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
Canadian police are no different. Living under a dangerous illusion.

>>glitch+6f
I'd like to know why you think so. In my experience, at least in Vancouver, police tend to use violence and force as absolutely the last resort, and generally play a lot more of "social worker" type of role, especially when it comes to handling issues associated with drug addiction in the downtown east side.

But I could be very wrong so I'm interested in hearing other viewpoints. Or maybe you're thinking of different organizations that I'm less familiar with (perhaps the RCMP?)

>>jbay80+yg
There’s no contradiction between abusing you wrote and police being violence workers. Police cannot do their jobs without resort to the threat of violence and occasionally actual violence. The degree of restraint varies wildly between different forces but that does not. When traffic wardens, paramedics, social workers or firefighters need someone to do legal violence they don’t do it themselves, they call the police. They are one of the forces the state has delegated its monopoly on the legitimate use of force to, along with the military. They are not primarily in the business of violence, like the military, but they can’t do their jobs without the capacity to be violent either.