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this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM
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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
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③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
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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
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Well of course you haven't seen law enforcement being helpful, between "Police shot an armed bank robber and everyone else is unharmed" and "Police shot an unarmed teenager", what do you think will get more public attention? It's definitely not "Police helped an old woman crossed the street", nobody gives a fuck about that, I've run into both good and bad cops and even I don't care.
And it gets attention because it shouldn't happen, yet the police over there keep killing people they shouldn't.
And how does it justify saying "All cops are bastards"? What makes you think ALL cops are bad? Every single one? Or maybe there are two sides of a coin and you just straight up refuse to accept the fact that the other side exists? Tell me, if you hate cops that much, would you call them if your children get kidnap? And what would happen to society if the police or any group that enforce the law is no more?
Do good cops out the bad ones? Nope. They'll just let them do their corrupt bullshit making them complicit in the harm they do. Do we need cops? Yes. Do we need cops murdering civilians without serious consequence?
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How about you show me the number of people killed by police and the number of people helped by police in a year? Also, based on you "logic", cops aren't supposed to do anything good, they have to kill people constantly in order to be cops, if a cop doesn't do any of that, they are not a cop? And since you didn't answer my questions. Imma ask them again: "And how does it justify saying “All cops are bastards”? What makes you think ALL cops are bad? Every single one? Or maybe there are two sides of a coin and you just straight up refuse to accept the fact that the other side exists? Tell me, if you hate cops that much, would you call them if your children get kidnap? And what would happen to society if the police or any group that enforce the law is no more?" Oh and an extra one: If ALL cops are bad, every single one of them, how come there aren't riots or resistance EVERYWHERE?
That's kinda like complaining about how nobody talks about how airlines keep planes flying and landing successfully, how the media only focuses on planes crashing and accidents. "Sure, this one airline covered up poor maintenance practices leading to deaths, but what about all the passengers airlines help everyday?"
Imagine airlines get to investigate themselves instead of the FAA and how it would go over when they find they did nothing wrong every time.