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I for one am glad we here have the police forces and am honestly terrified by the comments in this thread here. I mean, okay, maybe in your country or local sphere you have more corrupt police forces than, say, over here in the middle of Europe, but I dread the day police would be on strike or get understaffed even more.
Society even here has gotten so violent and just morally and ethically bad in the last years I perceive the police forces as one of the few stabilizing instances left. Social engagement nowadays only gets you into trouble and I have been mugged more than once in the last years, whereas this never has been occurred before that. On the streets you can see gang-like groups of "young males" roaming the streets, littering everywhere, making especially the women feel unsafe and bad. Society has got a punch and it has become more difficult to strike up a conversation or feel safe or just well when in public. Police? Hell yeah. We definitely need more. And better judges which don't let illdoers back on the streets. Society is no battlefield. There are rules to obey for the better of everyone.
I don't know in what country you live. I live in The Netherlands, one of the richest countries, with police which is very mild compared to other countries. They are 'trained' to de-escalate, to use the least amount of violence, to try to talk first. A force they 'try' to be inclusive, with a reasonably high percentage of women and different ethnicities, promoting to be open to LGBTQ+.
I can tell you with certainty, they are biased and racist as fuck, corrupt, abusive, above the law.
I assume you view the world through (male) white glasses from a rich country within the EU? The cops are there to protect your rich white privilege, you don't have a clue what it is like for poor people and people of color. Police is not what it is supposed to be in an ideal world. They should be abiding the law, enforcing the law, protect ALL citizens, be unbiased, treat everyone the same whether they are rich, poor, whatever their religion or ethnicity, whatever gender, political view, etc. They fail on all these points. Even in progressive countries like The Netherlands or Germany.
Next to that, the far right is on the rise. They love to enable and use the police to enforce their will.
Look at all the protests. The protests by the left are struck down with brute force and loads of arrests. Protests of the right are mostly left alone, with maybe one or two arrests if any. Here in the Netherlands farmers were left alone to lock down the entire infrastructure of the country, for many days, with loads of destruction (including driving a tractor into a municipality building) with barely any arrests or consequences. The cop who opened fire on a tractor which drove at him fast and refused to stop got into trouble, not the guy driving the tractor.
A hand full of climate activists blocking a single road were beaten and arrested with brute force, after which they got hefty fines.
So fuck the police.
I was at a peaceful rally a week ago, police showed up and acted as intimidating as possible. We stood around and listened to some very powerful speeches from Palestinians, the police left momentarily so that they could come and assualt the crowd from the side.
They pepper sprayed children. Fuck every cop who ever did their job.
People and parents bringing their children to such a kind of demonstration are willingly endangering them. Why do they bring their kids? It is irresponsible and in bad faith. Maybe because they know they can later pull the "oh noes, they hurt my poor child" card.
It's irresponsible for the police to abuse their power and use pepper spray on children at a peaceful protest.
Going outside has a risk of getting hit by a car. So now it's irresponsible to take your kids outside? It's not normal to get hit by a car, but it's also not normal for police to use violence on non-violent protes.... Oh wait, yes that indeed IS normal now, depending on the religion, ethnicity, political statement of the protesters.
Imo it's irresponsible to have kids in the first place by the way, it's not irresponsible though to bring your kids to a peaceful protest as no one expect police to pepper spray your kids without cause. Or at least, that is how it should be. When you claim it's irresponsible to bring your kids because you can expect police to use violence without cause, to abuse their power even though you are there because of your constitutional right, you acknowledge the police violence without condemning it.
You are victim blaming.
What's the age limit when a child is allowed to learn from an adult's example about peaceful activism
"peaceful activism" which needed police intervention? Tell me.
Police violence is something different then peaceful protesting. It turns into non-peaceful as soon as the police starts to use force without a proper cause. It's called "abuse of power". Cops love to get violent, especially when the protesters do not (so they won't hit back).
There are plenty, too many, cases where police have "intervened" wrongfully
"If it was peaceful, why did the police show up?"
"If you were innocent, then why were you arrested?"
Bad arguments are bad.
Yes, it was completely peaceful as it has been for the past 30 something weeks that these rallies have been held.
If you've ever been to a demonstration you'd understand that all the police do is show up and cause violence. No one needed protecting from us, we walked down a goddamn street. Last time I checked that wasn't exactly a violent act. But people sure needed protecting from the police...
It was a peaceful protest. The only danger was from the -checks notes- boys in blue sworn to protect them? That CANT be right.
Children came to support a peaceful rally, they weren't in danger until the police showed up.
There are many young people who care about things and want to help, many are refugees themselves and have just as much of a right to be there as anyone else. People are there to share stories, raise money for relief funds and to show our goddamn solidarity for people being murdered in their homes.
These rallies have been running for months now and no one at them has caused any issues, but the cops sure fucking have.
I was at a peaceful rally a week ago...
People and parents bringing their children to such a kind of demonstration are willingly endangering them.
Idiot or troll? You be the judge.
Sounds to me like the "powerful speeches" contained something which is forbidden in your country, forcing the police to act. Maybe Hamas propaganda? Israel should be removed from the map?
You have no idea and are choosing to assume the protesters did something bad. It's also possible (and likely) that the cops just abused their power and attempted to break up the protest illegally since they do stuff like that all the time.
Personally I think it is much more likely the potesters did something wrong and/or illegal (like demanding another Intifada, which so called pro Palestine demonstrations often do). Police force would probably prefer a day off or doing something less dangerous than intervening.
Demanding an intifada is neither wrong nor illegal (at least not in the US). Palestinians have the right to resist their oppressors.
You think, so it must be. Who cares about facts and statistics. You know best, oh very wise one. By the way, what makes you come to this conclusion? Do you go to protests a lot, are you with the police, do you read a lot on Facebook on shady right wing pages, did Qanon tell you this,... I'd love to hear your support to your claim.
By the way, intervening a peaceful protest which includes children has a very very low probability of risk for police. They would think twice when the protesters are violent, but when they are peaceful they won't hit back that hard so it's rather safe to escalate. The cops in the task forces for breaking up protests are generally people who love to fight, filled with adrenaline and testosterone. Cops who are less eager to fight usually have desk jobs or are regular street officers.
I don't know in what country you live, but in countries with freedom of speech you're free to demand whatever you like, as long as you do not turn violent (except when you're police of course).
Please stop spreading unsupported bullshit arguments based on "I think" and "looks like" when you clearly have zero knowledge of how police operate (which I do) and clearly have no clue about this protest (as you make very wrong assumptions)
yeah, thoughts & prayers to the cops for turning another peaceful protest violent.
maybe approach the subject again once you're done slobbering on pig pp.
Wow, what an awful thing to assume. No, we listened to people talk about losing their families and the villages they grew up in.
No one was violent, no one called for violence and there was nothing for the police to stop. We walked through a street and then stood still peacefully.
Many European countries have better police, but the systemic critiques still hold. You just have functioning systems to mitigate their worst behavior. The us has something called qualified immunity, which effectively makes them immune from civil penalties.
To explain why many Americans don't like cops, here's some fun stories from the last few years:
Misissippi police buried 215 people in an unmarked mass grave, at least some of which were killed by cops. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/families-in-disbelief-after-hundreds-of-bodies-found-buried-behind-mississippi-jail
Crime dropped when the NYPD went on strike https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/opinion/half-the-police-force-quit-crime-dropped.html
Multiple studies have found police have a domestic violence rate significantly higher than average averagehttps://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/
The Los Angeles sheriff's department is run by violent gangs. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/06/the-la-county-sheriffs-deputy-gang-crisis
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-policing-minneapolis/
This is a really good and even-handed breakdown of what happened in Minneapolis after the George Floyd killing. Leftists can be as high minded as they like on the internet but when the police officers cut back on their patrols/traffic stops the overall reaction from the high crime communities that no longer had a strong police presence was not very positive. I think it is naive to think that you can gut police forces and crime won't go up.
To be clear I am all for police REFORM and increased accountability but I don't think less police is inherently better.
Society has objectively gotten less violent. Morality and ethics are subjective, so I'm not going to touch on those. Every violent crime metric is, year over year, decreasing, and it's not because of the boot on our collective necks.
We'd all be better off without armed thugs whose only job is to protect the property of the ruling class. State-sanctioned violence just waiting to be dispensed by the waiting batons of the blue mafia.
That is the only bullet point I really agree with, to be honest. Perhaps because I'm not American.
Society has objectively gotten less violent. Morality and ethics are subjective, so I’m not going to touch on those. Every violent crime metric is, year over year, decreasing, and it’s not because of the boot on our collective necks.
I don't know where you get your violence crime metric from but it differs from my sources, which all over the board indicate an increase of crime in the last 5 years: https://www.numbeo.com/crime/country_result.jsp?country=France
This looks like survey results? Lines like "Worries being mugged or robbed" indicate to me these data points are for what people FEEL, not what actually exists. If I'm mistaken my bad.
If not - frankly I don't care what people FEEL. I care about actual incidents of violent crime occurring. Not gonna lie, it's 3am, I've got a stomach bug, and I work in 3 hours - I'm not gonna find you a source, but if you find another one showing a marked uptick in ACTUAL INCIDENTS OF VIOLENT CRIME, please feel free to share.
https://www.numbeo.com/crime/country_result.jsp?country=France
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I was referring to the line "Crime increasing in the past 5 years" which reads to me not being felt. I don't know if you just overlooked it.
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Even if it's only FELT, a society living in constant terror is functional and desirable because... why?
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How would you restore faith to a shaken society full of fears ("high fears" in above sources) of becoming a victim of crime?
Below the results, on the page:
These data are based on perceptions of visitors of this website in the past 5 years.
If the value is 0, it means it is perceived as very low, and if the value is 100, it means it is perceived as very high.
Our data for each country are based on all entries from all cities in that country.
I do not see anything indicating that those are only for the *safety" category - it seems like " safety" is intended as an aggregate of the above opinions.
Either way, without any information on how these numbers are collected and how exactly the bars are to be interpreted, I HAVE to assume it's a collection of opinions.
Edit: assumptions cleared up. Clicking the information button on the page confirms it's a survey result, and not based on reported incidents.
Thanks for digging, so it's probably objectively skewed but subjectively correct.
No problem on the digging.
Define what exactly you mean.
Are you saying that it's subjectively correct in that it's reporting a subjective belief, and thus tautologically correct? Or are you saying that if people feel crime must be higher, crime must be higher? One of these I'm okay with, the other not hah.
Hm, it also depends on the need to fill out a survey. Usually, I assume, if everything is alright, people would be less inclined to fill out a survey than when they feel the impulse to vocalize their needs. So when things do not run well, I assume one would get more negative reviews. This also skews statistics...
Nevertheless it seems to me people feel less safe and thus are inclined to voice this, which results in a more negative outcome. So, yes, I assume things feel worse, backed by the survey results and the need to attend a survey at all.
If the feeling is detached from the objective statistics is a more difficult question because also how crime statistics are created. For example the situation of no justicial force at all, therefore no one there to handle crime situations and reports, therefore officially no crime, because none can be and none have been measured.
And like I said in another post, if society feels unsafe this is probably equally bad or even worse than the actual crime levels. A terrified society with no actual crimes is more disfunctional than a society which is wholesome and happy but everyday some people get robbed or stabbed. In the latter case society still "works" and is functional, in the former everything gets "tainted" with serious effects on mental health, expenses and productivity, alongside with social interactions and the overall feeling of cohesion.
The simplest explanation for society feeling more unsafe despite objectively being safer now than any other time period is information. Throughout humanitys development, we basically only knew of the bad things that happened in our little slices of the world. Our village, maybe a community in a city, maybe your nation going to war.
You don't see all the other daily violence. Three villages over? Murder. The other way? Rape. But to you, they don't exist, and so you don't feel more unsafe.
Compare to today. We know exactly how many people are victimized daily. We are all of the wars, all of the killings. Of COURSE the world feels more dangerous now than it ever has. This is why we HAVE statistics. Feelings aren't a good metric for reality. We don't need more policing because we feel less safe. We need to critically examine why we actually feel unsafe.
Feeling unsafe is definitely not worse than being unsafe. I'm not going to go down that route, it's frankly asinine. I would, every time, take a situation where I feel unsafe but am, in fact, perfectly okay, compared to living in some kind of blissful ignorance with a gun to my head.
https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/ocindex-2023/
This study from 2023 states:
Global context As already outlined, one of the main findings of the Index is that levels of criminality are increasing worldwide, while resilience measures are falling short of meeting the threat. That critical gap, between growing levels of global criminality and the sustainable policy and civil society measures needed to address it, is widening. This deficit can be better understood when analyzed against the backdrop of a more fragmented and unstable global order."
They also offer a 246 page PDF detailing their findings.
More on the issuer on Wikipedia.
https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/ocindex-2023/
This study from 2023 states:
Global context As already outlined, one of the main findings of the Index is that levels of criminality are increasing worldwide, while resilience measures are falling short of meeting the threat. That critical gap, between growing levels of global criminality and the sustainable policy and civil society measures needed to address it, is widening. This deficit can be better understood when analyzed against the backdrop of a more fragmented and unstable global order."
They also offer a 246 page PDF detailing their findings.
More on the issuer on Wikipedia.
So, I don't want to be accused of moving goal posts. That's not my intention here in the slightest.
This article and organization specifically look at organized crime - things like terrorist cells, cartels, mafia, etc. - no doubt a big concern, but also not the bulk of the crime that happens. That number going up isn't a good thing, but it's also entirely possible for that number to be going up for one reason, while the general crime levels are going down, faster, for other reasons.
Looking at this article (first thing I found searching 'violent crimes trend over years') we can see a much different picture thatln we'd expect looking just at organized crime. The trend is MARKEDLY down from 1990 to today. The only period there even shows an increase, really, was during that little global pandemic we had.
THIS is the number that matters when someone says that the world is objectively safer today than it was in any other period of history. That, per 100k people, the number of them having violent things done to them is going down, steadily, and regularly.
TFW you don't vet your sources before claiming they support your point.
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Look at crime over the last 30 years.
Be grateful there is no downvote button because I would use it to hell on you. The reality is that outside of a few countries cops aren't really as bad as tankies etc paint them. Australia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and more have very few policing issues.
I got a down vote button. I'm not sure why I'd be afraid to have it used on me though? Oh no, someone online thinks I'm WRONG?
Anyway, enjoy the downvote. Or don't I guess.
Have fun whinging about ACAB and then going to the police supported community event lmao.
Mate the community events I frequent tend to run contrary to the police. ACAB, and I will continue to have fun.
Mate what the fuck are you talking about? Cops only shut down parties. They never support them unless its a white robe party.
Finn here. this is & always has been straight up misinformation. all cops are, in fact, bastards, so our cops too are committing heinous acts, albeit on a smaller scale than in the US. the system isn't magically not rotten elsewhere.
also, lol.
I don't think you can have an institution whose purpose is violently policing your peers, either directly or implicitly, without attracting the least desirable of your population. Hell, describing them like that, they really do sound more like a gang.
we literally had a high-ranking cop running a criminal empire on the side.