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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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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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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• 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
• When the police knock on your door
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Again, this is what happens if you don't give adequate training to police officers nor select on more intelligent individuals for the job. If you hire a bunch of trigger happy gun nuts, this is what you get. Don't be surprised, this is an obvious outcome.
It's also relatively easy to solve. Double investments in police. Sell all the crazy military equipment they have and don't need. Actually, don't sell it, destroy and recycle it. Use that money to then give they a minimum of 4 years of training before they go out on the streets. Teach them de-escalation techniques. Teach them how to make the world better, to protect and serve
Double investments? Police already siphon up nearly all of many communities resources.
What if I told you we could increase community resources?
Yeah I mean people have tried reforming the cops…
Take all the military equipment that the police have and ... give it to Ukraine. Two birds, one stone!
When dogs are better trained and more intelligent than police officers.
Neither investment nor training will change this.
Prison time for cops. Scare them away from doing murders.
Training and pushing cultural changes EILL change this. And yes, officers that break the law should go to jail, and that too with make change. But you can't expect untrained people to behave correctly and make correct decisions. Of court they won't because they don't know how.
Yes but nobody needs training to not murder a dog. Only punishment will work with these kinds of psychopaths. They didn't kill the dog because they lacked training. They killed the dog because they enjoy murder.
Mmm, assuming that not all police officers are sadistic asshats, I imagine many of them just being scared and only remember being told to shoot first, ask questions later. Training and changing the culture within police organizations will do a lot there. Also punishment
These particular officers are the only ones who would be punished for killing the dog. Also, they weren't under attack. They just decided they'd rather kill the dog than to not kill the dog.
Serious question: Why would you assume that?
For the same reason I assume not all gays are pedophiles. Only really really dumb people think like that. Know better, be better.
Mathematically, all cops are bastards.
That has shit to do with either math or reality. If you're ubhad a job where you were the breadwinner for your family you might understand that things aren't always that easy.
What's ubhat? And whatever makes you imagine someone who disagrees with you must've never held a job?
"If you ever had"... mobile phone sometimes messes up writing.
And it's not because you disagree with me, it's because you're saying dumb stuff. Generalizations like that are always wrong and yes I see the irony in that statement.
There are more than rnot police officers that see the problems and have little options to do something about it as real life kinda saddles you up with things like responsibilities for wife and kids... Life is not black and white and it's very easy for you to make these bold claims while not knowing the real reasons for so many police officers not to speak up.
I know "the real reasons for so many police officers not to speak up." Do you?
Oohh, you have access to magical knowledge, you were able to peer in each and all of their heads!
This is a highly complicated subject with probably hundreds of factors influencing decisions of individual officers and large groups, and solving it requires no doubtedly a lot of work, time, money, structural reorganisations, cultural changes, training...
But I'm sure you know better because you know that there is a single reason for all of it! You know that it is something along the lines of "ACAB", amirite?
Complicated problems do not have simple solutions. I know that "defund the police" is a popular slogan, it's als dumb. You NEED police. You just are stuck with very shitty police, but defunding it, or just saying acab is not going to solve anything