THE POLICE PROBLEM
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
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
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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
view the rest of the comments
Pretty long article, talks about the problem at length. Worth a read.
Some points:
Atlanta Public Schools police department as an example where student arrests were high until 2018, when they course corrected: "They trained their SROs to focus on helping students to reach graduation, rather than making arrests." Mentions elsewhere in article: "Ron Applin, chief of police for Atlanta Public Schools, says they've never arrested an elementary school child in his six years running the department."
Virginia as having a statewide problem where their elementary student arrest rate is absurdly high (sad lol???) : "Virginia has taken a different approach. Schools there arrested kids in elementary schools at five times the rate for the U.S. overall during the 2017-2018 school year, according to CBS News' analysis of Education Department data."
Points out that low-income students, students of color, and students with disability are the most at risk for being arrested.
Points out the perspective of SROs (school resource officers) have toward their students is dependent on their economic status:
Provides an example of the response from the federal government: "The U.S. Department of Education issued new guidance on school discipline in July, requiring school officials to evaluate a student with disabilities before disciplining them."
Provides an example of the response from a local government: "On Thursday, Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, from Houston, introduced a resolution to encourage local and state governments to prohibit the physical restraining of elementary school-age children."
Article questions whether SROs even make schools safer: "There is some disagreement [among experts]," Kupchik said. "There have been some studies showing that police officers in schools can prevent some crime and misbehavior, but there are far greater numbers of studies finding the opposite, that they either have no impact or in some cases can increase crime. What they do all show consistently is that while we're not sure about any benefits, there are clear and consistent problems with putting police in schools."
Article closes out by talking about not only the negative impact of police actions themselves and the trauma it inflicts in the moment, but the potential future effects of said trauma: "The father of one child told CBS News Colorado his child, who was arrested at age 5 and had documented disabilities, "regressed significantly" after the incident and even had to move to a residential treatment facility to receive more intensive care."
I'm honestly kind of confused. Elementary school arrests are very high, but in my mind I just assumed they were zero... Why wouldn't they be zero?! These are little children. I'm honestly curious what extreme circumstances could lead to needing to arrest a child?
I'm Canadian, and I remember fights in elementary, and even some combative kids fighting teachers or the principle trying to break them up. I don't recall a single police officer ever being called.
Maybe I'm just naive, but I'm legitimately baffled by this.