THE POLICE PROBLEM
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
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
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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
view the rest of the comments
My son was choking to death and a police officer saved his life.
My brother died in a car accident and they caught the guy who did it.
There are many decent police officers and they serve a real function in society.
THIS DOES NOT EXCUSE THE ACTIONS OF THOSE WHO DO WRONG.
THIS DOES NOT EXCUSE THE - INACTION - OF THOSE WHO ARE TURNING A BLIND EYE TO BEHAVIOR LIKE THIS
Also, another side note. The police helped me convince my local parks and rec board to get signage for no fishing on a bike trail that was around a blind corner where people would crash their bikes all the time due to bags, coolers, poles, etc.. they advocated for this with me which I found commendable.
I try to keep an open mind while also admonishing what I see is bad. I'm hoping that someday somehow they'll remove the stigma of reporting bad apples from police departments and prioritize real oversight
The problem is the system and structures in place that attract, create, and protect all the bad ones. Of course there are some well-intentioned people who are cops.
There were also some American slave owners who educated their slaves, allowed them to have personal property, and even left them a portion of their inheritance after they were freed. This doesn't make slavery good or moral, and it doesn't excuse the fact that those slave owners willingly participated in a horrific, unethical system, even if they individually were (relatively) kind to their slaves.
The entire structure of modern policing is fundamentally intended to protect the rich and powerful and enforce the social stratification between them and the working class.
It's wonderful that that your son's life was saved by a cop, but it should've been a paramedic. It's great that some cops helped you advocate for better signage on that trail, but it should've been a pedestrian community group or public transportation organization.
The healthy, constructive functions of the police should be provided by a host of publicly accountable services and organizations that specialize in specific things like mental health crisis response, suicide intervention, traffic safety, etc.
And as a society, we need to figure out how we ought to deal with the one class of emergency that cops actually are supposed to deal with, extreme violent threats. Somebody with a weapon who has killed or is trying to kill other people.
But make no mistake, there is no way to "reform" modern policing. The only long term solution is to dismantle that system completely, piece by piece, and replace each part with a well-funded, accountable, and worker/community based alternative. It's not about replacing "bad cops" with "good cops" anymore than fixing organized crime would be about getting more honorable mobsters into power.
Sounds amazing. I was assaulted and the cops refused to do anything, despite knowing exactly who did it. I've also been harassed by the police. I would personally submit almost 100% of them to Nuremberg 2.0. The system needs to be 100% dismantled and rebuilt.
Sorry to hear that. I hope something changes as well.
Where are you from?
The Midwest (US)