I edited my response and expanded upon it more but yes, we need police in some form. To do away with them entirely is not realistic in any way. I understand how upset people are but we also need to be rational and find a middle ground.
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The Mayor of Minneapolis just got booted from todays protest in an incredible Game of Thrones style walk of shame
- Thread starter painey
- Start date
I'm already anticipating some truly mindbending liberal takes when this happens, like that we could have gotten even more defunding accomplished if it wasn't for all that messy protesting justifying the police budget
All for it. My personal favorite version of police reform would see anyone who has been a cop for longer than a year let go, because anyone who has done it longer than that is far too deep into that culture to reform. I'd fundamentally shift what they do and how they do it. I'd build the new culture around cops needing to be beyond reproach. Leadership would be elected and directly responsible to their communities. Those on the streets would carry no lethal weapons but we'd significantly cut back the number on the streets at all. There's no such thing as a good cop, but we still need something. It can be radically different from what we have no, I hope it is. Its still going to be a form of policing though.
Dude saw four Twitter posts comparing him to Trudeau and went for it.
because American society is built with police, the force of white supremacy, doing away with them entirely isn't "realistic"
but I want to completely dismantle white supremacy and we need radical change to do that, not small changes based on how white people feel about the group that kill black people with impunity
You can abolish modern police in major metros and replace them with a new public service that is dedicated to crime prevention and emergency response. Police forces as we know them need to be burned to the ground so we can replace it with a system built on accountability, transparency, and citizen control.
Right, but she says that means "We don't want any more police," which is not what "defund the police" means. Rather, it's what "abolish the police" means.
Well yeah even anarchists acknowledge that some duties assigned to police still need to be done, but the current institution of policing is completely beyond saving or reform. It needs to be dismantled and replaced with multiple other things to replace its non-evil functions, you can't fix the police or make a good version of them.
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This. You're not stuck with either "militarized racists" or "anarchy." The point of a question like that isn't that kind of gotcha.
A good politician knows how to say enough in a word. Look at Obama's Vote tweet. Vote for who? For what? You already know. This dude should've risen to the moment and said yes. A world without any kind of law enforcement is stupid (you need somebody to answer if you call 911, and sometimes the thing you called about involves violence), but he wasn't agreeing to that. He was asked his starting point. He chose....poorly.
if police make you feel safe or have made you feel safe throughout your life at the same time they have abused black people for literally hundreds of years, maybe you should reexamine why police make you feel safe
if we need police in "some form," but the form we need doesn't resemble the current structure by which the police use law enforcement as a pretext to punish the poor and the Black, isn't that abolishing the police as they exist and making something new?
like, we don't call modern police "the town watch" like we did in the 1700s
Why is it so hard for people to understand that not wanting police isn't the same as having no security for society? I took her comment to mean modern American policing, which I absolutely agree with.
Yeah I'm kinda baffled at people thinking the abolishment of law enforcement would lead to a good thing. What do people think is going to happen in situations involving, well just about anything?
Psychopathic Nazi incel piece of shit decides to bring a gun to a protest, and no one is there to return fire or arrest him ahead of time?
Woman gets beaten by her drunken asshole husband and instead of getting carted off to a jail cell he gets a stern talking to by volunteers?
Child gets abducted from a public park and who's there to deal with the pedophilic killer once found?
We already have a massive gun problem thanks to dumbass Republicans and completely abolishing law enforcement would just give the most insane crazy ass Trumpers inspiration to make everyone who's different from them's lives a living hell if not ending them altogether.
Even the most open and free of countries still have law enforcement for this very reason. It's like nobody has heard of the Salem witch trials or read Lord of the Flies in their lives lol. Abolishing LE would be great in an ideal world but unfortunately we live in a much more dangerous one.
Also I believe this mayor publicly came out and asked for the officers to be charged and apprehended before any charges were even filed so this just seems silly imo.
I think it'll lighten up a little once more people start going back to work. Hopefully I'm wrong though. Enough of this and we'll get real change.
I mean that's a pretty extreme position to have to take on a random question. People don't even agree on what defund the police even means. Tear it down and make a new police force? Make a social worker based force with specialists? The world isn't a utopia, violent crime still exists, we have a number of gangs in Mpls that need policing. We got a small taste of what literally no police force existing looks like here in Minneapolis for a couple days and it wasn't pretty as that's when everything burned down
I thought this might go in another direction with the police treating him exactly like they treat protestors. People like him only care when it happens to them.
I dont find it surprising. I thought the Mayor's performance was pretty pathetic after George Floyd's death.
Actions speak louder than words
time.com
Hopefully the Mayor will support this effort started by a some of council members of Minneapolis
Actions speak louder than words
I’m a Minneapolis City Council Member. We Must Disband the Police—Here’s What Could Come Next
On Tuesday, May 26, we woke up to find a video circulating of a Minneapolis Police officer named Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of...
Hopefully the Mayor will support this effort started by a some of council members of Minneapolis
They support procedural reforms that time and time again prove not to work. Doesn't matter if you give a cop more bureaucracy to deal with before firing their weapon if society still sees the poor and Black bodies as the criminals that need policing. That paradigm needs to be broken
Yeah, the police are definitely famous for how effective they are at stopping mass shootings, domestic violence, and sexual assault.
Just to be clear, are you under the impression that Salem at the time of witch trials was communal anarchy or something? You know that most people who've heard of the Salem witch trials are in fact aware that it was law enforcement who was trying, persecuting, and executing people?
I don't think abolishing the police wholesale necessarily means lawless anarchy either, but it's still a fundamentally different position than "defunding" the police. The latter is more about diverting existing police/prison budgets into health care/social services/housing/etc. while simultaneously narrowing the scope of the former's responsibilities.
When the two are casually conflated it's difficult to understand the position being advocated.
what happens when space aliens unload magma rifles at a bus of small children?
you'll be wishing you had the police then!
you'll be wishing you had the police then!
To all y'all sayin we still need police...
Haven't you seen and heard everything people have been telling you all these years ?
*What about criminals, like rapists? They'll roam free* Yeaaaah police has been doing an AMAZING job so far helping people who have been trough rape... Right?
Literally almost everything that is being done by the police could be done better by another job.
Rampant drug problem ? More social workers, more structures to help people.
Homelessness ? Yeaaah Police has been amazing at helping homeless people
Like... I don't think I've ever had a positive experience with police my whole life.
One of my best friend had an abusing boyfriend who literally gave death threat to her and us. They didn't do shit. We literally had to find another place to stay for the night because they couldn't even stop him from coming back.
You should read this twitter thread
Haven't you seen and heard everything people have been telling you all these years ?
*What about criminals, like rapists? They'll roam free* Yeaaaah police has been doing an AMAZING job so far helping people who have been trough rape... Right?
Literally almost everything that is being done by the police could be done better by another job.
Rampant drug problem ? More social workers, more structures to help people.
Homelessness ? Yeaaah Police has been amazing at helping homeless people
Like... I don't think I've ever had a positive experience with police my whole life.
One of my best friend had an abusing boyfriend who literally gave death threat to her and us. They didn't do shit. We literally had to find another place to stay for the night because they couldn't even stop him from coming back.
You should read this twitter thread
And defunding still leaves in a place an institution that has tremendous resources and state sanctioned powers often used to kill, brutalize and oppress people. Myself included, so that entire system needs to come down. Hence, "abolishing" modern policing and building a more community-based security organization along with state statutes and powers that reflect accountability and responsibility.
So, like EMTs or Firefighters but for crime and presumably free of past baggage? (and I realize one of the potential interpretations of this is "like a POLICE DEPARTMENT LOLOLOL?!")
Has anyone gone into detail on what this would look like?
Because people don't agree or understand "defunding" to mean a reduction but instead abolishment and very possibly abolishment right now. Republicans who call for defunding planned parenthood don't mean to reduce the money that goes to them. They mean zero. So politically that's what people think.
His soul left his body, but he had to keep walking and walking.
Exactly. Loud, angry, "unreasonable" demands/displays like this are desperately needed.
Sitting down with elected officials and calmly and respectfully handing them a palatable list of reforms you'd like to see, has achieved absolutely nothing. The situation is totally unchanged. You have to show the people at the top that you are fucking angry, and that only proof of their full and unshakable commitment to concrete changes will give you cause to engage with them in a calmer, more diplomatic manner. And until they do, shame.
In the end, this is just a video of people shoving the overton window towards racial justice as far and as hard as they possibly can.
Exactly. Loud, angry, "unreasonable" demands/displays like this are desperately needed.
Sitting down with elected officials and calmly and respectfully handing them a palatable list of reforms you'd like to see, has achieved absolutely nothing. The situation is totally unchanged. You have to show the people at the top that you are fucking angry, and that only proof of their full and unshakable commitment to concrete changes will give you cause to engage with them in a calmer, more diplomatic manner. And until they do, shame.
In the end, this is just a video of people shoving the overton window towards racial justice as far and as hard as they possibly can.
I think removing all of the police force and starting from scratch with a new program that emphasizes de-escalation and community policing with civilian oversight is a much better idea than just abolishing the police system. What examples are there in the world to draw from how you would even do that?
I can't remember where I heard this, but it important to note that middle class white people live in societies where police has essentially been abolished.
I am 36 years old and I've only interacted with the police twice in my life, and that was due to speeding tickets.
I am 36 years old and I've only interacted with the police twice in my life, and that was due to speeding tickets.
Listening to Republicans isn't an excuse. Listen to why the demand is so drastic.
This is an excellent book on the subject, and currently free as an ebook:
Verso
Verso Books is the largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world.
That makes sense to me and is something I can get behind, but it's not what people are going to think when they hear "abolish the police."
Remember, we didn't always call those enforcing security "cops" or "police." Not that the term or phrasing matters, since dishonest people will misconstrue the intentions regardless. Policing as it exists in this country needs to go, full stop. We need to understanding that police isn't the same as security, since cops aren't obligated to protect and aid us in the first place.
That's actually a great comparison, for the opposite reason. Republicans calling for defunding Planned Parenthood are declaring publicly that they're against the institution, and want it to not exist, but in practice they do everything in their power just to reduce and restrict the organization. You never see Republicans punching to the right going "No, the public will never accept totally abolishing Planned Parenthood, that would be crazy! Let's just try to reform them a little bit."
Liberals could learn something from that.
I don't think "abolish" has been picked up in a noticeable way in the popular narrative yet. Like, ask any random lay person what BLM wants and you'll get some reforms as answers, maybe defunding, but not abolition.
If the "general public" (as nebulous as the term is) thinks the demands are to abolish police that'll be the end of "negotiations" and you'll see support swing back in favor of police. No one is going to sign off on no police and they'll think we're all deluded college kids for even suggesting it.
Republicans can do that because there's a huge constituency of single issue voters that will come out every single election and vote for that.
If a huge block of voters become "abolish police and no other policy matters" and come out to vote reliably for that for decades then we'll see Democrats start to emulate the same behavior.
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Huh? I'm not sure you're getting the conversation right.
The other person asked why someone would be against defunding but support reform and pointed to the militarization. It seems to me that they think logically a reformer would be fine in reduction. And I'm saying the confusion comes from people thinking "defund" means to abolish right now. And it does for some but it also does not for others. And I pointed out that politically defund means zero a lot of times.
I understand why the demand is so drastic, but that's not really relevant to that particular conversation.
As far as accountability goes ...
Citizens having representatives to review all hires in every single department for past behavior, psych evaluations, work history. Basically, citizens should be the HR department for the new departments. The representatives do the work, but everything about each officer is available in a centralized source to be accessed at any time. Citizens should be able to access a database to look up every officer by name or badge number and alert their representatives to conduct an independent review of that officer. Speaking of ...
Independent third-party audits of the work performed to ensure that officers are not violating their job duties.
Consistent, defined prison time for officer violations. If a citizen suffers harm and you don't have bodycam footage to go along with the incident, it's a felony. If you intentionally cover your badge number, it's a felony. You get the idea.
Basically, any single thing that you can think of that relates to accountability and transparency is what we need. These mythical "good cops" that we hear so much about should have no problem performing their roles if rebuild the system from the ground up to swiftly and thoroughly punish officers that abuse their roles.
I can't imagine how society will function if clearing car crash sites, helping people having mental health crises, and apprehending murderers aren't the same job run by trigger-happy unaccountable bullies who can assault and kill with almost total impunity and aren't part of the communities they're supposed to serve. Everything would descend into chaos and darkness immediately if any part of that changes.
uh, defunding is a fine short term solution to get fucking military style weapons and riot control devices away from the police