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this post was submitted on 18 Jun 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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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
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MODERATORS
I scoff every time a cop on a TV show is like "I joined the force to save lives and make a difference" because it's painfully obvious that this is pretty much never the case in reality.
They joined the force because it has the best job security next to CEOs in the US.
I feel like CEOs are more like football coaches in terms of job security. As long as they keep winning, just about no form of misconduct can dislodge them. Stop winning though, and the hot seat can become very uncomfortable.
But they make so much money and get huge golden parachutes so they have more money than they would need for the rest of their lives, and yet they still are able to get other CEO jobs. It's a little club and once you're in, you're in.
Well they negotiate for those golden parachutes in their contracts precisely because of the hot seat effect.
And because they weren’t too smart, as per the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
They didn't specify "which lives" or "what differences". We can make some guesses, but I don't think we'd like their answers.
Yeah but it doesn't sound as good like, "I joined the force to get away with beating my wife after pissing my Punisher logo boxers at work."