this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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THE POLICE PROBLEM

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    The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.

    99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.

    When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

    When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."

    When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.

    Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

    The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.

    All this is a path to a police state.

    In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

    Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.

    That's the solution.

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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.

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RULES

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ALLIES

!abolition@slrpnk.net

!acab@lemmygrad.ml

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

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INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

Killings by law enforcement in Canada

Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom

Killings by law enforcement in the United States

Know your rights: Filming the police

Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)

Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.

Police lie under oath, a lot

Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak

Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street

Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

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ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A growing number of reports suggest that some Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are engaging in theft during operations, including instances where detainees' possessions, such as jewellery and personal belongings, are allegedly taken and sold or kept by agents.

The most recent and disturbing evidence emerged from Minnesota, where a photograph circulated showing an ICE agent wearing a gold bracelet. The bracelet was allegedly taken from a detainee during an arrest.

'It now appears that some ICE agents are stealing from the people they're arresting. This agent was photographed with a gold bracelet he took off a man in Minnesota,' a viral post on X was shared.

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 4 points 2 weeks ago

There was a story a couple of weeks ago about an American citizen kid who was detained, and later released, but they never gave him his phone back.

He used Find My Phone, and tracked it to a used technology vending machine (that's a thing, I guess) next to the facility he was held in. So some ICE Ape stole his phone, and sold it to whoever stocks that machine. When I read it, I wondered if all the other tech in the machine was stolen from detainees by ICE Apes. Sounds like a side hustle by someone in authority. Got a phone from somewhere? "Go talk to Carl, he'll buy it."

I can just hear these motherfuckers saying "So what? It's not like they're going to need it in CECOT."