zlacker

Or we could abolish the police and create a new public safety department without the structural racism and ingrained power-hungry culture.

>>miniki+(OP)
I don't understand why you are being downvoted.

The point of abolishing police isn't so that nobody shows up when you call 911. It's so that the right person for the right situation shows up when you call 911.

Given the current state of American policing, there is only one situation where I would call the police, and expect the right person to show up.

That situation is an active shooter. For nearly everything else, I don't need an armed-to-the-teeth, compliance-at-gunpoint, qualified-immunity-protected man with a gun to show up. He is not the right person for 99% of the work the police currently engage in.

>>miniki+(OP)
What would such a new public safety department be and how would it differ from police? What would such a department do differently in the circumstance of failure to follow lawful orders and how would it have no systemic racism?

>>austin+G7
Having a peace officer department that is not given guns, or a mandate to apply violence first, and ask questions later, would be a substantial improvement for doing 95-99% of the work police currently do.

It might still be systemically racist, but at least the consequences thereof will be lower.

We've already tried reforming departments. It doesn't work. The entire management structure of your neighbourhood police department resists reform. The line officers resist reform. The police chief resists reform. No amount of winger-wagging at them will result in reform. No amount of sensitivity training or unconscious bias training, or body cams have managed to reign them in.

Wiping the slate clean, and starting over might.

>>vkou+B7
Yep exactly. In America we used to have SWAT teams who would fulfill this latter role, for situations when violence of action was urgently needed. The first letter in the acronym stands for "special." These days it's not abnormal for regular beat cops to acquire surplus military equipment and roll up to a petty dispute in an MRAP.

I think taking away officer's weapons will drastically change who they decide to engage and how they do so.

>>vkou+c8
> It might still be systemically racist, but at least the consequences thereof will be lower.

If that’s the final output I suspect most people will want to retain the status quo because the primary problem is ignored at great expense.

>>austin+2j
1. Mitigating harm is not ignoring the problem.

2. Reforms don't work. The SPD has been under federal sanction, and has been the target of numerous reform plans for the past two decades. Nothing sticks. The department is institutionally incapable of reform or accountability.

3. Given #2, it is currently being ignored at great expense. Police are the highest-paid public servants. Police departments consume the overwhelming majority of municipal tax revenue.

Why would you hire a cop for a six figure salary, to have them spend most of their time deal with social worker problems, when social workers are already capable of doing that job, for a third the pay? Why do you have that same cop cruise around, issuing parking tickets, when you could have a bylaw officer do the same thing, for a third the pay?