Minneapolis to Abolish the Police

[sarkwalvein]

Too bad for Sting, royalties will go down.

 

[notimp]

Too bad for Sting, royalties will go down.

Someone call P. Diddy, to pick up all the songs.

edit: Needs a video:

 

[Hanafuda]

They've already replaced the police in the Autonomous (not really) Free (not really) Zone in Seattle.

Let's see how that's going ....

Oh.

 

[Fugelmir]

#CancelSTEM
#CancelAcademia

Getting harder to support that movement.

 

[Subtle Demise]

I don't get why no one is willing to have the conversation about totally ending the drug war on a nationwide scale. The right is caught up with moralism and religion, while the left is satisfied with weed becoming a grey market product in half the states, while vilifying just about everything else. Both have drawn arbitrary lines in the sand, yet neither realize it's the biggest way for both of their ideologies about law enforcement to coexist.

Why do people get killed by police usually? Because they run or resist arrest. Why do they run or resist arrest? Usually to try to avoid a drug charge or to evade a warrant related to drug charges. The solution is so much simpler than people are making it, but one group is calling for the complete abolition of law enforcement, and the other cheers on military occupation of the United States. It's like the left and right have become totally unable to see any nuance or grey area, and that the entirety of their beliefs are indisputable fact. Statism, no matter what team you pick, is the single most dangerous religion in the world.

 

[Xzi]

Compton CA dissolved their police force in 2000. Camden NJ did the same in 2013. Both have shown far better results than decades worth of attempted reforms in Minneapolis. The reason being that the entire nationwide police union is corrupt and extremely resistant to any small change or additional oversight. That's why it's best to start fresh and circumvent the police union entirely, even if that means re-hiring the few cops with actual integrity to the new organization.

I highly suggest everyone watch Last Week Tonight's episode on policing. The long and short of it being that very little actually changed where the cops were concerned post-Jim Crow era, so systemic racism is still very much alive and kicking. Thus the sooner we tear down the current system and start building a new one from the ground up, the sooner we can rightly remove the weight of past atrocities from our shoulders.

 

[Joe88]

When getting placed on the 10th & 33rd spots of a 100 most dangerous cities in the US list is called a positive.
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/blog/top100dangerous

Granted they used to be higher up but after years and years they havn't exactly made much progress. Crime in general has been decreasing across the US https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/17/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/

 

[Darth Meteos]

I found a meme.

it's hard to be more intellectually bankrupt than this

people are protesting the current system's strong tendency to generate police who are racist tough guys with guns
they're saying the current system is irrevocably broken, and needs to be replaced
and from that you get... we hate the concept of someone that upholds the law? do you need medical attention?

 

[UltraSUPRA]

it's hard to be more intellectually bankrupt than this

people are protesting the current system's strong tendency to generate police who are racist tough guys with guns
they're saying the current system is irrevocably broken, and needs to be replaced
and from that you get... we hate the concept of someone that upholds the law? do you need medical attention?

Could somebody please pull up the statistics?

 

[notimp]

Has everyone in here an uncle thats in the force, or why has this become such a heated debate? Why are so many people into local politics all of a sudden? For maybe two weeks, that is the exact time until the outrage dies down, and everyone realizes, that it might be easier to redesign the police (in that one town), just to get non reformable parts out, while redesigning. Those officers had complaints against them stacked, even prior to the incidence. At which point you are looking at the management and checks (of checks and balances) again. And its far easier to (f.e. (dont know if this will be the case)) fire the entire force, and then make them reapply, than to change the internal culture, from an organizational level.

So many people die, because they are running from the cops, also is a fallacy. Running away from something is not a danger to the cops life. And 'use excessive force' not the signing off part of getting a new case call.

I see about ten people in here that all of a sudden have become experts in 'institutional sociology' while some of them seem to be in fear of a Mad Max scenario... Those were your first riots on TV, then?

edit: Oh, I just saw, that in my local (european) newspaper, "Trump is standing behind the police force" is todays headline. Might that be why? (Stop treating politics like a football game, or console war - its not even election season yet. (Or has it already begone..?))

(edit: For 'what are non reformable parts' in a police force, as was said above, watch the latest John Oliver video.)

 

[Lumstar]

Resisting police is natural behavior. I'd be concerned for someone who didn't care their immediate personal liberty is in jeopardy.

 

[Xzi]

When getting placed on the 10th & 33rd spots of a 100 most dangerous cities in the US list is called a positive.
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/blog/top100dangerous

Granted they used to be higher up

Which just further proves the point that a heavy police presence was making those areas more dangerous, not less so. Investing in mental healthcare and community welfare programs is infinitely more likely to make neighborhoods safer than spending that money on flamethrowers and tanks for the police is. And we still continue to invest entirely too little in those things, even in those areas where the police have been dissolved.

Defund the police in part or in whole? I say why the fuck not, America has defunded just about everything else, from education to healthcare to election security. At this point if we don't defund the police in equal measure, then they'll become the last remaining public institution with a constant presence in our lives, and a police state is inevitable, sooner rather than later. I wish I was being hyperbolic, I really do, but the numbers don't lie. In 2019 there were 1,003 unarmed people (of all races) shot and killed by police. The same year there were 517 people killed in mass shootings.

 

[FGFlann]

It wasn't a heavy police force that was the problem, it was the opposite. Their budget was stretched so thin that police presence was minimal and crime was running out of control. The effect of disbanding the police force allowed them to quadruple the effective fighting force of the old the police department when they reformed it.

 

[Xzi]

It wasn't a heavy police force that was the problem, it was the opposite. Their budget was stretched so thin that police presence was minimal and crime was running out of control. The effect of disbanding the police force allowed them to quadruple the effective fighting force of the old the police department when they reformed it.

That might've been the case in the few years leading up to their disbandment, but the 90s crime bill had police out in force in communities of color across the entire nation. The whole "tough on crime" craze was driven just as much by racism as Jim Crow laws were.

And if disbanding then re-forming the police increases their efficiency/effectiveness while still freeing up funds for other things, that's just yet another merit to the idea.

 

[FGFlann]

Absolutely. Just so we're clear, the solution is better policing, not less policing. There's too much utopian dreaming about a world without force to control crime.

 

[Xzi]

Absolutely. Just so we're clear, the solution is better policing, not less policing. There's too much utopian dreaming about a world without force to control crime.

I don't think anybody is advocating for that, it's just that "defund the police" is scary to a country that largely idolizes military and the police when taken at face value and without further explanation. The entirety of the idea doesn't fit neatly on a bumper sticker, and so unfortunately too much of our ADD-riddled nation is opposed to it instinctually.

 

[FGFlann]

I don't think anybody is advocating for that, it's just that "defund the police" is scary to a country that largely idolizes military and the police when taken at face value and without further explanation. The entirety of the idea doesn't fit neatly on a bumper sticker, and so unfortunately too much of our ADD-riddled nation is opposed to it instinctually.

There are plenty of people advocating for it. Idiots and utopian dreamers. The slimy ones tend to turn on a dime when called out for it though, since it's an inherently weak position that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

 

[lexarvn]

The article says having a medical expert rather then a cop to come in, but I dont understand the dismantle part. Why not just say reform? Like we've always done before. Reform has worked in reducing killings in urban areas, and in rural areas where no reform happend cop killings increased.

It might just be me, but when I think of reform, I think of keeping the existing police/department and updating policies/require new training, which may be difficult if the police union there pushes back. But my understanding of what they want to do is create a new smaller police department, with less responsibilities, from the ground up where the police union has little to no say in any new policies they make, and any cops that want to keep their jobs have to reapply for them at the new department. Not saying whether that is good or bad, just what I understand their plan is and so why I think they aren't calling it reform.

 

[FGFlann]

Fuck 'em. Bust those unions. They keep bad police in jobs and that is only in the union's interest.

 

[Xzi]

There are plenty of people advocating for it. Idiots and utopian dreamers. The slimy ones tend to turn on a dime when called out for it though, since it's an inherently weak position that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

I mean I suppose some hardline anarchists might be advocating for it, and you'd have some crossover there from libertarians who want to experience the wild West for themselves, but by no means do either of these groups represent the majority on either side of the political divide.