Should US police be abolished and replaced with systems that provide safety?

[coins4commies]

The idea is not that we should just abolish police and leave a void in the system but that we should reform police so drastically that they are no longer anything like what we previously recognized as police.  So you could call it abolition or reform but radical change is the end.

 Since the corruption of police is linked to the retributive justice system, they must both be abolished and replaced together.

The idea stems from two common grievances:

1. The goal of police should be to increase public safety

- Police have not done this, in fact, crime is high despite massive police spending and presence.  Police have turned into an organization that manufactures criminals and feed them to a justice system that manufactures criminality. Basic life activities have been criminalized for the sake of providing criminals for police to feed to the prison system.  Meanwhile, violent crimes often go unsolved.   Police do not achieve the goal they were made for.  


2. The role of police should be to serve and protect citizens

- Police do not fill this role.  Instead, police have taken a role of authority over the people.  People are expected to respect and obey police when the role was meant to be the opposite.  We have become a police state where people live under fear of constant oppression by the police.  Specifically, black, native, latinx, and LGBTQ people who are disproportionately manufactured into criminals.  

3. The role of prisons should be to reduce criminality

-If our prisons were fulfilling their role, we would have the safest society in human history because we lock up the more people than any society in human history.  We don't.  The prisons have become breeding grounds for criminality.  Innocent people go to prison and come out hardened criminals.  Prison conditions tiptoe on the edge of human rights abuses and make little effort to rehabilitate these people into productive citizens.  If prisons are doing the opposite of what they are meant to do, it seems like an easy decision to abolish them and replace them with something that can fill the role.  

Abolitionists often propose two concepts to replace our retributive justice system.  


1. Restorative justice asks these important questions when a crime has been committed

Who has been hurt & what are their needs?
Who is obligated to address these needs?
Who has a “stake” in this situation & what is the process to involve them in making things right and preventing future occurrences?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N3LihLvfa0

2. Transformative justice asks these important questions when a crime has been committed

What social circumstances promoted the harmful behavior?
What structural similarities exist between this incident and others like it?
What measures could prevent future occurrences?

Restorative justice takes place between the offender and the victim and attempts to "restore" conditions back to the way they were before the crime was committed.

Transformative justice is carried out by community leaders and the community at large and attempts to "transform" society into a society where the root causes of the crime no longer exist.  

People often wonder, "without the police, wouldn't there just be chaos?" but restorative and transformative justice strategies off a path to create a society where police are no longer needed.  

[BADecker]

We have  the Neighborhood Watch, right? Now all we need do is give them all guns, and everybody else, as well. And, we need training for them. Then we can get rid of the police altogether.

[gelinshidong]

This will happen in the next few hundred years, and now it is inseparable from the police. The United States needs the national police, and its citizens can hold guns. It won't go away. It is necessary to know that the police use their lives to protect citizens. This is a country with a gun. In essence, I think it is necessary to cancel the guns of citizens and let citizens hold guns is not a symbol of freedom or higher civilization. Only a few areas can hold guns, such as suburban farms. It is completely meaningless to take a gun in the urban area.

[coins4commies]

I used to be anti gun before gun people convinced me that mass shootings and gun violence were actually more of a mental health and emotional well-being issue.  Police create a lot of the trauma that leads to gun violence.   

[bluefirecorp_]

I used to be anti gun before gun people convinced me that mass shootings and gun violence were actually more of a mental health and emotional well-being issue.  Police create a lot of the trauma that leads to gun violence.   

Arming citizens is actually pretty important. Pretty sure that's part of Marx theology.

To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party, whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising.

[BADecker]

I used to be anti gun before gun people convinced me that mass shootings and gun violence were actually more of a mental health and emotional well-being issue.  Police create a lot of the trauma that leads to gun violence.   

Arming citizens is actually pretty important. Pretty sure that's part of Marx theology.

To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party, whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising.

Complete double-talk. Essentially, the workers ARE the militia.

[bluefirecorp_]

I didn't read your whole post because I'm being uber lazy; I was thinking about implementation of a globalized "police" force already. Replace not only police, but merge in military.


Pretty much; split the responsibilities into multiple factions "white knights" and "black knights".

Pretty much white knights are unarmed; non-lethal carrying investigative forces that serve to witness, investigate, patrol. They handle domestic disputes and work together seamlessly and effectively. These units work in grounds, and each individual wears a real-time internal-broadcasted body camera (to other white knights) that has videos released 24 hours after the fact.

I suppose because our current implementation of data privacy is ass balls, we'd hide that footage behind basic FOIA requests; in a more public-data driven world, we'll just release them via API requests (aka, sign in using your government identity, hit a specific URL, and watch it).

The other force, the "black knights" are literally the brute force; only Judges that have authorized white knight requests can absolutely be deployed. These guys are straight up acting military units. Rules of engagement apply, and their mission is assigned / approved by a judge.

Because a judge is required to sign the authorization of deployment, the video footage is only utilized in that specific case and not released to the general public except through some sort of FOIA request. This could be possibly footage of combat between a "terrorist" type faction and the state.

===

It's a bit different, but pretty much it's just unarming police, and bringing in military to do actual policing.

White knights would obviously have a slightly dangerous job; but being captured on filming killing a white knight without a mask seems like a good way to end up dead (because the black knights will capture you,  alive, but probably preferably dead just because attacking a brother). Masks easily beat cameras; but with several cameras and a few drones, incidents could be tracked fairly seamlessly.

[KingScorpio]

The idea is not that we should just abolish police and leave a void in the system but that we should reform police so drastically that they are no longer anything like what we previously recognized as police.  So you could call it abolition or reform but radical change is the end.

 Since the corruption of police is linked to the retributive justice system, they must both be abolished and replaced together.

The idea stems from two common grievances:

1. The goal of police should be to increase public safety

- Police have not done this, in fact, crime is high despite massive police spending and presence.  Police have turned into an organization that manufactures criminals and feed them to a justice system that manufactures criminality. Basic life activities have been criminalized for the sake of providing criminals for police to feed to the prison system.  Meanwhile, violent crimes often go unsolved.   Police do not achieve the goal they were made for.  


2. The role of police should be to serve and protect citizens

- Police do not fill this role.  Instead, police have taken a role of authority over the people.  People are expected to respect and obey police when the role was meant to be the opposite.  We have become a police state where people live under fear of constant oppression by the police.  Specifically, black, native, latinx, and LGBTQ people who are disproportionately manufactured into criminals.  

3. The role of prisons should be to reduce criminality

-If our prisons were fulfilling their role, we would have the safest society in human history because we lock up the more people than any society in human history.  We don't.  The prisons have become breeding grounds for criminality.  Innocent people go to prison and come out hardened criminals.  Prison conditions tiptoe on the edge of human rights abuses and make little effort to rehabilitate these people into productive citizens.  If prisons are doing the opposite of what they are meant to do, it seems like an easy decision to abolish them and replace them with something that can fill the role.  

Abolitionists often propose two concepts to replace our retributive justice system.  


1. Restorative justice asks these important questions when a crime has been committed

Who has been hurt & what are their needs?
Who is obligated to address these needs?
Who has a “stake” in this situation & what is the process to involve them in making things right and preventing future occurrences?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N3LihLvfa0

2. Transformative justice asks these important questions when a crime has been committed

What social circumstances promoted the harmful behavior?
What structural similarities exist between this incident and others like it?
What measures could prevent future occurrences?

Restorative justice takes place between the offender and the victim and attempts to "restore" conditions back to the way they were before the crime was committed.

Transformative justice is carried out by community leaders and the community at large and attempts to "transform" society into a society where the root causes of the crime no longer exist.  

People often wonder, "without the police, wouldn't there just be chaos?" but restorative and transformative justice strategies off a path to create a society where police are no longer needed.  

lol you dont know whats going to happen if they use mercenaries right?

[Eirecoin]

No I Don't think that the police should be abolished that's a huge mistake, but it surely needs some demilitarization and police agents need to take Human Rights courses and they have to be more easy with Latins and black people. The policy of "shoot first ask later" have to stop

[coins4commies]

Great example today.  There was a homeless man laying infront of 7-11 just cursing at the workers and wouldn't leave so they called the cops. 4 cops came and spent over an hour going through all of his stuff and asking him questions. I left after an hour but have no idea what happened.

4 cops at 35 an hour is 140 dollars.  That money could have been spent on 1 social worker with resources to get this man in an apartment and rehab or care for whatever issues he was dealing with.  Whatever the police did.  I'm sure that man will be back doing the same thing somewhere else tomorrow.

When police aren't shooting black people, this is how they spend most of their time unless a real bad crime like jaywalking or changing lanes without a signal pulls them away.  Its a huge waste for society to have them doing jobs they don't need or know how to do.

[roosbit]

The problem with police enforcing law and order these days is the work is not done out of their passion,  but as a means to get paid which makes this professional a lost cause.... But as far as I know some good men and women in uniform still exist which gives us hop e to keep these guys instead of abolishing the the police force.

[ATMD]

There are good people and bad people in all kinds of jobs, there is no guarantee that neighborhoods are full of good people, some people may abuse the system