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
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The "conservative" self-selection in the police force has been going on since at least the civil rights act, probably longer/forever, but it's a real issue that I have no idea how to address. In Oregon during BLM protests, police were coordinating with Vancouver brown shirts AKA proud boys crossing state lines to hurt protesters.
We'd be in much better shape if non-Bs wanted to be Cs, but who would in this system?
All cops are bastards because the role of a cop is to be a bastard. When you have a monopoly on violently enforcing the law as you interpret it in the moment, when you can't structurally be held accountable because society depends on your monopoly for security, you can't be anything else. Conservatives are drawn to the role because the role is the embodiment of conservatism; "that there are those who the law binds but does not protect, and those who the law protects but does not bind".
Oregon cops cooperating with proud boys is in their job description; to use their own judgment to determine when to cooperate with criminals to catch bigger criminals, like letting someone off the hook for shoplifting to catch a murderer. Whatever personal prejudices they have, they are unaccountable for and expected to act on.
Police abolition is the only answer. Deconstruct the role of police, taking the benefits that police are supposed to provide and spreading them out among multiple different roles. It already happened with medieval English sheriffs, it's time for another update.
I'm having a lack of imagination. How do you see this working out?
Ignoring "police duty" notices like people do for jury duty now
US police force basically sprung into existence as a slave catching operation. It's built in
Non-Bs?
From "ACAB"
non-Bastards wanted to be Cops