zlacker

>>js2+(OP)
I know folks don't always click through, so I'll highlight what I found most insightful:

> Part of our misunderstanding about the nature of policing is we keep imagining that we can turn police into social workers. That we can make them nice, friendly community outreach workers. But police are violence workers. That's what distinguishes them from all other government functions. ... They have the legal capacity to use violence in situations where the average citizen would be arrested.

> So when we turn a problem over to the police to manage, there will be violence, because those are ultimately the tools that they are most equipped to utilize: handcuffs, threats, guns, arrests. That's what really is at the root of policing. So if we don't want violence, we should try to figure out how to not get the police involved.

> Political protests are a threat to the order of this system. And so policing has always been the primary tool for managing those threats to the public order. Just as we understand the use of police to deal with homelessness as a political failure, every time we turn a political order problem over to the police to manage, that's also a political failure.

>>js2+G5
This framing of the police seems very strange to my Canadian sensibilities. I'm curious about whether Americans largely agree with this description.

>>jbay80+0c
As an expat Canadian living in a suburban county in the US, my personal interactions with the police here have always been cordial engagements as peacekeepers and caretakers of the community. I have called for welfare checks on neighbors, called the sheriff when I found a garage opener on the street, that kind of thing. Of course they were present in the aftermath of a case when a highschool kid entered a house and shot another highschool kid (who lived, surprisingly), a real shock in the sleepy community I live in. They asked around if anyone had video of the suspect approaching or departing the home.

But maybe that's just me, as a Canadian, with unrealistic beliefs that the police are on my side.