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this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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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
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MODERATORS
I can't really comment on how much is a sufficient amount of training for law enforcement, cuz fuck if I know. There's certainly no shortage of problems from cops, but is the root of that problem their training? I suspect it has more to do with the quality of applicant / screening in the hiring process. There are a handful of kinds of people who'd be interested in a career in law enforcement, and most of those are the kind of person who shouldn't be trusted with ANY authority.
You can't train someone out of being a shitty person.
Tbh the column on the left is the one that elicits more of a 'seriously?' from me. Why in the everliving FUCK would I need more than a couple youtube videos worth of insight + a cert showing you understand how and why to clean sharp shit between clients to give hair cutting or nail painting a shot? Result might not be pretty right out the gate; but legally speaking, who cares? Price it low until your skills increase.
You might not be able to train the shitty out of a turd, but you can raise the cost of entry and weed out some dingleberries. If the required effort is higher and the time commitment greater, it might deter some folks.
And that's the exact reason why barbers and cosmetologists require that much training. Because it works.
Regulatory capture
You can't train the shitty out of someone? You can have them supervised for a lot longer and if they have the pattern they fail. That is the exact purpose of pointing out the difference.
If any cop is as good at their work as I am on Slay the spire they'd do their job properly, shitty person or not!