[Simon Hunt]

Thank you for the resource. I absolutely agree with regard to the mental health scenario. But what about an imminent-violent-threat scenario? This is not an academic question. I have witnessed such and have seen police successfully handle such without violence... What about robbery, etc? I'm interested in imagining better systems than we have now.

I fear we are stretching the apples-barrels metaphor past utility, but, no, I'm not much interested in the apples/individual cops*. I have been friendly with a few over the years (at least one of whom would have agreed with you that they were all bastards...) and seen cops do work I admired. It is the system (barrel) that I think we should be focusing on. You're not even using the word "bastard" literally, so I don't think your insistence on the literal truth of your sweeping generalization is useful. But this is a vanishingly fine point...

*edited to add: I do not mean to imply that individual cops should not be held accountable for their actions. Of course they should. I only mean that focus on individual cops can distract from the systemic problem.

[Aaron Novick]

Simon, I admit that I do not yet have a good answer to that question, but that is because I am fairly new to this view. It is not a new question to police abolitionists, however, so I am looking forward to thinking about the various alternative visions they have put forward. As I read more, I may bring up some of them for discussion.

So why do I support police abolition even without having a good solution to offer for this? Because even while I grant that police sometimes prevent imminent violent threats, solve murders and rapes and robberies, and otherwise do good in particular scenarios, I think the harm they cause far outweighs the good they do. I've already linked to evidence of their rampant theft and violent brutality; I'll just add here that they also rape at staggering rates. Given this, and given that police aren't particularly efficient at preventing/solving violent crimes, the bar is pretty low for what any alternative would have to accomplish to be better than what we have now. I don't know how to meet it, but I'm quite confident it can be met.

I've said what I have to say in defense of the ACAB claim. One can agree with me or not. I'm happy to let the matter drop; I'll express myself differently from now on, not because I renounce anything I've said (I don't), but because I suppose it is counterproductive, in this particular context.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

I support prison abolition except for the most violent of crimes because there is no need to answer the question about “just letting the criminals loose in society” . They are almost all coming home eventually and community is better off if they aren’t run through the spiritual meat grinder of incarceration beforehand. Yet no prison abolitionists imagine a society without a response to real crime. Just so police abolitionist. They many other models and ideas, many of which we already practice especially with those we actually love. The studies and brainstorming visions aren’t hard to find. The is a basic death of it magination behind so much systematic rot.

[Aaron Novick]

Originally Posted by Max Goodman

In the video of the 75-year-old assaulted by Buffalo police, one officer bends to check on the injured man. A colleague pulls him away, and he allows himself to be pulled away. The rest--many!--walk past with no gesture toward offering aid.

Incredibly, and yet completely credibly, it gets worse than that.

[Aaron Novick]

More on the police's attempted murder of a harmless 75 year old man: https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...resign-support

Of particular note is the police union president's response:

"This is an example of officers doing exactly what they're supposed to," union president John Evans told the Investigative Post Friday.

Mr. Evans is, of course, entirely correct.

– – – – –

Edit: What happens to a good cop? (More detail here.)

[Jim Moonan]

x
Aaron, The ugly truth is you’re right. Mostly. You’re mostly right in your assessment. You’re mostly wrong in your conclusion. It is unimaginative. You, more than others (given your tenacity of thought), should be employing imagination when proposing solutions. The center is where we want to go to affect change. Where the center is can change through dialog and consensus.
Revolution of the kind that destroys indiscriminately is forriegn to my way of resolving things. No babies should die as you throw out the bathwater. No surgery should be performed with a hatchet. You’re smarter than that Aaron.


------

Back again to underline where I think your mistake is:

Aaron: "So many forget what they say about "a few bad apples": they spoil the barrel."

Your mistake is to think that the entire barrel should be expunged. Have you even given an iota of consideration to the fact, the truth, that there are many, many police who have been heroic, been life-changing, been good cops? And if so, how do you simply dismiss that? Your "cure", to borrow from a trendy cliche, is worse than the sickness itself.

And for the record, you're cherry-picking.
x
x

[Aaron Novick]

Jim, I will set aside the condescension that drips from every word of your post and engage you respectfully. I ask that you do the same, going forward.

I have used my imagination in proposing solutions. I have proposed eliminating the police—a heavily armed group with the largely unchecked license to use lethal force, many close ties to white supremacist groups, and, as we have seen, a tendency to riot against the American people when their authority is challenged—and replacing their important functions. I fail to see how that is unimaginative. I am quite literally imagining a society that looks radically different from the status quo. If you have an argument for why this is a bad solution, I will listen to it. But the claim that it is unimaginative is... the nicest word I can find for it is "silly".

You suggest that we seek solutions in the center. I politely ask you what those solutions might be.

One idea that some folks have been floating is can't wait for eight, a set of eight police reforms that will reduce police violence. It is the most thoughtful reformist solution I have seen. It will undoubtedly do some good, if implemented. But, in many places, many of these eight reforms have been implemented without nearly eliminating police brutality (LA, for instance). And these reforms will do nothing to solve the problem of police theft (civil asset forfeiture) or police rape, or the horrible behavior of police at these protests.

Moreover, the solution, while reformist, is not in the center. It is substantially to the left of both the Democrats and the Republicans, who have both been largely content with the status quo (when they haven't been making it worse).

So, again, I ask you: what solutions—concrete ones—lie in the center? "Dialogue and consensus" is not a solution. Frankly, I don't care much about dialogue and consensus. We didn't get the civil rights act (which was radical, and certainly not in the "center") through "dialogue", we got it through protests after the assassination of MLK. And we still—still—don't have "consensus" on it.

No, I don't care much about dialogue and consensus. I care about ending the murder and brutalization of my Black and poor brothers and sisters.

[Max Goodman]

Jim,

You make the same mistake you accuse Aaron of: hasty generalization. If the bad actions of many officers are not reason to get rid of police departments, neither are the good actions of many officers reason not to.

We should look at the organizations themselves, their functions, structures, leaderships, etc., and determine whether we're better off with or without them.

I'm so used to the police that I was initially shocked at the idea of getting rid of them, and didn't consider it a serious idea. I've grown to think it's worth examining. No one, of course, is suggesting abandoning all the functions of police departments, but seeking better ways for us to accomplish those things. Making changes around the edges hasn't worked. It's time to think outside the box.

Our police departments are not serving the public well--not all of the public. If we can't make serious reforms, we'll have to replace the institution.

(Again, I see I've crossed-posted with Aaron.)

[Mark McDonnell]

This is an interesting discussion. I can't imagine there's anyone here who isn't on the same page in wanting a world very different to the one we're seeing right now. Anger is a righteous response and can get things done, but it can also grind a discussion like this to a halt and get people at each others throats. Constantly reading 'All Cops Are Bastards', for example, just made me want to stop engaging, like I was being challenged to dare to disagree.

Anyway. The idea of, if not abolishing the police and the prison system, at least massively redistributing police funding into housing and education in the areas where crime is prevalent, seems a good one. A radical, yet completely sensible idea.

Right now though, no country on earth has no police force. For the US to be the first, or even to have a considerably scaled down version of what it has now, doesn't the heavily armed elephant in the room have to be addressed, the one I was talking about back in post 18? The fact is that the US has gun violence on a scale massively exceeding any comparable high income country and has a relationship to guns that is completely different than say, the UK or the Netherlands.

[Julie Steiner]

Aaron, I agree that the police system and the societal mindset that created it are inherently unhealthy and counterproductive.

But so does this cop.

It's important to distinguish between institutions, which are indeed sometimes incorrigible, and individuals, who are very rarely incorrigible.

I say this as someone with several incorrigibly psychopathic criminals in her family. But psychopathy is very rare. I have no doubt that there is a higher incidence of psychopathy in professions of great power than elsewhere, since psychopaths are addicted to power; but I think that even in those professions, psychopathics are in the minority. (Personality disorders that are also obsessed with power are a different story, and may also be incorrigible, but even so, I think incorrigible people are in the minority.)

I think police brutality and the attitudes that make excuses for it are not, by and large, the result of individual "bad people," but of societal pressures (often, but not always, manipulated by "bad people") that persuade "good people" into condoning, endorsing, and even participating firsthand in acts of evil. That is what motivates lynch mobs, and the bond of complicity is what keeps people from ratting each other out afterwards. The police fraternity encourages the same dynamic.

But I still think that not all people who become or remain cops are terrible people. Some of them may simply be more optimistic about the possibility of reforming the institution from the inside than you are. And, frankly, than I am.

Cops who publicly point out the flaws of the system are the people whose experience and credibility will give them the best chance either of leading dramatic reforms (which you and I agree may not be enough, unless the reforms are so transformational as to leave the institution of police nearly unrecognizable), or of leading a wholesale replacement of the police institution with something better.

It's more helpful to support such cops than to tar all cops with the same brush.

[Edited to change "bad apples" to "bad people" above. As Aaron noted above, the phrase "a few bad apples" is often used without the rest of the proverb ("spoil the bunch"), which is pretty darned important; but even when "spoil the bunch" is included, it's confusing as to whether "the bunch" refers to the institution (or "the barrel," as I think Simon put it earlier) or to other individuals in proximity. And I've just said that I think the barrel itself is conducive to spoilage. And of course all individuals are a mix of good and bad. Even the incorrigible psychopaths.]