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"Mom, I know your intentions are good, but aren’t the Police the protective force that maintains the status quo for the wealthy elite? Don’t you think we ought to attack the roots of social problems instead of jamming people into overcrowded prisons?”
“Look, Lisa! It’s McGriff the Crime Dog! Hello Lisa! Help me bite crime! Ruff ruff!”
The Simpsons
My ex husband called the police on me two years ago because he wanted to kick me out and move in his new concubine.
When they showed up, they told me I could either go to jail or a mental institution, that I had to leave the house I was currently paying bills on.
They have denied that they did this, and refused to provide me a police report. I had zero protections in my divorce. The fact that I was evicted from my house meant that I did not have the documentation of the physical and mental abuse that I needed for court. Not that it mattered anyway, because my ex drained my bank account a few weeks later and made it impossible to get a lawyer.
That’s a pig’s job. I’ve watched those motherfuckers forge documents. They show up, shit on people, then cover up their misconduct and idiocy.
Supporting male dominance is part of their real job.
Yeah yeah I know, ACAB and everything.
Police don’t just show up, they walk around. At least in non-police states like the US.
And wherever they walk around, crime is prevented. Because a robber isn’t going to snatch a purse when a police is looking right at them. A drug dealer isn’t going to sell drugs in front of the police station. And people drive slower and don’t go into a road rage when the police is riding close by.
So no, police does prevent crimes.
If they are only preventing opportunity, the crime will just take place at a different place or time when an officer is not present. The program’s mentioned are aimed at reducing the motive for crime, which applies at all places and times.
It creates marginalized and crime hubs too. Police chooses to be present somewhere (where there’s a perceived interest) and chooses not to somewhere else. Also crime is not viewed equally among the different spheres of society and police just creates its own type of systemic violence in relation to that.
The threat of violence from police and incarceration by police are also associated with the presence you mention. These also prevent crime from happening.
The “problem” is that it’s physically impossible to have police everywhere, all the time, for that prevention to be meaningful. It’s diminishing returns and exponential cost. So programs to prevent people from turning to crime, like jobs programs, pay so they aren’t suffering in poverty, affordable and accessible mental health and regular health care, addiction treatment, decent housing, etc. are the logical next steps.
But no. We just hire more cops, give them more guns, and the equivalent of military armored vehicles. They choose violence.
Fear of getting caught in progress or after criminal behaviour is literally THE factor for not doing crime. Everyone is capable of crime regardless of how well socialised we are. We either have no good reason to do crime, restrain our criminal “urge” or are at least unconsciously scared of getting caught. The intensity of punishment is not helping to deter crime. The chance of getting caught however is by far the largest deterrent.
It’s not about preventing crime
The rich break laws constantly, with no consequences
The police are there to make sure that those who aren’t wealthy enough to be insulated from the consequences of their actions know their place
Take it a step back…the root cause of most crime (or at least non-white-collar property crime) is social and economic inequality, which is now and has forever been driven by the wealthy ruling class.
Rich people cause all the crime.
I realise I may be pissing into the wind here, but people don’t typically stop at one crime. If you catch the person who did it, that stops them from carrying on doing crimes.
Of course, social programs also help.
I mean you can also say that that threat of jail does prevent people from committing crimes. But this seems like a pretty hyperbolic group, not really a lot of room for nuance. A lot of these ACAB people could see a cop sacrificing his life to save an orphanage full of children and still call him evil for being part of a broken system with bad people in it.
It really is. I also think a lot of the power users here just aren’t that bright, to be honest.
Is this fact or feeling?
People I know that work with criminals attest that the vast majority of crimes are opportunistic encounters by ordinary people and “career criminality” is rare.
Of course “I know people who say” isn’t much fact either but it’s more then nothing.
It’s definitely not fact. In fact, the Prison Industrial Complex causes MORE crime than doing literally nothing would, let alone actually investing in amelioration of the root causes.
This has to be the most Lemmy comment I’ve ever seen.
Agreed, it doesn’t address that putting someone in jail did or didn’t prevent them from committing more crimes. Then a study is linked that focuses almost entirely on the economic aspect of jails, again not the topic. But this crowd isn’t open to an honest convo, they’re the hyperbolic “all people in group X are Y” kind folks. Not a lot of room for nuance in these convos when they can’t even stay in topic then come at you for calling out a nothing response.
explain (you won’t)
If you don’t already understand what I’m saying, I don’t think me explaining it further will help.
(he didn’t)
High quality and accurate?
Tangentially related material to garner favor from other fake, emotionally dependent, reactionary, hyper online, social rejects.
Are these people working with repeat offenders though? Or those going through the system for the very first time?
The Mafia has entered the chat…
It seems pointless to argue this. Clearly it is true some of the time and not true others. Even some of the opportunistic petty stuff could have been prevented by timely interventions, especially social welfare programs
However There is evidence that “broken windows” policing doesn’t work, and “stop and frisk” just breeds resentment
But imagine if police had a good reputation for helping people, lived up to “protect and serve”, actually were a thin blue line keeping civilization civil, cared about preventing crime, investigating crime, seeing justice done. Imagine if they spent their time on issues that matter. Imagine if they were able to handle substance abuse and mental illness for the good of the victims, connect the desperate up with social welfare programs. Just by slogans alone we could have a much better world while preventing a huge portion of crime.
God damnit I still remember this, and I’m in my late 40’s
Scruff, McGruff, Chicago Illinois, 60652
🎵Write to me, Stick Stickly, PO box 963, New York City, New York State, 10108!🎵
I’ve been saying it for forever, happy people don’t do crime.
I call bullshit.
Are you going to speed up when you see a cop car?
No, but it doesn’t mean I’ll never speed again as soon as im out of their view. I’d say at best they delayed a crime from happening. But I get how that has its legitimate usefulness too.
I get annoyed by people who post about a problem but haven’t done anything to understand it or come up with a rational solution.
Screaming ACAB a million times may make them feel good, but it doesn’t do anything useful.
Screaming ACAB a million times may make them feel good, but it doesn’t do anything useful.
Niether did this comment.
Neither.
You’re so lucky you found a meme. Otherwise you would have had to think for yourself.
calm down, dude
Not everyone is qualified to propose good ideas, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t qualified to point out a problem. I also feel that some things are hard to avoid on certain parts of the internet. I fully back BLM, but there have been times that I just want to enjoy memes without seeing yet another BLM post. That’s not because I think its been said to death, but it gets tiring to constantly be reminded of something terrible happening in the world. Sometimes you just need a break from it. ACAB is another example of that i think many people feel. I think you’re right though that not many people have offered good solutions, but I think we are still in the phase that there are plenty of people who still fully back the terrible acts being done by American police. So for now it’s still mostly just saying ACAB.
Not everyone is qualified to propose good ideas,
Almost as if it’s incumbent on us to seek out the good ideas other people have proposed.
I get annoyed by people who post about a problem but haven’t done anything to understand it or come up with a rational solution.
If I take, for example, your phone and smash it to a million tiny pieces do you need to understand, in depth, how a phone works to the point of creating a complete and rational blueprint of a replacement before you can say “smashing someone else’s things is a dick move”?
Screaming ACAB a million times may make them feel good, but it doesn’t do anything useful.
You can’t actually deal with what I wrote, so you have to come up with some fantasy scenario.
You’re missing the point of the metaphor and isn’t saying the exact same thing over and over again what your original complaint is?
You’re not wrong that screaming isn’t going to directly repair/replace your phone, but it’s not about “feeling good” or “doing anything useful” it’s about preventing further damage.
I’m not missing the point of the metaphor; I’m saying you are using a metaphor to avoid dealing with what I wrote.
It’s funny that you’d want police to defuse a tense situation, and then say yelling is a reasonable way to stop the cops from getting angry.
What does “dealing with what I wrote” look like to you?
Abolishing the police is the solution.
Mind providing an actual plan on how to do it?
I don’t owe you shit.
You should have just kept quiet.
If you had an actual plan you’d be showing it to everyone, including me, if only to make me look silly.
Congratulations, you played yourself.
You should have just kept quiet.
Huh, you should take your advice, you’re the one playing with yourself.
I’ve definitely come around to speeding as a civil engineering problem more than anything else (partly due to Lemmy but started on that other platform).
In general people don’t take speeding seriously nor believe they will be a victim of dangerous driving. I don’t see how police enforcement does anything to change that. I’m sure it does for a few but in general, no. It even causes worse situations when you have people with their license taken away, no way to get insurance, yet have to rely on cars. Our current approach to speeding is just busy work for police and a tax on the unlucky.
Yet different road design helps people drive at a reasonable speed by default, reduced collisions, protects the more vulnerable travelers from car travelers, and gives people multiple choices to get around. Most importantly we can have more scalable choices than simply “add another lane”
Lets build infrastructure such that police are not spending so much time enforcing speed limits where we all know people will speed right up when the cop is gone
DOWN WITH STROADS!
Folks temporarily slow down until they’re gone. Which causes traffic jams and accidents.
Police somewhat deter crime, sometimes. Sometimes they prevent a crime from being worse. For example, they race to a crime in progress and try to stop it if it is still going on.
I don’t think you could have a successful society without laws, and you need someone to enforce those laws. But, the modern US police force is so far from what you’d want if you were designing things from the ground up.
They also escalate crime. By a lot.
Welfare checks. Minor incidents. Petty theft.
Suddenly it’s a dead guy.
Agreed but that does not at all relate to “they show up after the crime happens,” which is a brain-dead take.
This is saying police aren’t the answer to solving all crime and that the need for them would be greatly reduced if a society were to look after it’s people instead of leaving them to wallow in misery and strife. It’s not anti police to say that at all. Police are misused in many societies as a tool for all situations and then teach them only how to be a hammer.
Those kinds of crimes are exceedingly rare, and many (such as rampage killings) are the result of systemic issues that could be addressed in other ways (not merely just regulating firearm access).
Cops do not like confronting actual criminals - criminals are dangerous. But they love to intimidate and force total acquiescence from regular people and excuse it by saying ‘its what we have to do ‘in case’ they are a criminal’.
Once criminals figure out that cops don’t want to confront them, those criminals learn to accommodate that. So they get worse. They figure out who they can rob and intimidate with impunity - and it’s mostly the poor. But also, they can break into middle class people’s cars, porch pirate, even B&E into homes, and cops don’t want to deal with that. So many people post on reddit bc cops won’t do a thing if, for example, a disabled person has their motorized wheelchair stollen, so people try to play detective on their own. Have a stalker or an ex who has credibly threatened your life? That might only help them catch that person if you are actually murdered.
Cops deter crime in wealthy areas, but the rest of us are on our own.
Fear of being caught might deter the naive from testing if they can get away with shit, but in reality, there is essentially a truce between cops and criminals, and if you know how to be too much work and risk to bother catching, a lot of what we consider ‘criminals’ don’t have a lot to worry about.
I don’t think you could have a successful society without laws, and you need someone to enforce those laws
This is a very post Renaissance take.
Law enforcement in some form has existed far prior to the Renaissance.
Yeah sure, palace guards, militaries, mercenaries, and so on.
The “police man” is a concept from the last few hundred years.
E: don’t lemmy half asleep folks…
Is it?
i think the cover it in here but it’s been a while… Behind the police
I’m not going to listen to a podcast that just might have an explanation for what you mean on the off chance you remembered the right one.
The police are worse than useless. They exist to generate revenue for themselves, and they occasionally murder people.
I have seen the way people drive if there are no consequences for driving terribly and dangerously. I assure you it cannot be fixed with just speed/red light cameras, speed bumps, and social programs. (And honestly, cameras and especially speed bumps just make the road worse for everyone)
Every law you pass, no matter how good your intentions, is another excuse for the gangbangers in badges to come beat up on us. I’ve tried to make a million atheists in my life and have made around 0. You can build public transit. You can’t make not using it immoral. Who the fuck do you think you are? With your fucking prestigious, well- thought- out moral system? Fuck off. You guys shape the world, I’m going to throw bricks at your pigs.
They don’t care AFTER a crime has been committed either. Every time I tried to report my bike stolen (happened a lot, unfortunately) they just laughed at me for wasting their time.
The one time I needed them for an intervention they showed up very late, obviously against their will and were downright belligerent (I was the victim of a crime, they barely registered it).
ACAB, no exceptions.
A bike? I had the same reaction trying to report my car stolen. Not worth their time. They couldn’t even cross reference their own data - a couple weeks later I was ticketed for abandoning my stripped car and charged for towing and storage fees. Reporting my car stolen was just an income source to them and I had to keep paying so it wouldn’t keep adding up
The guy we work with told us that there’s a pusher living on the floor below his apartment. It’s really sad because the police do nothing about it, even though there have been so many complaints from the neighbors. Narcotics are forbidden here, except for CBD-only products.
In all fairness, this one time whilst living in London (UK) the police did recover my stolen bicycle.
Frankly I totally didn’t expect it and had only reported the theft to make sure it ended up in the theft statistics.
I’ve been commuting by bicycle on and off for over 2 decades and got maybe 5 or 6 bicycles stollen in the meanwhile and this was the only one I ever got back.
My friend had his bike stolen. He insisted on filing a police report even though the cops were clearly annoyed and straight up told him it was pointless. A couple months later he saw his bike chained up on the main street in his neighborhood. There were 2 cops out on the street so he approached them and explained the situation. One laughed at him and said, “What do you want us to do about it?” The other told him he would have to provide proof that that specific bike was his and that it wasn’t just the same brand which is basically impossible.
Then he said, “We won’t be here much longer. Just go buy some bolt cutters and steal it back.”
Fuck the cops but ngl that last bit of advice kinda slaps
deleted by creator
Thanks for sharing this experience.
People think I’m being dramatic when I say a police officer can choose to ruin your whole life, and the lives of your friends and family, just because they feel like it.
Nobody should have that kind of power.
I used to roll my eyes when Redditors posted anti-police sentiment, I thought they were just being edgy. Turn out they were right.
Glad you recognize the problem.
I was pretty “cops are kinda okay” to full blown ACAB after this story, where a my neighbor, a man in a wheelchair, was shot 9 times in the back of the head because Ryan Remington has a trigger finger.
9 times. In the back. 60 yo man in a wheelchair. And Ryan Remington is still Scott free.
