/1/21277013/police-reform-policies-systemic-racism-george-floyd https://advancementproject.org/the-change-we-need-5-issues-that-should-be-part-of-efforts-to-reform-policing-in-local-communities/ https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/110-police-reform https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/trump-doj-obama-policing-reform.html History of police reform- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_reform_in_the_United_States https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/31/the-answer-to-police-violence-is-not-reform-its-defunding-heres-why ***WHAT DOES ABOLITION MEAN? WHAT HAPPENS TO RAPISTS AND MURDERERS IF WE HAVE NO COPS? Before asking this question, please review and * READ* the below work, it's very comprehensive and should answer the majority of the questions similar to above. https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759 quote:"You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jun 9, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 00:47
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Mat Cauthon posted:Just going to post some resources I've found helpful in motivating me to be an abolitionist (of both police and the carceral state in general). This is incredible thank you, and I was trying to find that link for the book in the other thread. This is a lot of reading so ill come back tomorrow or so when I get through most of it but thanks!
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Jun 4, 2020 01:21
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jabby posted:Guess i'll throw in the post I made in UKMT. Part of my work happens to be with the homeless so yeah I'mma agree completely with the Role part. I've commissioned a racial disparity study so I can submit it not only to police but also healthcare institutions and the like, i'm trying to attack the angle that if they just let us in the homeless management system address our own consumers, they would save a significant amount of money and would not have to expend as many resources as they do - which traditionally lead to lovely outcomes anyway. Under Scope for sure, I experienced what came from broken windows in two different states (NY and NJ) and I actually had a class with Professor Kelling just after Giuliani had implemented most of it in NYC. 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! That policy led to a whole lot of people who were jailed who never should have been. Secondary to this discussion is how jail/prison isn't accomplishing or even trying to rehabilitate folks so that has to be a last option. I'm on the fence about criminalization of any drug, i'm with you that we need it to be completely a health and not a safety, issue. Organization - also agreed and I think requirements need to include living in the community in which you police. When I grew up we had substations where the "beat cop" would have to be their base of operations and it worked out quite well - everyone in the neighborhood knew him and could go to him about issues and any local events were his responsibility to man if they were small enough. It also saved budget wise because it created mini responsibility zones so that we could keep the police budget accountable for how many officers were truly on the beat. Edit* Saw this today and my apologies for linking the NY Daily News about anything but what do you all think about this? https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/cops-carry-liability-insurance-article-1.3901990 Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 02:58
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enki42 posted:CelestialScribe and others posted a bunch in the USPol thread, but even within this thread, there's already been tons of clear suggestions (summarized here briefly): I think what is being missed in the midst of people arguing past each other is that community policing and community oversight works partially because if you live in the community you work it's just much harder for you to break those social contracts on your own neighbors. I grew up in a town like this and that officer is far less likely to frisk me or get overly aggressive if I know his family or them personally. If a community policing or oversight board is out of line because the town is full of white supremacists that's a County and state issue to go in and take control. It happens all the time with school boards that end up under State control, we can have similar mechanisms. I know we can think this thought experiment through that we have lovely states and lovely leadership upwards from there but we aren't dealing with that here, that's not a thing that changes regardless of reforms and is a separate and distinct issue that needs solving concurrently with these ideas and thoughts in the thread. The other pillar - abolition seems like a pretty sweet idea because almost no reforms are possible considering how subverted our systems of justice have become by white supremacists. I'm not sure of a solution that works while supremacists are within every police force and union and often times have some of the highest positions. I'd hope that they could all get doxxed and removed but the people that are in charge of the removals won't remove their own. It's kinda catch 22-y unless we just toss out the whole system wholesale. And while yes something else similar might have to rise from those ashes, it would be significantly better for black people than anything we have now. https://twitter.com/samswey/status/1180655701271732224 Interesting thread on some data points (with caveats)
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Jun 4, 2020 14:31
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Main Paineframe posted:I think the argument behind abolition is that the current role of the police is too deeply ingrained in our society to meaningfully reform without first challenging people's basic concepts of the role of police and even the existence of the police. Well said. I got into a number of arguements with Kelling in his class about the theory since I had personally felt the adverse affects of the underlying racism paradigms that the theory assumes. It's a pretty big dog whistle to talk about undesireables and communities in order to visualize "needing" this type of draconian policing without visualizing a black or minority neighborhood. It's a baked in racial premise that those communites are the ones in DIRE need of policing while you convienently get to ignore that drug usage and the rates of committing these low level offenses are largely similar if all things were equal (socioeconomics, education, etc). It's a gross conflation about crimes of opportunity and how these offenses should NOT be dealt with in a criminal way, and ignoring that it's social issue that needs to be dealt with. It's tough because the implementation of looks effective, even if you utilize data. If you look at it's sole purpose which is reduction in crime, this theory implemented WILL reduce crime, but only because you cast such a wide net that you are keeping peace through authoritarian like standards and regimes. It's honestly the dying breath of the "tough on crime" era line of thinking but because it was bought wholesale by the NYPD it really gave the theory the ability to outlive it's half-life in the thought arena. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 20:12
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CelestialScribe posted:This is all great discussion and I totally understand what everyone is saying. But I’m still struggling with this lack of answers to the scenario I posted - is it just that abolitionists sincerely believe such a scenario should never occur? https://medium.com/@micahherskind/resource-guide-prisons-policing-and-punishment-effb5e0f6620 Mat Cauthon has posted a number of times with Kaba's work, you will see many of those works within this link. *read the drat articles, holy poo poo Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 21:50
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CelestialScribe posted:This isn’t a helpful response and just appears to be hand waving a potential problem. If you think the scenario I outlined isn’t realistic, just say so. I'm trying not trying to engage with this incredibly unproductive thought exercise for scenarios and anecdotes that don't even exist anywhere. If you have anything to refute from the professionals who have spent their life work answering the exact things you are trying to question then post specifics and cite literally anything. Otherwise i'm not going to engage with any "WHAT IF ALL THE WHITE PEOPLE TRY TO SHOOT THE BLACK PEOPLE". It's exhausting hyperbole.
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Jun 4, 2020 21:54
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https://twitter.com/andizeisler/status/1268713465322987521 I guess people are right, without cops there would be more rapists on the street.....but not for why you'd think
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Jun 5, 2020 13:13
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Rapulum_Dei posted:
https://twitter.com/samswey/status/1180655701271732224 Bullet point number 2 doesn't show that this is true, because I'm not sure what "professional" training looks like without the restrictive policies happening first
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Jun 5, 2020 14:40
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Rapulum_Dei posted:That’s what he is saying but what is studies or data he basing that on? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417736289 This seems like most research in this thread comes from this document. I've not gotten through all of his sources yet so give me a couple days to report back with the specific charting.
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Jun 5, 2020 15:00
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https://theappeal.org/the-appeal-po...uyY438Zwj2VeQLI This should help
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Jun 5, 2020 18:41
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CelestialScribe posted:
Not satisfactory to whom? I'm going to be honest, if abolishing this greatly improves the quality of life for black people, I really don't give a poo poo what this "general public" thinks. I think many more people are in favor of dismantling this current system than you think and finding out what arises from it. The majority people who aren't really behind that idea are the people who the system were designed to protect - the rich and the powerful. I equally don't give a poo poo about them either. Reforms may not be possible because we aren't acknowledging that the Police's function has never been and never will be to protect and serve. This is shown in practice and also in law; the police are fighting a domestic war right now against protesters to retain their power because the cat is completely out of the bag. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Jun 7, 2020 |
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Jun 7, 2020 02:31
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CelestialScribe posted:I don’t know if you’ve ever implemented major process changes but people tend to get pissed off if they aren’t consulted and aren’t part of a process. Have you? I actually work in Government for the largest County in my state and I work with State, Federal and Local partners for more than a decade now. If you think that public consultation is a barrier to Government's doing sweeping changes you have absolutely no clue how Government works. There are varying levels of how we even go about consulting the public for changes to policy, plans or funding and a large amount of changes we do take almost no public comment or discourse. Also, at the highest levels politicians make decisions, not the public. If you disagree with your Mayor or Governor, Senator or President you really don't have much recourse for their decisions as far as governance unless you sue them or vote them out. Public officials make decisions against the public's "will" all the time. However, large amounts of public pressure can force these politicians to enact sweeping changes, because at the end of the day politicians want to retain the power and money that come with their position. Most council persons, mayors, county executives (or equivalent), congresspeople and a large amount of governors do not have term limits, and can be pulled towards the public's will. CelestialScribe posted:What you hear me saying is “abolition won’t work because too many people disagree with it”. You're saying both , fyi but abolition's support is only going up. I've been to four rallies thusfar and I'm not sure I've ever seen any movement get bigger at this magnitude per rally; of course i'm not conducting a poll about who believes in abolition vs reform but if I had to take an educated guess, a good number would be for getting rid of the police as they currently exist and that's abolition enough for me. This is further supported by the fact that it's the top story on the front page of CNN and a bunch of other publications (NYT, NYPost, LA times to name a few) have the issue of abolition as one of their current top stories. For Black people, we know that moving towards abolition is really the only solution that will improve our lives and chances for literal survival so we are going to work hard towards that. I can't speak for any other group's motives but the support is broad across a bunch of demographics if what is happening outside is indicative of anything. CelestialScribe posted:For instance, take my example of a noise complaint. How is that dealt with in a situation with no police? If someone doesn’t feel safe confronting another in person, who do they call? What happens if the confrontation turns violent? The first part has been explained already by other posters so i'll avoid it but I'm just going to disagree that abolition won't win broad support but honestly it doesn't even matter if it does or doesn't. You don't think so but a whole bunch of social changes had have to be dragged along before public support. Civil rights ALSO wasn't popular in it's time so should we have not kept on going with that too? JFK and RFK were not going to move forward with Civil Rights law until Jerome Smith told them in very simple terms - "then get ready for war against black people". If it wasn't for Black Anger, we wouldn't have Civil Rights, period. From there, what JFK and RFK did were against sweeping public opinion. It wasn't about waiting then, it's not about waiting now. It's existence or non existence. Abolition != complete lawlessness and nothing in place to deal with laws, it's completely dissolving what exists currently and spreading some of the responsibilities that the Police already shouldn't have and then the functions in which an armed force are required can remain but for a completely new and different and much smaller entity. The current manifestation of the police has no hope of reform, you aren't going to magically handwave white supremacy away, it's what America is built upon, you aren't taking away the power of police unions, and the law is NOT on the public's side. As I've stated before the Police are reinforced by law to not have to protect and serve - The Supreme Court has already affirmed that the police have NO constitutional duty to protect you from ANY harm, so in reality, it doesn't even serve the function that anyone would like them to. It has to go. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Jun 7, 2020 |
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Jun 7, 2020 14:00
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Prime example why reforming is drat near impossible https://twitter.com/mdoukmas/status/1269241232200531968
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Jun 7, 2020 20:17
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Zachack posted:What is required for an agency to enact changes varies from state to state - in my state, unless specifically called out by statute, all state regulations besides typo-fixing require a 45-day public comment period and the comments have to be satisfactorily responded to, and a completely separate agency "checks the work". If you want to require a form that looks a certain way to get your driver's license you have to go to public comment. If you want a question added to that form you have to go to public comment. The basis for this is that it creates a more transparent and democratic process where the public gets a chance to have their say. Some counties and cities have similar processes, again, it varies. The general thought, although I can certainly think of times I would have preferred not have dealt with it, is that this is overall a benefit - the public feels heard and gets buy-in, and the people writing the laws get different perspectives and are forced to address errors or mistakes or things they may not have considered. Legislators still exist, but they tend to create things more along the lines of commands, rather than specifics (although sometimes they do) - this is also considered ideal because legislators are not experts in most things, while the delegated agency is (or should be). Public comment for any of our FEDERAL projects require posting in our biggest publication (Star Ledger), and a 30 day public comment period. That is for any introductions of plans, funding recommendations or substantial amendments, anything that is below that threshold requires only a week long public comment period. In my experience around a dozen people actually show up to public hearings that were actual members of the public (our participating towns and agencies show up in solidarity and support most times) and I can't even remember the last time my boss had to respond to a public comment (since all comments have to be done in writing and recorded). I've seen less than 5 OPRA requests come to my office, and I've handled easily over 50 million dollars in projects of all types. This includes the Stimulus funds that we got from the 2008 downturn. My point is that this a speed bump, not a road block to changes. For the most part the public does not get involved in projects, and the entire process is somewhat archaic (who reads newspapers?). In the past couple of years we also post our plans and stuff on our website but also who just peruses County websites? The public largely does not know what their Government is doing or spending money on and it's not for the lack of it being disclosed, it's that the public does not engage with government much at all. This is extremely amplified at the local level, where unless you live in a HUGE city your town hall meetings probably have a handful of people who attend outside of the occasional thing that gets the public pissed. A lot of times, the council and mayor will just do that thing that pissed off the constituents anyway, regardless of how contentious or angry people get at meetings. In the largest City in the state (Newark) their public comment can go literally hours and if you asked any resident of the City, their voices are never truly heard, just recorded to meet OPRA requirements. I agree on the benefit, I just wish that the public actually participated and that more of the planning could involve input. Zachack posted:So you could get a state legislature to say "no more cops by 2021" but they are going to hand the responsibility of what that actually looks like and all the myriad rules and regulations and sub-agencies and whatever off to the state's DOJ, and that DOJ may, depending on the state, have to answer a lot of really hard questions from the public and do so satisfactorily, and some of that may require admitting that harm will increase a little in some areas while decreasing a lot in others. Oh I know this and I never said this was going to be easy, i'm just in the camp of that it's necessary. There are a whole lot of smart people out there and getting together all of these things can be done, even if there are hiccups along the way. As long as the idea is that this "force" is for the purposing of protecting and serving it will be infinitely better than what we currently have. *As we speak, Minneapolis is disbanding their police force so I guess this the discussion is going to shift more about what happens after you defund and disband police forces rather than should you do those things. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jun 8, 2020 |
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Jun 8, 2020 00:52
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Crumbskull posted:Violence is not the primary lever of organized crime though. In a community where people's basic needs were met and participation in the permitted fornal economy is low barrier I really don't imagine this situation taking hold, especially with sensible rules regarding things like drug use. Organized crime is usually under the purview of Federal agencies, no? Are we lumping all of those Federal agencies in with Police? I'd have to add some nuance to my responses if so (gently caress ICE though it literally has no purpose.)
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Jun 8, 2020 04:36
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Zachack posted:So without doxxing myself I'll just say that my experience in regulatory modification has been very different - we get a lot of regional entities (municipal and advocacy), various industry groups (and "industry" is very broad here, including national entities), randos with an axe to grind or a point to make, and the just plain bonkers. We get turnout at the public hearing (which we always include), and from what I've heard I've only seen mid-range public comment (apparently Fish & Game departments nationwide get WILD). We get 40+ page public comments, not including references. We also rely on email to push out the notification, which means our reach is extremely broad, and I think the last time we went through this we put notice in 10 newspapers statewide. But we're making changes with major ramifications to millions of people, and so will any form of abolition. This makes sense, the state (I'm assuming you work for a state) has a much larger budget and many more projects and sweeping things that need to be done and drives a lot of the county level and local programs. What to do about State Police is probably an interesting question too, their interaction with most folks is in traffic or state property related instances (parks, arenas, etc) but I'm sure they have other functions as well. I'd be curious to see statistics about State Policing only and ill dig in and do some research on that. Things may need to go local and then trickle upwards as far as abolition then to give force and weight to allow that log to be moved during the State's process of doing the same. What Minneapolis does will be key, although here in Jersey we already had one example of that in Camden (abolishing the police), but what returned is essentially same name new roles, so it would bear to see how that process has been successful over time. Anecdotally Camden has come a long way but as I think all of the posters here are highlighting there has to be a change in socioeconomic issues related to capitalism and exploitation of wages and workers before we see systemic change. Crumbskull posted:Now we are getting somewhere! I'm actually NOT that familiar with any thinking around how to abolish or reform federal investigative bodies. This is an interesting read about what levers the federal government has to reform local policing that I found looking for answers though: It's a pretty big undertaking because so many different functions also involve national security and I think reforms vs abolition may be better here. I was going to make an effort post here but there are a LOT of Federal policing agencies and I think that Congress can do a tremendous amount in reshaping the function of these agencies, and that a lot of their responsibilities can be removed or curtailed. Some agencies should just outright be gone, as well. Jurisdictions may also need to be looked at, because whatever becomes of the police will need to interact with their Federal counterparts on some of the more serious crimes and violence. enki42 posted:I definitely agree that a large amount of violence can be traced back to poverty and hunger, but I don't think it's universal, and my gut feeling is that becomes less universal as the severity of the crime increases. There has to be some sort of armed response, but it can be tactical in nature. I've been discussing with my army buddies about response teams and it would be a vastly better use of funds and hell, you can employ some vets in this instance to do lots of this work. We can call it an extension of the national guard or something. We are far less violent than ever and crime is down across basically every demographic and location in the US. *I just saw this on twitter and ill post it in response to public sentiment about abolition https://twitter.com/FiveThirtyEight/status/1269984541017624578 Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Jun 8, 2020 |
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Jun 8, 2020 14:27
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enki42 posted:Yes, for sure it's definitely circular. I don't think anyone has explained why certain crimes will disappear or even be reduced in a non-capitalist society. I'll half give you trafficking - my gut says that some amount of it would still exist in a socialist society, mostly because it has in every instance we've seen so far, but I could absolutely see it being reduced, but rape and homicides without economic motives don't seem as clear to me, and I don't think anyone has made an argument as to why there would be less of these. This is presupposing that police actually affect the instances of the committing of these crimes vs responding to them. No one has suggested that there is absolutely no response to serious crimes, but everyone is suggesting that the entity that would do so is not the "Police Force" you see today. The Police are pretty much beyond reform for many reasons but one of the biggest reason is because the state requires people to only be shoved into a few categories - innocent or guilty, criminal or non criminal. These categories are too reductive and allows police to react mostly in terms of incarceration and punishment, since the Police are under no legal obligation to protect you from harm. The police are the state's physical manifestation to protect capital and property, and it's always been that way. Since the larger public also has a similar warped idea that everyone can be put into those reductive categories (through indoctrination and frankly, an obsession with cop and law and order shows), people have largely supported the police being the unit that responds to EVERY issue that a citizen may deal with. It's very easy for most people to just think in every situation, call the cops to sort it out and they take the "bad guy" to jail but unfortunately the majority of the things they respond to don't even have a clear good or bad guy, and most times there is someone in need of help that can be performed under a social service lens - not incarceration and punishment. Police don't prevent rapes, and they largely don't prevent homicides or school shootings. Deterrence is mostly a fallacy, we are a much less violent society for many more reasons other than police existing, anyone who tries to connect those two things is confusing correlation with causation. Broken Windows theory looks like it reduces crime but only because you are vastly widening the net on who you punish and incarcerate and that "reduces crime" by throwing many more people into custody of the state. I could also claim that i'm making my neighborhood safer if I arrest and jail everyone who goes 5 miles over the speed limit, but in reality all i'm doing is utilizing the prison industrial complex to prove my hypothesis that people who speed are criminals. Again as Mat has pointed out, abolishment as an idea does not mean any responding to serious crimes, it just means that the police are already not preventing serious crimes so dismantling them and creating something else would not have an effect on the commission of those crimes. How to respond to those crimes I think is the better question, and Mat has posted some good links about ways we can do that. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Jun 9, 2020 |
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Jun 9, 2020 15:39
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Mat Cauthon posted:Finally found a minute to read this. It's long but a great piece. Thorough and well-researched, but written from a perspective that will get people to listen. Good call, done and done. Everything added to the OP. Jaxyon posted:Hey a friend of mine got a fairly detailed LAPD budget from the city council and it doesn't look like it's something easily found elsewhere. As long as it's not considered  , absolutely.
Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Jun 9, 2020 |
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Jun 9, 2020 18:57
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flashman posted:
Just so we can all move on, this has been agreed upon for pages now - but requires that all current people who occupy this employment space must be removed and replaced with a new unit that has the some of the same functions. That is the difference between "reform" and "abolish". The abolish crowd is convinced and rightfully so that there is to much long set in stone standards and practices that it is impossible to reform in any sort of way, burn it down - start anew. flashman posted:Id like to see a complete disarment of the current police force, some further segregation of duties so that even in a small town a traffic cop has no access to a fire arm. Thank you being one of the folks to actually enumerate your point of view instead of "why this won't work''ing us to death but some thoughts. 1) Agreed on disarmament, and with 2) of a separate tactical team that deals with the more serious stuff 2) This may make things better but won't absolutely work. More education and training can be met by complete eye rolling and outright noncompliance because the current police conduct is not only encouraged, it's part of the culture of policing and always has been. Our current Police are only meant to deal with situations very narrowly, and that is with incarceration or punishment - there is no serving or protecting. I'm not sure any amount of changes what is cemented in law and culture. Add in the white supremacist terrorizing black people backdrop of policing and it's even hard to shake this off even when there are black people involved. Black officers have participated in police brutality, because the state empowers their officers to respond to all calls under those narrow guises, everything with police is an automatic escalation because they are only there to figure out who the "good" and "bad" guys are and haul them off. It's a perverted thing but the indoctrination happens immediately upon entering the force, and compounded by the economic benefit of summons and incarcerations/arrests. This all part of the fabric of America. 3) If there is a way to make oversight committees recommendations legally binding but the biggest problem we have is that likely all of these entities will be under the purview of the DOJ and if today is any indication that can be molded and employed in a fashion only beholden to that current president or party. I'm not sure how else to give these entities teeth - they would have to be at state level I guess, but then again the state you live in is going to greatly influence how good this board is. Absolutely agree on QI going, and there should be some direct way to punish bad cops criminally and civilly. Long and short of it, body cams, training/education, more "demographically sensitive" community policing and everything in between for reforms suffers from the same ultimate problem. The police force as is, is not broken, it's serving it's intended purpose and anything not starting with that as an immutable fact will not bear much fruit. *I hope those words make sense I threw it together on lunch break and I decided to not even respond to some of the other posters for the sake of my own blood pressure.
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Jun 11, 2020 17:38
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flashman posted:How do you evict someone without force? I'm not sure this is the best example, this happens every day. Not a whole lot of evictions use any force at all - the Sheriffs just padlock the door and everything in that apt or house now belongs to the landlord or land owner. Now if you are talking about those who are unwilling to leave, in my experience is that is extremely rare. It takes on average from Execution of Possession to actual 48 hours to quit notice around three to four months to get that final lockout quit notice. The majority of tenants just end up vacating on their own with a piece of paper, the Sheriffs rarely take possession. Now in the rare case that someone refused I guess I can see some response to that but at the frequency in which that happens that a decent sized metro city would have to employ a handful of people IF that to accomplish this, and none have to be armed. I believe that the Sheriff position is a bunch of BS anyway so you have no argument from me if we are arguing their existence or how easily it is to evict people and how the courts are largely in on it.
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Jun 11, 2020 19:09
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OwlFancier posted:You misunderstand, I said that if you remove one of the planks that hold that system up, it becomes a vehicle for the rest of the reforms. I'll even go as far to just request that evicting someone takes any sort of difficulty. It's far to easy to do so, and in my County you can have your eviction filed without any evidence or backup - that filing along is damning enough to force some people into homelessness, landlords are very rare that deal with folks with evictions on their records. I agree with this very much as well.
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Jun 11, 2020 20:02
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silence_kit posted:I feel like a lot of the anti-cop arguments in this thread and elsewhere are basically: 'there is rampant corruption in the police force--they are not acting in the public interest, and they cannot be trusted'. Which I agree with, maybe not to the same degree as some, who right now are pretty much attributing 100% of the problems in society to corruption in the police force. But I do think it is very true. Purpose. The reason for having police is explicit and i'd argue that there isn't any "corruption", it's working exactly the way it's intended as an agent of the state. The rest of government doesn't have that same issue because (mostly) it's centralized design isn't oppression and terrorism against black people. Mostly.
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Jun 11, 2020 21:04
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Mat Cauthon posted:A government based on white supremacy is only interested in improving the lives of certain people and the police are the enforcement mechanism to suppress or eliminate the rest. So it doesn't undermine the idea of government, only that specific variant. Exactly, and while anyone could make the case that the US's entire existence and success is based on the enslavement and subservience of black people, I just don't think that it HAS to be that way any longer. This Country does not have to exploit anyone to achieve success, it just chooses to do so as the most simple and easiest means to an end. Government can be reformed, but the arm of the government specifically tasked with brutalizing black people isn't something I see being reformed in any sort of real way. Again, this does not mean that nothing remains and we don't essentially create a new "enforcement" agency within government, this can be done with the appropriate levers and checks built within. Ultimately these Police report to someone, and there are a variety of ways to force government into sweeping changes (usually because of the threat of black revolt). Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jun 12, 2020 |
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Jun 12, 2020 00:01
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adhuin posted:Crossposting from finnthread. Very informative thanks for posting. For everyone's reference the closest analogous US State is most likely Colorado in population and population density - still impressive.
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Jun 12, 2020 16:51
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MORE TAXES WHEN posted:Lemme preface this by saying I hadn't heard of police abolition at all before George Floyd, and all I've read on this has been online. So it's possible that my confusion could be answered by existing books and academic literature. That said, the articles I've read online and this thread are extremely confusing. A bunch of people were jumping on CelestialScribe earlier for seemingly repeating the same questions a bunch and, well, while I was reading along I felt like the answers people were putting out also kind of didn't fully answer his questions. So, like, I dunno if he has a history of being a dick elsewhere but many of the answers given legit didn't compute for me either. To put it simply 1 is the goal and society is largely the way it ought to be 2 is the near acceptable future because of the way it really is, can't fix everything right now to ensure 1 actually has a shot of working Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jun 13, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 04:39
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CelestialScribe posted:but are you comfortable living in a world where anyone can kill anyone, with potentially no consequence from society? We were rightfully horrified by Ahmaud Arbery. If we got rid of homocide detectives tomorrow, crimes like that would happen more, not less. What you are supposing happens right now with police and their ability to kill with impunity, and your example of Ahmaud Arbery is the exact symptom of a larger problem. It's because white supremacy also holds up the policing system, regular citizens are also empowered to utilize the same vigilante justice that the police do. If you were to poof the cops right now, I would at least have the option of firing back at those who would seek to cause me harm. As a black person I am not currently afforded that right because my being armed is strictly a danger to my well being if the police get involved, if nothing more than the laws don't apply to me the same way they do others, and that's completely intentional. I would be completely more comfortable with getting rid of the police over night and living with whatever system comes from that because statistically it's likely more safer for my direct well being. "Justice" "Law" and whatever you may call our current system is applied to us negatively and disproportionately. chinigz posted:The 'what about rape' paragraph doesn't really answer it's own question, just points to a bunch of bad things and handwaves. What would society do with reports of rape in absence of the police? I guarantee rates of sexual assault will increase once the chance of getting caught goes even lower. Again, Police do not prevent rapes they respond to them. There is a staggering number of unprocessed rape kits all across America. Police are not a deterrent of rape, and as a matter of fact aren't a deterrent of much of any crime at all. Kaba's point of the article is not that there cannot be something that arises to deal with these things, it's just that abolishment is step 1 to creating whatever that entity or entities are. flashman posted:A collection of warlords does not seem a preferable option. We have them and they are called Police Chiefs and Police Union Heads. Lets take the word Police out of this at all. As a black person, our reality is that there are is an ARMY of armed roving band of vigilantes that are terrorizing and killing us, raping us (physically as well as economically as shown in the many Mat articles written) and are backed up by the full power of the law and state to do so. If Black people were a Country, we would be at literal war with this set of folks. However, the State condones them because they are enforcing the explicit will that necessitated their creation and it's impossible to go to war with the State. We have no recourse to fight back against this, currently.
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Jun 13, 2020 16:50
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Harold Fjord posted:People arguing in favor of the current system feel personally protected by it and are terrified that if we try to make anything better for anyone else that could change It's an implicit benefit of white privilege, the current police and justice system benefit them. Who would want to be treated like how black people get treated? If suddenly all the white stoners got arrested and jailed at the same rate at black ones, the law would get changed overnight. It's my biggest gripe about white allys and the white liberal, they are benefiting just as much as any other white person so will they actually go as far as to truly level the playing field? It's a tough thing to ask for folks that have had an advantage for so long. You have to be exceptional to make it out of the black poor communities and there are more than enough idiots coasting off old money made off of the backs of others. I'm speaking in generalities but at any time any white person can tap into their whiteness even to the point of weaponization and that's a really tough thing to give up.
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Jun 13, 2020 20:08
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Gabriel S. posted:Yes. I understand that the police won't exist but I don't think the phrase "Defund the Police" is going to work. In the Midwest up to quarter of emergency calls are for domestics typically a drunk husband beating his wife. This is so tiring that I have to post this every page, sometimes multiple times a page. Popularity is literally 0 of my concern. Abolish the police is the end goal that must what we strive for. Social change does not and should not wait for the policy documents to be completely laid out and 100% tested before being done. A person with a gun does not need to respond to the vast majority of what our current police do, and there is no chance of reform being a thing I can accept because reforming is pressupposing that the Policing is broken. Everyone has seen very plainly that Policing is working as intended and it cannot stand as is under it's goal and objective of incarcerating and terrorizing black people. Getting mired in phraseology is beyond stupid at this point. Any entity not specifically empowered to incarcerated and terrorize my people is better than the current one, even if it does nothing else than distribute justice in a manner that is actually proportionally distributed - like it could be called POLICE VERSION 2, and as long as my people stop dying in these streets at the rate that they are, it would be a vast improvement in our lives. I cannot believe at how hard this is to grasp and the level of pearl clutching that is going on. This thread was for discussing what that entity would look like, and in between the slog of shitposts asking questions that have been answered multiple times per page and folks just outright not having a discussion (STOP RESPONDING TO CS, HOLY poo poo), there has actually been some great proposals already posted. Read the goddamn thread and if there is something SPECIFIC you'd like to refute please loving cite it and leave a proper solution or change to that thing. BoldFace posted:There are small counties that have near zero reports of police brutality and deaths caused by police. Why should they be punished? I'd love to see the demographics of these counties, but I can almost guarantee they are very few black people that live there. This is not making the point you think it's making, this just reinforces the disproportionate injustice on one race vs another. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 14:51
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BoldFace posted:People losing their jobs to solve a problem that doesn't exist in their community is definitely a punishment. Post and user combo is hilarious considering you are saying because black people don't exist in these communities that the overall problem doesn't exist. Do these people live in Elysium? I wonder why white enclaves don't give a gently caress about black issues.....
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Jun 18, 2020 15:04
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The Deleter posted:It's maybe worth noting that due to the nature of gun distribution in the United States, reduction or removal of the state's monopoly on violence may not be super desirable considering the kind of people who have the majority of guns in the US, or at least the image of them, and that it may be necessary to address this imbalance as well, but that can fall under critique of capital and how guns are sold, I guess. The state's monopoly on violence in this instance is only happening in certain communities, and part of the problem is not that people are armed but with the fact that those who would seek to arm themselves have to add the state's enforcement arm as a general threat to their health and well being. Philando showed us that. Everyone, especially Black people should exercise their right to be armed, and the other smaller set of the population who owns most of the guns are a problem for different reasons and a discussion for a different thread. silence_kit posted:This sounds like law enforcement reform to me. I understand that you and others don't want to call it that so you can distinguish yourselves from people who propose milder reforms, but this is just reform. It certainly isn't abolishing law enforcement. Yes and no. Reform as an ideal does not get to any sort of ideals of disbanding any parts, functions, or systems within the Police, just changing them. Calling it abolish is important because it establishes that these are requirements prior to any "reforms". Verbiage is important because softening of language is something we do constantly to take the air out of politically charged ideas and movements (Carlin had a great bit on it, iirc). Reform is a term people want so they can return to status quo ASAP and act like something was done and not shake up any of the underlying power, corruption or money intertwined at the root of all of the various and blatantly obvious problems with the Police. Protests have not gotten weaker since this movement caught fire, but a bunch of black people have still been knelt on (in front of George Floyd murals) killed (some in some of the blackest cities in the nation) and even worse (going out on a limb about these hangings kinda but I would not be surprised if the Police were at least covering them up if not fully complicit). Piecemeal concessions just do not go far enough, it's all or nothing here people are fighting for their lives.
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Jun 18, 2020 17:58
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Zachack posted:I guess I disagree to an extent that it's a different discussion because a monopoly of force existing (or not) fundamentally determines the outcome. That said, I do agree that gun control discussion will result in Abolish This Thread, much as that eventual discussion may destroy an Abolish movement, so I agree that it should be passed for now. I think this is a fair take, but this movement came together pretty fast, and was using verbiage that only existed in pretty small academic circles of research but is surprisingly unified with it's core cause without much organization at all. I'm curious to hear what other word would have been effective but something to the "extreme" shock value of abolish is completely necessary to get the point across, IMO. Your experience of government is a bit different from mine because I'm less inclined to trust that those who would do those things you describe would actually do them. Assuming you are non black (no offense if you are), you are asking us to put the onus of letting the same entity who is empowered by the State to do these terrible things to, for lack of a better term, police themselves. I'm not sure this is at all possible. It's different if this was another function of government because at least at the baseline it's general purpose is not, or at least is no longer, the terrorizing and incarceration of black people to protect the elite's financial capital and stranglehold upon it. Abolition, even if it's just for the purposes of recreation gives at least a fair chance of the long list of things that are trying to be done to work. You've removed incentives and law related to why and how Policing got as lovely as it did. From what I see, the Abolition cause is somewhat synonymous with Defund the Police, but just taking dollars away from the Police and retaining the police structure as armed State Thugs won't make the problems go away, you just have angrier more aggressive shitheads to deal with. These changes will take a lot of money obviously, but if we take away responsibilities from what Policing entity we return to society, it's at least money well spent in the right places, and it will help us tackle some of the underlying issues that any sort of entity would even have to respond to. Over time we can reduce the amount of ways the State requires interaction with citizens about issues of law and ...order (that word is gross) which is a huge net positive in quality of life for all, especially those who are black. enki42 posted:I 100% defer to what you're saying about the history of the American police, you clearly know more than me on it, but that doesn't mean that police everywhere throughout history exist solely to reinforce capitalism and racism (the obvious counterexample is police forces in socialist countries, but I think there's a fair argument that many worldwide police forces don't have a specifically racist reason for existing, even if they have often have racist outcomes). Police certainly don't act like this everywhere but they certainly do and always have done so here. We can't compare our Police force to any other Country in that regard, our Police were formed for a very specific and insidious reason, it's just that it took an 8 minute and 46 second video for people to see what black people always knew. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jun 19, 2020 |
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Jun 19, 2020 00:44
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Still Dismal posted:We aren’t unique in that regard either. There are Latin American countries whose development was pretty profoundly shaped by slavery. Brazil received more slaves than any other country, and they abolished slavery later. Brazilian police are, to put it very mildly, somewhat violent as well. No one said there is nothing to be learned from other Countries, but what are we to learn specifically, i'd love any discussion with examples of what we can take from their models and implement here.
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Jun 19, 2020 04:37
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Jaxyon posted:It's because we keep giving them more money to do all the things you said but with a gun, tell them to fear for their lives at all times, and that minorities are out to kill them. Exactly this; NYC's police budget is three times more than we spend on homelessness (which is a thing you can outright solve if you throw enough money at it) for the ENTIRE COUNTRY. For some insidious reason(s) Police OT and buying military hardware is vastly more important than every other social service/education/public health. It's pure insanity. White people have been indoctrinated to shape their lives around building physical and metaphorical walls around their wealth and possessions, and that they need an armed force roving to streets to protect their enclaves, lest "savages" rape and pillage their women and things. I can even make it more fair by stating that at a certain level of wealth, all races behave in this way, but that it's certainly culturally prevalent in White people in the US more than others. It's part of the push back and feedback loop of why doing anything anti-police or removing any of their influence is terrifying and untenable for those who have power, they lose their advantages, and resources shift and opportunities are gained to those persons who they intentionally denied them to in the first place. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Jun 22, 2020 |
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Jun 22, 2020 21:56
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enki42 posted:I think very few people have "eliminate 100% of the police today" as an immediate tactic that they are fighting for. Look at even the most extreme proposals of what should be passed by councils today, and most of them are eliminating specific programs or making budget cuts that are significant but well short of 100%. I mean, it kinda is eliminate the police 100% today, but it's using police as a pejorative - not as whatever agent will enforce the State's power over laws. I want every piece of the police dismantled or removed because the entire thing is corrupted. I'm not sure you can slow walk reforms in any sort of real way - it's become a multi headed hydra which mirrors a whole lot of other institutions in its function. However, I know that I am not ignorant to the fact that something has to take it's place immediately and we have to be active in shaping what it becomes in the future. I'm all for that. What I am not for is incremental centrist status quo change - we will get no where. What will probably manifest itself in practice is some sort of falling short of the ultimate abolition goal in a bunch of places because of the politics - but if we aim for the proper goal and fall short it's far better than aiming for "reform" and getting the nothing-burger we always get. These reforms have almost always turned into a retaliatory hyper-aggression about crime as we've seen in the last ~50-60 years, it's the "look, people NEED more police, not LESS", bs that gets peddled when incrementalism doesn't work. There are a lot of other things that have to happen around our "justice" system and socioeconomically but in this instance there is a specific thing that can be controlled and changed that will solve a HUGE problem. Nurge posted:I don't have much else to add but this is kind of hilarious you know, in view of the history of the entire world. You seem way too optimistic about the motivations of the average person. I asked this in the other thread, do you think people are inherently violent? In the western world? enki42 posted:So long as they aren't putting the cart before the horse and actually work to fix those problems first, who cares? If the end result of trying to eliminate violence is that you can only eliminate 80% of it, that's still a win. I think this is fair, but I disagree in one point - small steps just won't work. The police are far too big of an institution and too ingrained in over a hundred year racial paradigm in which they have been the enforcement end. They are backed by law and given much more firepower and leverage than maybe any other institution sans the military and at least the military has strict rules about how they deal with their own populace. We have a lot of centrist or worse lawmakers, and progressives aren't in power in enough places for a systematic change to happen by slow walking it. *Sorry if I rambled a bit in this post my child is going nuts this morning Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Jun 23, 2020 |
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Jun 23, 2020 14:22
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enki42 posted:Sure, I guess this feels to me sort of like the Camden example but perhaps more extreme in how different the thing you rebuild after the fact is. It's eliminating police organizations, not the concept of policing, and ensuring that the thing that replaces it has fewer of the structural and cultural issues that current police organizations have. Agreed, I think we aren't far apart at all, and my only worry is with those who would enact change - sweeping changes are really hard to get done. It's part of why this movement has to be part and parcel with getting progressives in office who not only have the courage to go these lengths but are willing to deal with the inevitable push-back from the police and other institutions. With over 120 people killed by police since George Floyd, it's clear the police will fight tooth and nail to retain that power, so disbanding may be the only way. I really do love Camden for what they did, and as a New Jersey guy it's a shining example a fix that may not yet be perfect but the right sentiment in the right ways. Camden still has a long way to go but it's had marked drops in crime on almost every level and is transforming from easily a top 10 most dangerous city on the east coast, if not the entire US, to a place that is on track for a tremendous resurgence. I fully understand that the resurgence is also possible because of promise zones, the Sixers, Campbell Soup, and Rutgers University but those are initiatives that can happen simultaneous and over some years time.
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Jun 23, 2020 19:40
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CelestialScribe posted:
Who cares? We do not have a heated debate and discussion when a major corporation shuts down a plant or moves their work overseas - all of those people have to enter the fun merry go round of capitalism, why would cops be any different? Maybe they should code. And you cited "public" sentiment polling but again what does that even matter? Popularity is nonsense vs doing the right thing, most social movements are unpopular in their time because people do not like change, it's something inherently scary about being an active participant in not only self analysis but analysis of the state but it needs doing. SalamInsurrection posted:At least some of us are. I can tell you I've struggled with violent thoughts and urges ever since I was a child, and I'm fairly well off and had no known childhood trauma. Even with close friends, I occasionally have the sudden desire to just see them get gunned down for some slight. I have to stay away from alcohol as I've proven to be a mean drunk. Now, of course over the years I've learned how to control those urges and operate like a functional person in society and never had a serious incident occur, but not everyone has the benefit of that kind of mental discipline. Thanks for your honesty and i'm no professional but you should definitely see someone about this if I'm being perfectly honest with you. In answering my own question I do not think people are violent as long as their basic needs are met. I think that the violence we see on most occasions is rooted in poverty, stress (largely socioeconomic stress), and lack of general resources or protection of those resources. I am not ignorant to the fact that anyone can be violent, that's not what i'm saying but instead of dealing with the fact of what makes people get violent, we just presuppose they are violent. You can't get rid of all violence but you sure can eliminate a lot of it.
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Jun 24, 2020 14:21
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https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1275738275215523840 If this is my last post here on this Dead Gay Comedy forum, please let it be known that people that push "reforms" have no interest in doing even the base level of reforms. #abolishthepolice
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Jun 24, 2020 19:48
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Main Paineframe posted:I can't say it's very interesting - it's basically a sympathetic biography of the man, going so far as to note the time he helped classmates with their homework on the playground when he was six years old. It quotes a number of other people saying "maybe the problem is that the system is broken, not just a few individual bad apples?????" but the article itself carefully avoids drawing any kind of conclusion at all. It's so funny that all the cops get "humanizing" pieces while the media tried to drag George Floyd down as some sort of criminal and not perfect person. gently caress humanizing this guy. Anyone who could stand there watching a man slowly die is a person without morals and just as sick of an individual. The fact that a "few bad apples" is even a thing is so strange considering the entire phrase ends with "spoils the whole bunch". Long story short, ACAB.
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Jul 2, 2020 21:27
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Beefeater1980 posted:I still want to know what gets done with all the police when they’ve been defunded and sacked. A lot of angry young men trained to use weapons suddenly being unemployed is usually a problem in itself. They are forced to join the job market like anyone else. They no longer have the legal right to use any weapons so they would be just like every other gun nut, and get to struggle like everyone else. They can shout into the clouds for all I care Cpt_Obvious posted:Use that money to maintain/build infrastructure and employ those cops to do it. There are plenty of regularly unemployed people who need these jobs, they get to compete with them, they aren't a veteran they don't get preference.
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Jul 11, 2020 13:31
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