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
view the rest of the comments
Thanks.
Next question: The Home Secretary's duties include overseeing all law enforcement in England — is that correct?
If so, this is particularly heinous. She's tweeting support for a cop charged with murder, peeing in the pool of public opinion.
Yep. That is correct, the Home Secretary is in charge of Police. This specific one we have now is a particular control freak. She was forced to resign from the same position in the last government for sending official documents from her personal Gmail.
For more on her racist, right-wing views, her current solution to immigrants making their way to the UK on small boats is to... ship them off to Rwanda. Since she's not allowed to do that, Plan B keeping them on a huge barge, which is costing the tax on payer more than the hotels they were housed in before.
She's big on culture war stuff ('Police should be spending less time dancing with trans people at carnivals and more time fighting crime', that sort of stuff). She's seen as being the strongest contender for being a 'Right' leader of the party (as opposed to a centre)
Anyway, yes, this is the woman who is now in charge of this situation...
Wikipedia says "member of the Conservative Party," so I suspected as much.
Thanks for the explanations.
If you're feeling chatty sometime, I'd be curious to know your perspective on The Met's 'ordinary' cops — the ones who patrol without guns. Maybe being gunless makes it at least hypothetically possible that they're not all bastards?
I know I'm wild late to the party, but I'm interested in this topic too. I have siblings in the UK and their experiences with law enforcement have been pretty minimal/less aggressive compared to mine. Any chance of starting a Matrix chat or something for this ~~instance~~ community?
I've never used matrix but sure!
If you want to make a Matrix, by golly make a Matrix and make it marvelous. I won't be involved but I'll root for you. :)
Me, I'm an old fart and a Luddite, on the internet only because I saw the usefulness of it. Haven't seen usefulness in anything since, though — no smart phone, no smart watch, no smart house, no Roomba™, and I still read books on paper. No Matrix for me, thanks.
"Expecting a couple lawsuits" sounds awful, man. None of my business, won't even ask, probably don't want to know — just hoping you have a fine lawyer.
Let us know how that one goes - good luck!
Oh, that sounds excellent, long as you have the time and money. Someone get this man a cape and tights.