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THE POLICE PROBLEM
The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
Did you see the Portland journalist who applied for ICE??
Spoiler: There was no screening. And the background check was falsified.
I really dislike that story and the traction it has gained because she did pretty much no follow through. ICE is able to get away with a paper-thin layer of doubt by saying "well she wasn't actually hired" because she wasn't. Why did she not at least show up for orientation? Why didn't she use the opportunity to make a report on the training ICE receives? Why did the whole thing end after she was extended an offer?
I am 100% not defending ICE, you'd have to be a real piece of shit to think any of what they're doing is acceptable. But... This is really not an uncommon tactic for HR at large orgs with tons of candidates for unskilled positions. Background checks take time, they cost money, they will often extend offers to nearly everyone and only bother checking once the person has shown up, because it's a waste of resources to do it for everyone. Do you know how many stories there are of people getting hired on at big companies only to be let go a few days after starting when their background check starts popping up red flags? And yes, ICE should not be run that way. But that's not the point, the point is this is a story put out by a journalist calling out a very common practice and people getting outraged because they don't realize it's a really common practice.
It just feels... I don't know what the word is. Not fake. Not a distraction exactly. But... Like planned opposition? Like a story that's technically true enough that it pisses off the left, but filled with enough inaccuracies and hyperbole that the right can easily handwave the criticism away and use it as evidence that leftwing media is overreacting. Basically, intentionally focusing on the wrong story rather than the actual issue. A good example is the types of warrants being used by ICE. That seems to be a big focus of stories and the left latches on to them going "omg, they are arresting people and breaking down doors with the wrong type of warrant which makes it illegal!" Meanwhile the right goes "so what? It's still a warrant. Complaining about the wrong type just seems like a desperate attempt to claim a technicality." And all the while, the conversation about what ICE is actually, physically doing to people and the harm they cause gets lost in the noise. So both sides get evidence that they're correct.
This is a government job, one where they give a gun to someone.
Falsifying a background check for a job where you give someone a gun is horrifying, and whoever falsified that document should face criminal charges.