We need police to a degree, it’s just since the crime waves of the late 70s into the 90s politicians used it to stoke The Fear, and it was used to make the police unaccountable, given total discretion and laws allowing them to take down any working person for one reason or another and ruin their life.
We are to trust they use the power wisely, even as cynical malicious politicians and rich people that control them seek to use that police force to further abuse people.
But because of The Fear, which is not enitrely misplaced, even if the system is the one driving the violence underlying it to a large degree, you can’t get rid of police, and you would never get the public support to do so. Even in blue districts, the more experience people have with crime the more they want the police around, people living in the hood in the cities will not support getting rid of the police anymore than folks in the country will.
But we can put controls on them, put their operations back within the boundaries of the Bill of Rights, and common sense and decency, to not write laws so broadly as to give them discretion to charge any person with serious felonies. And to not decide bail on how much money you have in the bank.
Most prosecutors run unopposed, Sheriffs too I bet. City police are unaccountable to those that appoint and oversee them for several reasons, and are often unrepresentative of their communities. They are often rw extremists in blue cities, and there is no reason for fascists coordinating with paramilitary groups in training like counter protesters targeting protests in places like portland and berkely to be running the police departments. Telling the paramilitary groups in training like the proud boys of their movements, of the protesters’ locations, etc. Or arresting the people that defend themselves from those groups but not the victims attacked without cause by those groups.
We could go on, but by electing corrupt local politicians, they can be taken down by the police if they tried to reform them. So as always, getting good leadership is where we would need to act.
We need police to a degree, it’s just since the crime waves of the late 70s into the 90s politicians used it to stoke The Fear, and it was used to make the police unaccountable, given total discretion and laws allowing them to take down any working person for one reason or another and ruin their life.
We are to trust they use the power wisely, even as cynical malicious politicians and rich people that control them seek to use that police force to further abuse people.
But because of The Fear, which is not enitrely misplaced, even if the system is the one driving the violence underlying it to a large degree, you can’t get rid of police, and you would never get the public support to do so. Even in blue districts, the more experience people have with crime the more they want the police around, people living in the hood in the cities will not support getting rid of the police anymore than folks in the country will.
But we can put controls on them, put their operations back within the boundaries of the Bill of Rights, and common sense and decency, to not write laws so broadly as to give them discretion to charge any person with serious felonies. And to not decide bail on how much money you have in the bank.
Most prosecutors run unopposed, Sheriffs too I bet. City police are unaccountable to those that appoint and oversee them for several reasons, and are often unrepresentative of their communities. They are often rw extremists in blue cities, and there is no reason for fascists coordinating with paramilitary groups in training like counter protesters targeting protests in places like portland and berkely to be running the police departments. Telling the paramilitary groups in training like the proud boys of their movements, of the protesters’ locations, etc. Or arresting the people that defend themselves from those groups but not the victims attacked without cause by those groups.
We could go on, but by electing corrupt local politicians, they can be taken down by the police if they tried to reform them. So as always, getting good leadership is where we would need to act.