this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
99 points (99.0% liked)

THE POLICE PROBLEM

2475 readers
208 users here now

    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.

♦ ♦ ♦

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.

♦ ♦ ♦

RULES

Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.

If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.

Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

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.

♦ ♦ ♦

ALLIES

[email protected]

[email protected]

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

♦ ♦ ♦

INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

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

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

♦ ♦ ♦

ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Original link

… “Every parent says their kid’s a good kid, but Jase was just that – a good kid that we never had a problem with,” Elyce, Jase’s mother, said. “He never seemed unhappy or upset. He just liked his life and he liked everything.”

Elyce said all of that changed on May 20 when Jase took his own life, three days after the 15-year-old was arrested for having a vape pen inside Charlestown High School.

“Jase told us he was handcuffed and shackled. I can only imagine as a kid that cared so much for others to know that – that happened to him, and people could see that,” she said.

Elyce claims she wasn’t notified about the arrest until the school’s resource officer was on the way to Clark County Juvenile Detention Center with Jase.

According to arrest records, Jase’s pen tested positive for marijuana. …

top 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Indiana is just Alabama with a few bucks.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is a town not far from my own.

What the child (and that's what someone that age is) is accused of doing was wrong, but no one should be placed under that kind of stress for a mistake of this magnitude.

What the hell is wrong with society nowadays that it's more important to "flex your muscle" than it is to teach and help people grow and learn from their mistakes?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

What the child (and that's what someone that age is) is accused of doing was wrong

Was it, though? Who exactly was he hurting other than possibly himself?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He consumed a plant from the ground. Half the fucking states in america have legalized it.

He didn’t do anything wrong. What is wrong is your state’s archaic and exploitive laws.

What is wrong is how you people treat others.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pretty sure you're preaching to the choir, this dude is simply saying the kid shouldn't be treated like a murderer just for smoking weed. Relax buddy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's worthwhile, helpful, to politely point out when someone — especially someone on our side in this conversation — uses the other side's framing (e.g., possession of pot is "wrong").

Copspeak and the police perspective so thoroughly dominate media coverage, I've sometimes slipped up myself, and always appreciate it when someone calls me on it. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I should have said "illegal". My mistake.