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Policing is a Dirty Job, But Nobody's Gotta Do It: 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World
rollingstone ^ | Dec. 16, 2014 | José Martín

Posted on 01/02/2015 9:22:14 AM PST by PROCON

It's time to start imagining a society that isn't dominated by police

After months of escalating protests and grassroots organizing in response to the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, police reformers have issued many demands. The moderates in this debate typically qualify their rhetoric with "We all know we need police, but..." It's a familiar refrain to those of us who've spent years in the streets and the barrios organizing around police violence, only to be confronted by officers who snarl, "But who'll help you if you get robbed?" We can put a man on the moon, but we're still lacking creativity down here on Earth.

But police are not a permanent fixture in society. While law enforcers have existed in one form or another for centuries, the modern police have their roots in the relatively recent rise of modern property relations 200 years ago, and the "disorderly conduct" of the urban poor. Like every structure we've known all our lives, it seems that the policing paradigm is inescapable and everlasting, and the only thing keeping us from the precipice of a dystopic Wild West scenario. It's not. Rather than be scared of our impending Road Warrior future, check out just a few of the practicable, real-world alternatives to the modern system known as policing:

1. Unarmed mediation and intervention teams

Unarmed but trained people, often formerly violent offenders themselves, patrolling their neighborhoods to curb violence right where it starts. This is real and it exists in cities from Detroit to Los Angeles. Stop believing that police are heroes because they are the only ones willing to get in the way of knives or guns – so are the members of groups like Cure Violence, who were the subject of the 2012 documentary The Interrupters.

(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: billcosby; detroit; jackie; josemartin; police; rainbowsandunicorns; rape; raperape; rollingstone; sabrinarubinerdely; uofvirginia; uva; virginia; whoopigoldberg
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To: PROCON

I’d like to see this idiot figure out how you handle restorative justice with Muslims who think they have the right to cut your head off, or telling a rape victim she has to go through restorative justice with her rapist.


61 posted on 01/02/2015 11:15:07 AM PST by tbw2
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To: PROCON
The first sentence completely invalidates the article. This is not a police-dominated society. If you are living within the law, then you won't have any problems with or be "dominated" by the police. The people that are constantly under surveillance are the ones causing the problems. Yes, there is a certain, small percentage of cops that go rogue, but saying that this type of cop dominates society is a ridiculous overstatement by the author (no surprise, though, it is RS after all).
62 posted on 01/02/2015 11:30:48 AM PST by Major Matt Mason ("Journalism is dead. All news is suspect." - Noamie)
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To: PROCON

I’ve never read anything that out of touch with reality...


63 posted on 01/02/2015 11:31:11 AM PST by GOPJ (White people in black neighborhoods should expect to be the victims of black crime.- Flaherty)
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To: PROCON
...along with the so-called perpetrator and the victim of a given offense, try to restore and even transform everyone in the process...

That excerpt should tell you everything you need to know about the author's slant on this topic. A "so-called perpetrator" ... sigh. Guess where his/her sympathies lie?

You can almost smell the unicorns and pixie-dust as you read the drivel.

64 posted on 01/02/2015 11:49:18 AM PST by ThunderSleeps (Stop obarma now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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To: MeshugeMikey

Alternate caption: Jihad we much!


65 posted on 01/02/2015 12:09:58 PM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: chesley
...the problem with the vigilantes was that they were often just a lynch mob with no concern about whether the crime had actually been committed, or if it had, if the accused was the one committing it.

A perfect description of the KKK.

66 posted on 01/02/2015 12:11:33 PM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: kidd

Rolling Stoned has NO credibility outside of modern music. Which is 90% crap anyway.


67 posted on 01/02/2015 12:15:35 PM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: PROCON
Utopia. Wouldn't it be nice? And impossible. It would never work exempt in the heads of the fuzzy-headed, rose-colored glasses folks. That is until they got mugged, robbed, raped, burglarized, assaulted or murdered (oops--I guess they wouldn't need a cop then, would they?).

I used to play golf in Arizona with a bunch of guys who would bemoan the drunk-driving roadblocks on holidays and gripe about Sheriff Joe's Tent City. I asked then why. Because they drank and drove and didn't think it was fair if they got caught breaking the law and chancing injuring or killing someone because of their stupid choices. And they didn't like the sheriff because he threw law-breakers in jail. Well, duh!

Live without the police? Who wants that, the liberals, anarchists and my stupid golf buddies? Figures.

68 posted on 01/02/2015 12:23:56 PM PST by HotHunt
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To: PROCON

69 posted on 01/02/2015 12:24:24 PM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: PROCON

The alternative to policing is vigilantism. Both have upsides..l. and downsides.


70 posted on 01/02/2015 12:24:37 PM PST by Pearls Before Swine
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To: JimRed
ahahahah

here we go!




71 posted on 01/02/2015 12:25:53 PM PST by MeshugeMikey ("Never, Never, Never, Give Up," Winston Churchill ><>)
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To: MeshugeMikey

Good job!


72 posted on 01/02/2015 12:37:17 PM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: PROCON

I think an experiment is in order here to test out these wonderful ideas before releasing them onto the rest of the world. I propose that for one year starting today, that NO police activity at all take place at, in or on any property or vehicle utilized, rented, and/or owned by Rolling Stone magazine and all of their employees and stringers, and that Rolling Stone Magazine write an article about how wonderful that worked out for everyone in the experiment.


73 posted on 01/02/2015 12:39:03 PM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: PROCON

So, pretty much since this country was founded, crime began. Prior to that, all was bliss. Now I really feel guilty.


74 posted on 01/02/2015 12:44:53 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: PROCON

Indeed, there are too many laws. I propose we START to implement the proposed plan by eliminating all traffic laws, all local city, town and county ordinances, all laws pertaining to the EPA and the environment, all labor laws, all securities laws, all zoning laws, all banking laws, all taxation laws, all building code laws, all food and medicine purity laws, all laws regulating business behavior and practice, and all laws regulating all professionals, including doctors and engineers. If this goes well, then there are a myriad of additional similar laws that can be eliminated next. I’m pretty sure that these are the kinds of non-violent crime laws the author had in mind for elimination.


75 posted on 01/02/2015 12:49:19 PM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: PROCON
1.) Unarmed mediation and intervention teams

2.) The decriminalization of almost every crime

3.) Restorative Justice

4.) Direct democracy at the community level

5.) Community patrols

6.) Here's a crazy one: mental health care

7.) The Batman
76 posted on 01/02/2015 12:51:42 PM PST by tanknetter
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To: PROCON

Fence off the area. Toss meat over the fence and let them handle their own justice any way they want.


77 posted on 01/02/2015 12:54:06 PM PST by Vinnie
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To: JimRed

thank you.

also.... not to be missed:

http://i.imgur.com/by7FZ6D.jpg


78 posted on 01/02/2015 12:54:37 PM PST by MeshugeMikey ("Never, Never, Never, Give Up," Winston Churchill ><>)
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To: Mears

“What has this person been smoking?”

Marijuana.


79 posted on 01/02/2015 2:22:33 PM PST by ifinnegan
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To: kidd

“Rolling Stoned has NO credibility outside of modern music”

They have no credibility there either.


80 posted on 01/02/2015 2:36:54 PM PST by ifinnegan
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