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Do you know this history of violence against police in NYC? I'm not old enough to remember the 70s but I remember the 80s and people were still talking about the BLA - black liberation army- that was targeting cops. This article is good: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...icle-1.2054110
These articles speak for themselves. More drugs will be mean more death and drug related violence:
You misunderstood what I wrote, the examples you listed, are instances where violence is associated when alcohol is consumed...I was referring to violence or crime involved in the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcohol today.
I deal with vendors from the beer companies on a weekly basis, Ive never seen any violence, or even any threats of violence involved with the manufacture and sale of alcohol, Once prohibition ended, there was no room for the criminal anymore.
I agree. What we should be thinking about is a different kind of policing, not absence of police entirely.
People should think about when was the last time you interacted with the police? Did you call them yourself? Was your interaction satisfactory?
If I call the police because, say, my car was broken into, I don't need an armed officer to show up. I, frankly, need someone official to fill out a report for my insurance company. And going back further, having the police didn't prevent that crime at all. So does a police officer need to be involved at all?
On one hand, I would not mind paying more in taxes to see more police. I would like to see more police on traffic duty and more police "walking a beat" in the downtown area (or riding a bike). I think face to face engagement on at least a daily basis would make citizens respect the police more and the police respect citizens more. Those citizens are law abiding though.
On the other hand, I would like to see the police get more training on how to de-escalate a situation. It seems to me the police are a little too militarized. What does that mean? It means they are trained to win at any cost in every situation. I think that attitude comes from a lot of the police coming from the military. Not every situation needs to be won, and we do not need shock and awe tactics used by the military on our enemies used on our fellow citizens.
And Lodestar brings up an interesting point. I leans towards thinking the police force should be centralized on a state wide basis. I think that would make it easier maintain a police force that is consistent in qualifications and training. It would make it easier to get rid of the bad apples because small local municipalities are under the influence local politics (e.g., nepotism).
I have never taken “defund the police” to mean that we should do away with the police. We need LE people who can protect us, use weapons when necessary, and do rescues when needed. But when an entire group of people are stereotyped as lawbreakers, without evidence, and when this stereotyping causes LE people to act maliciously, or violently toward them Without cause, some kind of systemic change needs to be made. I would favor another motto.
Many of us saw the video of the police who stopped the black family as they exited Walmart, with their shopping, accusing them of shoplifting, and detained them with receipt in hand, while they ran the license to see if there were any outstanding warrants. The family was detained without probable cause in the parking lot. If this had been a white family, do you think the police would have detained the family?
Of course we also have many examples of poor treatment of blacks while in police custody.
I have never taken “defund the police” to mean that we should do away with the police. We need LE people who can protect us, use weapons when necessary, and do rescues when needed. But when an entire group of people are stereotyped as lawbreakers, without evidence, and when this stereotyping causes LE people to act maliciously, or violently toward them Without cause, some kind of systemic change needs to be made. I would favor another motto.
Also, I've seen/heard a lot of white folks saying that if people of color don't want to deal with the police, that they shouldn't be doing anything wrong. I don't know that a lot of law-abiding white people even realize how often law-abiding black and brown people are hassled by the police for no reason. They're driving down the street; they're walking down the sidewalk; they're shopping in a store--they haven't don't anything wrong, and yet they have to justify themselves time and again in a way that many white people can't comprehend. They're tired of it. If police are supposed to protect and serve, that means everyone.
Hello, everyone, I wanted to create a thread to discuss one of the main ideological battle lines in terms of our nations issue with policing and justice.
To start, I’ve noticed that many people feel that crime is a symptom of either poverty or personal trauma. In essence, people commit crime either because they are trying to get something they need to survive or they are dealing with personal trauma in their lives. People who tend to hold this view are often against forms of traditional criminal justice/law enforcement because it’s seen as simply punishing people for being poor or experiencing hurt, and thus punitive measures are seen as cruel by definition. Adding race into the picture, many people feel that due to our nation’s well documented history of discrimation and exploitation of Non-Europeans, that laws and the systems that enforce them are simply extensions of this history and thus are illegitimate. There seems to be a lot of voices who feel that if we simply addressed poverty and personal well being, that we can supplant traditional notions of criminal justice and instead focus on stopping crime at it’s “root”.
I admit that it’s a thought that seems grounded in compassion and empathy, and the idea that we can prevent people from going to jail or having their lives thrown away is something we should all work towards. I can definitely see how raising people’s incomes/standard of living would disincentivize crime on a day to day level, as well helping people to work through their inner demons such as conflict resolution, mental wellness, family counseling and the such.
...But here’s where it starts to go wrong: To put it bluntly, many criminal acts are bourne of either opportunity or impunity. My concern is once people know that there is no consequences to their actions, what kind of actions would they undertake? This seems ironic, but the Amy Cooper incident kinda shows why we cannot simply “Abolish Police” or be without a criminal justice system. Here was someone who didn’t have any claim to racial oppression or economic debasement who quite brazenly committed a heinous act.
So as a Conservative, I turn it over to my more left wing friends and ask in a spirit of enlightened debate: Why “Defund Police” rather than “Discipline Police”?
OP, do you understand what the "Defund the Police" movement is about? It's not about abolishing policing. It's about trimming the budget, and trimming the job description, so that the police devote their time to fighting crime, and the social-work aspects of the job are re-directed to other agencies better equipped to handle them.
News: the bolded was one of the beliefs underpinning Soviet society. One of the points of the Revolution was to see that all citizens had their basic needs met. It was thought, that crime would then vanish. It didn't.
You could speculate, that one of the reasons it didn't vanish, is your other theory: trauma is at the root of crime to some extent. I do believe, that as a society, we need to do far more to protect children from neglect and abuse, and to provide kids with mental health care to resolve trauma. Easier said than done, but if we weren't so busy fighting wars and robbing the federal budget for tax giveaways, we could make a decent effort at addressing this.
But would it eliminate crime entirely?
I think your well-articulated thoughts on eliminating crime are directed by the erroneous belief, that "defund the police" means eliminating law enforcement. Everyone wants law enforcement, especially poor communities, that tend to get ignored when distress calls go in to police precincts. How about an equitable deployment of law enforcement? Maybe we should talk about that.
The NY Times recently added a new columnist. He pointed out, that the history of policing in the US was not about protecting all citizens equally. It was about protecting the dominant society (i.e. White people) from everyone else. It was for maintaining the social order. As such, it is an anachronism in 21-st Century American society. This is why we're seeing discriminatory policing. Society has moved on. The police haven't.
So much more needs to happen, besides trimming the police budget and job description. Police need to be re-trained to correctly identify who the bad guys are, and aren't (note: they are not color-coded), and to protect everyone, no matter their color or socio-economic status, and to leave the innocent alone, no matter what they look like. And to go by the book when dealing with criminals or suspects, rather than applying one book to some, and another, harsher book to others based on what they look like. Laws may need to be redesigned, in order to introduce more equity into a biased system, that sets Black kids up to become ensnared in the prison-industrial complex, while White kids get a slap on the wrist for "adolescent pranks" and "antics", with the acknowledgment that "boys will be boys".
Hopefully, a re-visioning of the entire criminal justice system, going beyond policing, will be inspired by the "defund the police" movement.
OK, OP. Now, where's my penny? You promised!
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 07-04-2020 at 10:32 AM..
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
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Fund prisons, and mental health but my pocket book is not so great to fund these programs indefinitely or to those repeat offenders. Outliers to our society must shape up, ship out, or offered the drug of their choice.
it's interesting to note how many people are simply jumping to conclusions based upon media interpretation of events. It's been explained many times here on the forum, that the term (de-fund) came from a commonly used reference by social justice advocates when looking at police budgets as opposed to funds going to low income--high police conflict--neighborhoods. There is no doubt that the bulk of aggressive policing takes place in these low income areas, and in the last fifty years, the conditions in these areas have not changed to the extent that crime is being eradicated by the police presence.
I realize that few, if any, white, and well to do people, ever go to the poor parts of town just to witness the conditions there, they fear the "bad" parts of town, as do the police. But on a daily basis the police are there and often in greater numbers than in the best parts of a city, that scenario conjures up an image of a separate society, a criminal infested dangerous society. Ergo, we'll add MORE police, with MORE firepower, MORE military equipment, and much more use of force.
Doesn't sound like an answer to what our most highly regarded universities have concluded is a disturbing social trend, that connection of an enduring poverty and lacking being an underlying cause of hopelessness and despair. In that environment not much can be accomplished through policing, but cities budgets continue to lean toward a bigger, badder, police force, amid a growing consensus among the gentry that greater force is a valid strategy. That strategy is forcing the police into the role of an occupying army, and thereby escalating the ever present mistrust, between the police, and the policed.
But in most cases, the big city areas of high crime and mass poverty are simply avoided by the white majority. Instead, the cities are only there to serve as a venue for major league sports or other forms of entertainment, and then it's back to the burbs and the safety of home. So, when things get out of hand in these inner city reservations it's as though America watches the events on TV, as though they could just as well be watching events in China or Europe.
Nothing noteworthy is happening in their quiet genteel neighborhoods, so it's just news from beyond, and therefore beyond the majorities ability to comprehend the realities of that "other" America. "De-fund the Police" makes for a catchy protest phrase, and it adequately expresses the angst of those who feel as though they are being systematically harassed and imprisoned by an unfair justice system. But the majority of us are not fearing the abolition of policing, nor are we getting our exercise by jumping to conclusions..We do need to look at the facts of us being OK with having two Americas, and the fact that this has led to the reality of having two distinct policing policies..
What would we do without a police force? How would we enforce any laws? People could do whatever they want, commit any crime they want.
People commit any crime they want right now!
Police don't prevent REAL crime, like murder, assault, burglary, auto theft, etc... they react to it.
The uniformed officer in America today basically hassles most ordinary civilians engaged in victimless crimes like drugs, gambling, prostitution, public intoxication, and minor traffic violations.
Get rid of such laws or have special unarmed units respond to them.
Re-imagine community patrols as watch units whose focus is primarily to help.
Keep the detectives to investigate the offenses that the beat police rarely ever prevent.
Most police-civilian interactions are the result of conflict; they are by nature stressful and anxiety producing but we should minimize them as much as possible.
IMO, education needs to be provided to citizens. (what are the laws, how to interact with cops, etc)
Also, maybe create a Uniform Police Law that every state has to follow. All officers has to abide by those procedure and those procedures need to be clearly stated and available for all citizens.
A good youtube that shows police bending the law or making stuff up on the go just to arrest someone or just to win an argument.
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