Taking the trouble to follow your linkee… I begin to think we’re talking apples vs. oranges here.
If I understand correctly, the source you linkeed is discussing regime change at the nation-state level. While the source I linkeed is discussing things like desegregating lunch counters.
To a degree in practice, yes, but it’s still a fantasy for others that’s may become a reality.
Is a bunch of trigger happy vigilante rednecks going to town a better solution? They are just as racist than the cops and exist in greater numbers. It’s not like the crook is going to call the police.
In terms of our criminal justice system, I don’t know about the absolute biggest priority but it should certainly be a top focus. And for any given police reform, certainly “what effect will this have on crime” is one of the top questions that should be asked. The framework that Yglesias’ article presents might be a good way to look at things, summarized as more police, fewer prisons, less crime. Have more cops out on the streets, which curtails crime, and then perhaps make sentencing somewhat less punitive. And decriminalize drugs, following one of several successful models out there. So you’d spend more on policing and a lot less on incarceration.
Will hiring a bunch of unarmed grannies to walk the beat decrease crime? If we increase the number of cops, do they have to be like the cops that we already have?
There’s actual evidence that having more cops like the cops we have tends to decrease crime. Not aware of any evidence addressing what you suggest and I’m skeptical it would be effective.
Lots of other countries have unarmed police. I don’t think any other first world countries have full blown militarized goon squads indiscriminately killing and beating people like in USA #1.
My point is there is an ocean between where we are and where the rest of the developed world is with regard to reasonable policing. It’s unreal that a few people are stanning for anything resembling the status quo. I agree with JT that police here are essentially useless and a massive net negative. They don’t stop crime. It’s debatable whether they deter crime. And lastly they really suck at solving crimes.
They should be eliminated and replaced with an entity that actually investigates and prosecutes violent crime.
That is, quite literally, reforming the police.
No man it isn’t. You wouldn’t have uniformed maniacs with guns cruising around 24/7 brutalizing people. There would be no more police in the traditional sense.
So you want to abolish the police and replace it with an organization that responds to reports of crime, investigates crimes, arrests perpetrators of crimes, and refers those perpetrators to the legal system for trial and punishment?
I mean your point is that is what police do now. The problem is that isn’t 90% of what police do now.
So you want to abolish the King and replace him with an organization that legislates laws, executes those laws, and sits in judgement of those laws?
My point is that is what police ought to do, and what an overwhelming majority of people agree that police should do. That the police also do a lot of other bs that isn’t productive in achieving that core mission doesn’t mean that core mission isn’t vital to society. And public policy that encourages police departments to focus on improving the effectiveness of that core mission isn’t the abolition of police, it is reforming police.
I don’t think eliminating guns, uniforms, patrols/patrol cars, and 80 iq racist meatheads and replacing them with a few educated unarmed detective types to investigate the worst crimes is what most people think about when they say “reform the police”. But if that’s what it means to you then ok.
I’ll admit I am kind of interested in seeing what happens when these unarmed eggheads try to arrest the North Hollywood bank robbers.
That doesn’t exactly seem like a difficult problem to solve. But I’m sure it’s impossible and I’m just a moron so I should just throw my hands up and act like it’s the gotcha you think it is.
I mean it’s not difficult to solve, in a country as heavily armed as the US with as much violent crime as the US has, the police have to be armed. So that’s how they’d solve it, by arming themselves before confronting violent, armed criminals.
The “leftist libertarian” stanning for the police? This is my shocked face…
If you have no police there is nobody to arm. You would need people executing arrest warrants and responding to ongoing events like a hostage situation. That means you only need a handful of armed people in a unit specifically designed to do this work. Your average meathead cop type is never executing arrest warrants in this scenerio because they don’t exist.
Maybe I am wrong but the abolish the police people do not believe as a society we shouldn’t be doing anything about murderers and rapists so your entire line here seems like a massive strawman.
Don’t think I’ve ever categorized myself as a “leftist libertarian” but you’ve never seemed constrained by such things.
I don’t know, this all started when I said that “I don’t want to get rid of police and policing” when JT asked me what I specifically disagreed with.
But should police be armed is a different question from should police always be armed. If police have access to deadly arms under certain circumstances I wouldn’t necessarily consider them unarmed – the UK cops aren’t unarmed imo even though they don’t walk around carrying guns all the time. According to various television shows, they have access to arms when they need them.