Who needs cops anyway?

I had an argument about this with a friend once. I was saying if we just abolish the police, private enterprise will probably step in to fill the gap. I don't want that. I don't want amazon offering policing services (as part of Prime. vomit).

I think the police need to be split up into smaller institutions, and have a lot less murder powers.

Someone needs to address the "Someone broke into my house and stole my TV" problem, without a profit motive and with accountability.

There should be something to address "My neighbor is screaming at his wife and I think he's hitting her" that doesn't involve some low empathy assholes with guns rolling up to mock the woman.

I don't know how to fix this.

Amen. What I find fascinating and difficult to swallow is impoverished (and non) people's desire to have kids and not raise them, almost as if they are happy with their shit sandwich, and think "yeah" I'll give this to a another human. Boy o boy have I seen deplorables breed when they are in no capacity to look after themselves. It comes across to me as a type of evil. The meat grinder is made from this stupidity.

Normally theyre called gangs. The thing that made the black panthers special is that as a cause it was killed before it deteriorated. A lot of gangs form to protect from other gangs, police corruption, and general sense of community.

Usually most folks aren't willing to do things free, so it devolves as it grows. Loses the original basis for formation. It's why christians is a confusing term, you have atheists, catholics, buddhists, etc. All lumped in while all can and are christian, there is degrees of severity.

I agree with you. What would be the use of those patrols if not to police behaviour?

Maybe someone with more historical knowledge could expand on the meaning of "Black Panther style community patrols".

a) isn't "the police" just a wider definition of "a community organizing itself"

b) half the police are in the fucking klan anyway lol

Modern police forces are what we decided to do with the slave catchers and mercenaries for hire that would have started gangs if the government didn't put them to work.

As a minimum, how about frequent rotation and a sortition + selection system to staff the squads?

Imaginary example:

Two "cops" are needed for a term of 90 days (side note: in this hypothetical society, it could be that a cop is not a first responder but an investigator - first responders may be selected by proximity to the event and called up using some automated emergency messaging system). An investigator is allowed to request expert assistance from outside their department and often does.

At first, 10 candidates are sortitioned at random. Out of them, 3 refuse the job for various reasons, 7 go through instruction and pass evaluation. Out of them, 3 either step out during training or fail exams, 4 complete exams. Among them, another round of sortition occurs: 2 are selected at random, while 2 are paid compensation for study and assigned to reserve. If lottery chooses them again, they won't need to pass exams.

This might be possible to enhance with other tricks. If feedback shows that cops cannot be impartial near their home, then they don't work near their home. If however, feedback shows that they perform best near their home, then the opposite way.

The main goals this would aim to achieve:

• ensure that corruption will not start
• ensure that investigation is not biased (or that chances exist of bias being quickly exposed)
• ensure that offices cannot be given by people in power to whom they prefer
• ensure that competence is valued and unqualified bozos won't be appointed

Are you fucking comparing the goddamned KKK with the Black Panthers?

No. Abso-fucking-lutely NO! Do better.

We already have that. Cops with qualified immunity are almost definitionally an unregulated militia

You're putting the cart before the horse. It's not that the entire system needs to change for this to work, it's that this working changes the entire system. Community self-management would quickly result in the redistribution (and hopeful removal) of the inequalities, possibly with help of guillotines. The primary job of the police is to prevent this redistribution.

Historically, pretty much every "thriving local culture" is the result of a downtrodden wretched hive of scum and villainy where self-organisation was more important than police during the time of flourishing. Broadway (and NYC in general), New Orleans, Amsterdam, most Italian and German cities' high points, London, Hong Kong, Osaka, etc.. It turns out that when people don't have enough, they will work together to get enough, and the benefits of that cooperation can be felt in that town for centuries. (Which is why gentrification is profitable - rich people exploit the commons of a flourishing lower class mutual aid network which persist in the design and culture of the space even when the lower class people are gone).

That is, unless a violent organisation like the police or the CIA or a multinational corporation or an invading army forcefully breaks up that cooperation. Like happened when the US government funded drug gangs and arrested black panthers members to specifically break up black communities throughout the US. Or when the US government funded drug gangs and armed fascists to specifically break up socialist communities in central and south America. Or when the US government funded drug gang religious fanatics to break up communist communities in the middle east and South-East Asia.

holy shit my dude black panther style means irl black panthers from actual history not marvel movies ffs

Do you have evidence? A controlled study?

Also firefighters may be racist magas, but they provide a universal good with no downsides. I've never personally witnessed three firefighters gang up on a homeless person chilling on the sidewalk, for example. Very unaware of any firefighters trying to charge you a fee for not knowing your tail light was out.

OP: [proposes alternatives]

You: "So you're basically suggesting Mad Max"

Your post makes it look like a binary choice between cop-filled reality and cop-free fantasy. But there are marked differences between how many cops (many = often more stupid, untrained, poorly selected, corrupt) a society needs and what activity is expected of them.

Existing societies also demonstrate a vastly different need for imprisoning people.

Myself, I think that prisoners per capita is a better indicator than cops per capita. The latter gives weird results heavily tilted towards microstates (lead by Vatican, Pitcairn Islands and Motserrat).

• Maximum of prisoners per capita: North Korea (undisclosed but estimated), El Salvador (1600 per 100K), Cuba (794), Rwanda (637), Turkmenistan (576), United States (541).
• Minimum of prisoners per capita: go and have a look, it's interesting. The leading 5 have a trend towards microstates and very poor developing countries, but if one filters them out and chooses sizable countries with functioning economies, the first that comes across is Japan - with an incarceration rate of 33 per 100K. That's 48 times less than El Salvador and 16 times less than the United States. The first European country on the list is Finland with 52 per 100K, indicating approximately what a "western style" society can achieve. The EU average seems to be around 100 per 100K. The highest rated EU country seems to be Poland with 194 per 100K.

Notably, the first somewhat sizable European country and western-type society on both lists is Finland. It has the lowest prisoners per capita in Europe (at 52 per 100K) and the lowest cops per capita in Europe at 132 per 100K. It is not a known haven of rampant crime - it has really low crime rates too. Apparently in some conditions, you can have few cops, few prisoners and limited crime.

My guess - I could be wrong - is that the quality and coverage of social security, education and health care are what actually make the difference. Most people don't start criminal activity for fun. Contributing factors include desperate poverty, poor parenting, lacking education, mental illness and exposure to trauma, damage from disease and substance abuse, etc, etc. Lots of full prisons are probably a factor that contributes to criminality, by making a "higher education in crime" accessible to more people.