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F is for Fascism (Ferguson MO)

[h=1]The false fantasy of funding the police[/h] OPINION: Responding to the defund the police movement by pouring more taxpayer dollars into policing is absolutely not the answer.



https://thegrio.com/2022/03/15/the-false-fantasy-of-funding-the-police/

How policing works—or that it works at all—is one of the most fantastic but persistent pieces of American fiction. This false notion is so commonly accepted that the premise is rarely contested. According to the tightly spun historical yarn, police protect people from danger, solve crimes and prevent chaos. According to this longstanding legend, they selflessly walk the thin blue line, risking their lives for you and me. Sure, they sometimes kill people. But, without these brave guardians of safety and pursuers of justice, there’d be anarchy. As the saying goes: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs—mostly the brown ones.”
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In some cases, the presence of police merely displaces crime, pushing it to places where the cops aren’t patrolling. In other cases, the so-called “crimes” that are being prevented are traffic violations and victimless crimes. And while a recent paper found that one additional police officer in a city would prevent between 0.06 and 0.1 homicides, the authors also found that the rise in law enforcement personnel results in more low-level arrests that disproportionately affect Black citizens, including disorderly conduct, drug possession and loitering.
Even when laws are broken, officers usually don’t catch the culprits. Most criminal acts are not reported and almost always remain unsolved. In fact, only 2 percent of serious crimes ever result in a conviction. In the last quarter-century, there’s only been one year when police solved 50 percent of violent crimes—in 1999, the first year of one of the most wonderful administrations in history—when Cash Money took over for the nine-nine and two thousand.
It’s why researchers note that “literature has not generally supported an association between levels of police presence and crime rates, calling it, “one of the best-kept secrets in modern life.”
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Although violent crimes increased by 3 percent in 2020 (the last year for which we have statistics), the violent crime rate is half as high as 30 years ago. Yet, according to Gallup pollsters, most people believe that crime is rising in their neighborhood. While many attribute the recent rise in homicide rates during the pandemic to “defund the police rhetoric,” sociologists, criminologists, and yes, even the police understand that crime is a socioeconomic phenomenon. Instead of murderers checking cable news and Google Trends, perhaps the unprecedented spike in crime rates has something to do with one of the most significant unemployment spikes in history.
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[h=4]5. We have been funding the police this whole time.[/h] According to the Council on Criminal Justice, per capita police spending nearly doubled over the last four decades. In 1982, state and local police expenditures averaged nearly $5,000. We’re now averaging over $10,000 per citizen. We are already giving the police more money.
Yet, with all this money, body armor, cameras and posturing, why haven’t police stopped shooting Black people in the face? Why haven’t police complaints dropped dramatically? Has there been an increase in crimes being solved? Have traffic accidents gone down? Has the perception of safety gone up?
No, it hasn’t. Because the world is not made of myths or fictional counternarratives. The problem with policing is real. Police brutality is real. The only fake thing in this entire equation is a desire to shut down progress and criminal justice reform. Or maybe, the people who constructed this copaganda counternarrative want us to die. Perhaps, more dead Black bodies are the only way they can live happily ever after…
With liberty and justice for all.
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PhDeac said:
[h=1]The false fantasy of funding the police[/h] OPINION:
https://thegrio.com/2022/03/15/the-false-fantasy-of-funding-the-police/

…The authors also found that the rise in law enforcement personnel results in more low level arrests that…
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I’m confident that the majority of American voters prefer *more* arrests, and trust that those arrested are deserving of it, no matter their race or socio-economic status. That’s the authoritarian culture we have in America. If a rule or law exists, then people believe that law should be followed, even if enforcing that law does greater harm to the community than the law was intended to prevent.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
I’m confident that the majority of American voters prefer *more* arrests, and trust that those arrested are deserving of it, no matter their race or socio-economic status. That’s the authoritarian culture we have in America. If a rule or law exists, then people believe that law should be followed, even if enforcing that law does greater harm to the community than the law was intended to prevent.
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LOL. That's naive at best unless you're being sarcastic. The laws people want enforced are the ones that hurt Black and Hispanic people the most. The law is a way to harm people. It's more about punishing people than respect for the rule of law. There's no public outcry to jail more shitty white guys for DUI hit and runs or financial crimes or whatever. But there is public outcry to jail more people for existing in the US without having the right paperwork.
 
PhDeac said:
LOL. That's naive at best unless you're being sarcastic. The laws people want enforced are the ones that hurt Black and Hispanic people the most. The law is a way to harm people. It's more about punishing people than respect for the rule of law. There's no public outcry to jail more shitty white guys for DUI hit and runs or financial crimes or whatever. But there is public outcry to jail more people for existing in the US without having the right paperwork.
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I disagree with you here. The ways the laws are enforced is racist, and the justice system itself is racist on multiple levels, but that’s a different topic than measuring people’s authoritarianism in a vacuum. It’s absolutely true that racial minorities are policed more harshly and unjustly than whites, but I believe if you were to poll voters they would vote for all people to be policed equally, they would just knowingly choose systems and rules that would disproportionately police minorities and poors
 
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I don’t see the disagreement.
 
ConnorEl said:
NC shields info on officers who kill or injure on the job, despite calls for transparency
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This is why we cannot trust state-local government to police itself. When a plane crashes, the NTSB investigates. There needs to be an NTSB style federal investigation when the police cause a fatality (infringement of civil rights). When the police are found liable, there should be federal charges and lawsuits. The payments for these should come from police budgets and retirement accounts. When they start feeling the financial pinch for their actions, things will really change. Whistleblowers would become welcome. Bad cops, now a financial liability (even to the police union), are rooted out. Training actually changes from fear based to safety based.
 
Meanwhile, GOP requires teachers to post a year's worth of lesson plans including all supplemental materials online in advance, live video feeds of classrooms, and teachers can be sued for making someone feel "uncomfortable."
 
I can't imagine preparing a year's worth of lesson plans. I hardly even know what I'm teaching next week
 
awaken said:
An arbiter selected and paid for by the city and police union. This police policing themselves has to stop. "We've looked into this and decided we did nothing wrong."
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whowatchesthewatchmen.jpg or alternately quiscustodietipsoscustodes.jpg
 
police not policing themselves, a tale as old as time. Cops as likely to hold themselves to account as toddlers are to put themselves to bed - it’s a ridiculous expectation yet humans haven’t figured out an alternative in thousands of years.
 
 
I don't know if this goes in this thread or the gun violence thread, so I'll post it in both....but

Again a Michigan police officer, on a routine traffic stop, chases another UNARMED black man (a Congolese refugee) who gets in a fight, or tussle, and has him on the ground, not sure if the guy had a taser or what, but the cop shoots him in the back of the head, execution style.


WARNING: THIS VIDEO SHOWS A MAN GETTING SHOT IN THE HEAD...I am not embedding the tweet for that reason. IF you want to see the incident, here is a video.

https://twitter.com/AttorneyCrump/status/1514354299656192010?s=20&t=-CC-gCWsa8TIJq2nxdDJYg


Even if this man HAD a taser, and was fighting with the cop, in NO WAY does that warrant a bullet to the back of the head. A taser should not make an officer "fear for his life". This is disgusting. AGAIN!!!
 
OblongPickle said:
I don't know if this goes in this thread or the gun violence thread, so I'll post it in both....but

Again a Michigan police officer, on a routine traffic stop, chases another UNARMED black man (a Congolese refugee) who gets in a fight, or tussle, and has him on the ground, not sure if the guy had a taser or what, but the cop shoots him in the back of the head, execution style.


WARNING: THIS VIDEO SHOWS A MAN GETTING SHOT IN THE HEAD...I am not embedding the tweet for that reason. IF you want to see the incident, here is a video.

https://twitter.com/AttorneyCrump/status/1514354299656192010?s=20&t=-CC-gCWsa8TIJq2nxdDJYg


Even if this man HAD a taser, and was fighting with the cop, in NO WAY does that warrant a bullet to the back of the head. A taser should not make an officer "fear for his life". This is disgusting. AGAIN!!!
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Fucking repulsive.
 
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