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You do know it's not police who make these laws, right? It's the politicians that get elected by the people who create these laws.
Police unions and private prison system lobbyists have entered the chat
They chose to make their career of enthusiastically enforcing these laws with extreme violence. They chose this. Fuck the police.
I mean, its a good start, but it really should be coming from governmental policy.
Its tragic that the government of the UK is so ass-backwards that the enforcement jackboot of the government is the thing going "hey, wait, this feels wrong".
I feel like this attitude and generalized hatred towards every person working as police will make it worse because no one will want to do that job anymore. It has already happend in the USA. This activism against police in general swaps to other countries via internet culture and European countries as well struggle to get anyone work as police. This will make it necessary to lower standards and additionally, more police will be on edge since there aren't enough people.
no one will want to do that job anymore
Good.
I've never seen a crime deterred or solved by the cops. You know what prevents crime? Improved standards of living. Secure housing. Gainful employment. Future prospects.
There will always be inequalities, there will always be unhappiness/unrest, there will always be crime to some degree, and thus there will always be the need of some responsibility to deal with it. The important thing is that this group is selected and actively monitored according to strict requirements. The current situation is bad, especially in the US, something needs to change. But saying we don't need cops is just as stupid as the right-winger's "I don't dial 911 🔫🔫" door sign...
Not everything is about absolutes, everything has nuance, and to say what you've just said is to miss the wood for the trees.
You believe that there would be no crime if just everybody had a home and a job? Are you for real?
Crimes of poverty, deprivation, desperation? Significantly less than currently.
But yes, there would still be plenty of white collar crime that we don't currently tackle either, and in some cases encourage by policy.
If heavy handed policing worked, it would have worked by now.
I'd go farther: home and job are optional, there would barely be any crime if just everybody had future prospects they were worried of losing for not following the law.
You live in a very different world than I do, apparently. What about domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment, infringement on personality rights, etc.?
How much of that is the police stopping? By the time you see it in the news, it's already happened, committed mostly by people who thought they had nothing to lose, and a few mentally ill.
Domestic violence in particular, is much easier to solve when people can just get up and leave, instead of being tied down by a lack of an alternative.
Police actually intervene a lot, all the time, day and night. Not even a fraction of this ends up in the news. People seek help from police all the time as well: car crashes, fires, protecting paramedics, protecting protestors from counter-demonstrators, protecting mosques and churches, protecting asylum housing, etc. etc. etc.
It seems like you have no idea what police is actually doing and think because you don't see it it's not happening. But a lot of completely normal people, with jobs and housing and everything, get in trouble for various reasons and it happens all the time. Just for Berlin for example (that's 4.7 Million people), you have about 4000 emergency calls a day. Only for the calls that go directly to the police, not even reroutes. And that's not counting all the regular stuff going on like observations, protection programs, people who come directly to the station, patrols, ....
It's irrational to believe all this will suddenly evaporates just by giving people alternatives. That's not how people work.
It seems like you have no idea what police is actually doing
You'd be surprised, I actually briefly considered joining some 20-odd years ago, got as far as reading the training materials (then decided there was no chance in hell I'd pass the physical).
What you describe, are one part "first responder" jobs, and another part tasks that wouldn't be there if people had something better to do. I'm not saying the "first responder" tasks would be gone, or even the religious or political conflicts. I'm saying that actual crime would be a fraction of what it is now, if all people had some guaranteed future prospects. Not jobs, not housing, just the knowledge that as long as they don't get violent, they'll have a way to pursue whatever life they want.
People work like pressure cookers; the more pressure you put them under, the more violently they'll explode when they get past their limit. Some will hit the purge valve and get drunk, beat their family to a pulp, or maybe just verbally abuse them every day (guess how I know that). Some just get piss drunk and do all kinds of drugs on weekends to "relieve the stress"... stress they wouldn't have in the first place if they had alternatives in their daily life.
Even in Europe, we have an anxiolytic and antidepressant epidemic. That should make us realize where the problems are coming from.
I guess than this is just a matter of different worldviews. I believe without someone enforcing laws "stronger" people will simply abuse and take from "weaker" people. Even when they do not need it, simply because they can.
I feel like this attitude and generalized hatred towards every person working as police will make it worse because no one will want to do that job anymore.
thatsthepoint.jpg
How can you possibly rationalize that less people working as and apply to be police will somehow make the situation better? The opposite is true.
Less authoritarian pigs, more support workers.
Less shot dogs, more rehabilitation centers.
Less ex-military APCs, more rehab beds.
Sure, but the world is too grey to always follow laws exactly as written. If someone is sitting on a beach smoking some weed, they are not going to damage society or others by doing so. Arresting them for drugs that only harm themselves, costs society money for the arrest and provide no benefit to anyone.
Unless our laws are perfect (likely impossible) there will always need to be some leeway for interpretation of the spirit of the law. Cops should not blindly follow laws but understand their intent to prevent harm towards others.
Also, laws are slow to change and don't often stay up to date with societal changes.
So what you are advocating for is police making their own decisions on a whim, instead of following the rules. I actually thought that behaviour was the problem.
Not on a whim, based on training on the law and its intent. Not that they get that training like that in the USA, AFAIK.
Police should also be accountable to laws and weigh that responsibility against each situation.
Police should also be accountable to laws and weigh that responsibility against each situation
How is that supposed to be possible?
Which part? Understanding how they should follow the law in the real world and the responsibility that brings? They could be wrong or right in any situation (they aren't lawyers and the world doesn't conform to laws) and they should be aware of that.
By weighing the law against each situation, what do you mean in practice?
If the law says by possessing marijuana you are a dealer, but a cop finds someone with a small amount, it's likely for recreation and their possession brings no harm to society or others (what the law wants to prevent). Arresting them may be following the letter of the law, but not the intent (to stop distribution).
Another invented situation: cop pulls over someone driving erratically and too fast, then the driver is a woman who escaped being raped by her date. She was driving erratically because she was emotionally and physically distraught. Is giving her a ticket helping anyone? The cop could say "okay, take it easy and slow while I follow you to make sure you're out of danger and feel safe getting home".
Sorry I can't be more specific, I haven't gotten years of training on such situations.
In both cases, depending on the laws in your country, you can later object the ticket or the arrest. In an ideal world both cases wouldn't be a negative, but an inconvenience at most or even helpful contact with the law and police.
Demanding cops to make decisions on the spot is a situation you want to have less of. The more wiggle room police officers have in regards of construing the law, the more you have a mixture of forces that should be as independent from each other as possible. Otherwise you loose the power to challenge these decisions!
A police officer can have an opinion on laws, but they should never act on these opinions. This is necessary to protect themselves and all other people as well. You demand them to be some kind of superhero, but these are just regular people. They have opinions and good and bad days and sympathies, etc. You can't demand them to just turn that all off and be some kind of super-human moral apparatus. You can and should demand of them to follow the law, though.
The actual difficult question shouldn't be: "How can I do something that's technically against the law but I think it's okay without the police bothering me?", but: "How can police be constructed in a way that it can still protect the people even when the laws start to actually suck?"
In my opinion that is human rights. Police in every country should have to protect human rights first and the laws of the local government second. Even that's hard to implement since obviously police officers are also simply a product of their society like everybody else. But at least you have a small fail safe where an officer has a way to not act on a law if this particular officer sees their acting on the law as a human rights violation. There are ways to implement this in training and bureaucracy. Obviously not an easy task. :-) But probably the only one.
But arresting and then having it cleared costs time and energy but adds nothing to society.
Look, I'm not advocating that they should have more freedom. I am saying there is already freedom because the world is not as clear as the law states, so police should be properly trained to be aware of their role.
My general point I think follows from your last paragraph, their role to protect the people comes before following the letter of the law, but they should always try to uphold the intent.