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 ...
It hurts my brain just trying.
Sure, this works, because we all know what a bastion of civic virtue Detroit is...
Tell me this came from Onion! This has got to be a liberal’s New Year’s joke!! Right???
No, this is mainstream liberal journalism from the Rolling Stone.
“Unarmed but trained people, often formerly violent offenders themselves, patrolling their neighborhoods to curb violence right where it starts—”
I will not read one more word,not one.
What has this person been smoking?
.
Unarmed but trained people, often formerly violent offenders themselves...
In reality, the only place you find such people is in Christian churches.
Gawd, this article has GOT to be satire.
No thanks. Things would improve if they just fired the bad cops.
Wilson wasn't a bad cop.
Figure out how to have a Union-free world, now that would be an improvement.
With just a modicum of good will and a bit'o'training at ye olde community college, Michael Brown would have made an outstanding village peace officer.
Will you not join our candle-light vigil tonight, as we sing Koom-By-Yah? ¡Sí, se puede!
I once had a liberal boss who blamed Pres. Reagan for closing the mental hospitals.
It is a crime we allow liberals to walk among us. This is some very insane stuff.
Time to bring back Vigilante Justice. There would simply be no laws other than an unwritten code and of course the Golden Rule. Vigilante Justice was born out of dissatisfaction with a corrupt Justice System. Vigilante Justice recognizes only right and wrong. There is no such thing as a grey area. One is either guilty or not. And as for punishment, if found guilty there is either banishment or hanging, and it is swift.
Actually Detroit is one of the few cities in the country getting this right. The crime rate in Detroit is way down for the second year in a row due to the fact that its an open carry/stand your ground city and the GOP appointed police chief is a pro 2nd amendment guy who encourages self defense.
It scares me when something like this comes out, because they always put out their crappy plans before they implement them.
Ma'ma we are the mediation and intervention team. If you will just give the nice teen your rings he agrees not to beat you to death, just slap you around a little.
What are you doing with that gun?
You can't shoot him!
:Stands in front of "teen":
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Lady- "Oh bother, now I have to go shoe shopping again."
He is correct and should immediately check into the nearest one.
I didn’t see anything in there about citizens bearing arms and defending themselves.
Actually, the authors don't have to imagine any such society - they can read about them in history. London, for example, before 1829, had no professional police force. It did have a sort of neighborhood watch system such as the article calls for.
And how did that work out with respect to crime? I'll leave the answer to the curious researcher, but I bet you can guess.
DING>>>>DING>>>DING
You are very observant!
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