zlacker

>>js2+(OP)
One of my current frustrations with American politics is how radical everything has become. The debate is now, either we don't have any police and defund them, or, we allow them to continue being completely unaccountable. Neither of those situations sound ideal.

It feels like Europe and other places have a much more reasonable and nuanced view. Police get funded, and well funded, but the job requirements are strict, and the emphasis is more about public good and safety. If there's a crime the police do exist and do show up but they also don't shoot people dead in their house at 3am.

>>jorblu+Ua
Yea I'm kind of besides myself about how "abolishing police" is treated as a serious proposal, when the most deaths and violence occur in profoundly vulnerable communities where disbanding police would almost certainly result in innocent people having no protection against criminals.

It's pretty clear that police unions allow for a lot of this institutional rot and inability to address abuse. I fear that the left doesn't want to recognize that unions are capable of becoming institutional agents of oppression and injustice. Yet reforming public sector unions is perhaps one of the most practical and effective steps to correcting the malfeasance of police as we know them today without fundamentally changing how they operate.

>>gnusty+oe
Most of the left leaders I follow and trust are specifically opposed to police unions due to the fact that they protect violent officers.

Let's not lump other public sector unions in with police unions; the teacher's union has nothing to do with police brutality.

>>electr+ox
I don't follow socialist stuff too much but I thought there'd be some interesting work from Jacobin to see how they perceive it. Turns out there is:

> However, in most cities and states, police unions are treated as members in good standing of local labor councils and federations. They often work closely with other municipal unions, from firefighters to teachers, to protect labor rights and municipal budgets. Given their size and power, most other city unions are wary of alienating them.

> This is an enormous political problem. If the police are to be defunded and reined in, their unions need to be split off and isolated from the rest of organized labor. If police unions are able to maintain a common front with other city unions, they will almost certainly be able to resist any meaningful efforts to restrain them.

So basically, yea other unions are complicit and unable to reign in the abuse of police unions. It's not the way I'd try to solve it but that's how Jacobin seems to be posing the issue - other unions in the locality should be reforming neighboring unions.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/06/police-labor-union-organi...