IN the rest of the Anglosphere, police are trained to calm a situation: In the US they are trained to enforce compliance.
Posted on 07/25/2016 9:11:51 AM PDT by pinochet
The Modern Police Force was established in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel, the British Home Secretary, who later became Prime Minister. The Modern Police Force was established to solve minor crimes among a highly civilized, self-governing, and self-policing people. When policing was established, police officers did not carry guns, but carried a wooden baton and a whistle. In those days, it was the civilians who had guns, because the British people lived in a libertarian society that had very few restrictions on gun ownership. Police officers in Britain are called Bobbies, in memory of Sir Robert Peel.
An ethical police force is supposed to operate according to Peelian priciples of policing by consent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles
In the 1950s, America was a highly civilized society, in that crime rates were low, even in poor neighborhoods. That was the type of society that the modern police force was designed for. Today, many low income neighborhoods have suffered civilizational collapse. Problems of civilizational collapse require missionaries and not police officers.
If time machines existed today, Liberals would send the NYPD to the Roman Empire in 410 AD, to arrest the Barbarian Chief, Alaric, and his Visigoth army, for looting ancient Rome. Liberals would regard the looting of Rome in 410 AD as a crime problem, not a civilizational problem.
We have to face the painful truth that some low income neighborhoods have become Barbarian strongholds, and the Barbarians are both American citizens and illegal immigrants. The challenge is to prevent the Barbarian culture from coming to your neighborhood.
Incorrect.
Military occupation.
What we need are peace officers, not police officers.
The former is appropriate for a free people, the latter for slaves.
You have got to be kidding me.
Someone needs to brush up on his British history.
British people lived in a libertarian society
That word does not mean what you think it does.
I wish our police officers all the best. A nephew of mine is a police officer. Policing has become the hardest job in America. A lot of people do not understand how hard it is, policing low income neighborhoods. Police often have to be involved in fistfights with experienced muggers.
When people talk about police sacrifices, they often talk of those who have lost their lives in the line of duty. But they usually do not talk of those who have been severely injured in the line of duty, who are much greater in number. Lots of police officers get beaten up in the line of duty. How come there is no movement to address anti-police brutality?
Culture problems must be dealt with by ethical politicians.
Crime problems - arresting suspects for the Court System to deal with - is the job of police.
Police are NOT babysitters, social workers or politicians. They identify people who have possibly broken the law and they bring them to the attention of a court system. That’s it. And that’s plenty. They deserve our respect and our support.
They get our support literally at gunpoint, which isn’t particularly conducive to any positive form of respect.
good point. To carry a gun pre 1914 required the purchase of a gun license, which cost 10 shilling at your local post office (per year). As the typical wage in Edwardian England was around 22 shilling a week, it was half a weeks wages for men who, after food and shelter, had very little left to spend.
I seem to recall that the cost of a pistol and the license were pretty much above the income of anyone earning less than 110 pounds per year (20 schillings /pound). That was the salary of a engineer
Essentially only the shopkeepers, professional and above men could afford to carry a gun.
The idea that the UK was libertarian is kind of comical. The society was very caste and class oriented and the upper middle class would be considered very poor by todays standards. Not a lot of social mobility, not free to anyone not considered a gentlemen. Go ahead and insult the sovereign in 1887 as a worker, not a good outcome.
What part of that system don't you respect? And how would you change it to work better?
I posit that this outcome is inevitable when the neighborhood is populated with 3rd worlders who are utterly incapable of maintaining a complicated and civilized society such as ours.
There should be special police for those folks.
The main part that I don’t respect - and which completely changes the character of the system from one working for the people to one working against us - is that police do not enforce the law when other policemen break it.
Another major issue I have is that in many places the primary function of police is revenue generation. That’s not what police are supposed to be for - they are not tax collectors.
Furthermore, there is the law, then there is a higher law called the Constitution. Police who enforce laws in defiance of the Constitution are in abdication of their lawful duty. The enforcement of forfeiture laws has gotten so extreme that more wealth was unlawfully extracted from the American people through forfeiture than by all the burglars and thieves in the nation combined.
Then there’s the body count. That body count is extreme and unprecedented in a free nation. It comes from the “comply or die” attitude which is prevalent all across the country.
Hell, I could go on a while and list a lot more issues, but this should be plenty enough to digest for now.
Today’s police forces are more of a standing army than keepers of the peace or enforcers of the law.
Interesting point of view that I had not considered.
One more, the 3%@50 safety employee retirement system is creating a gigantic debt we will never be able to fund.
Modern-day "missionaries" in these neighborhoods are representatives of the Nation of Islam or some other flavor of "Black Liberation Theology". They are actively causing the civilizational collapse.
Four things to reduce adverse incidents for increased officer and citizen safety:
1. end the war on drugs - legal recreational drugs should be available for each brain receptor system associated with addiction at market pricing + up to a 10% of income quarterly possession tax due on federal estimated tax dates + coverage pre-paid at least for six months in advance for medically related (overdose/detoxing) care
2. ticket electronically (text message, e-mail, snail mail)for speeding violations of less than 30% over the limit and for most vehicle issues
3. better training of officers
4. education of young people in school at about age 12 on how to deal with police
“—arresting suspects for the court system to deal with—”
Arresting the same suspects over and over, only to see them back on the streets and escalating to more violent crimes, then STILL getting only probation or minor sentences by lefty lib judges, is a constant source of stress for officers.
A very few cops just snap and go postal on a perp. Others figure why bother to arrest, and some even start shaking down dope dealers, taking their cash and drugs.
The dealers figure the bribes are just part of doing bidness.
There are far more apathetic, demoralized, look-the-other-way cops than killer cops.
Not condoning this, just saying it is what it is. The revolving door legal system is the problem, IMO.
IN the rest of the Anglosphere, police are trained to calm a situation: In the US they are trained to enforce compliance.
That’s the heart of the matter. The former are honorable and respectable, and the latter are tyrants who deserve contempt and derision.
Personally I find it amazing how many “conservatives” fall into line to protect cops from suffering the legal consequences of their brutality. It’s as if it completely doesn’t compute that police are just another manifestation of big government.
It’s a role-flipped, but equally obtuse mentality as the libs who want more government and then complain when that more government comes in the form of militarized police. That IS what more government is.
A person who is not inherently suspicious of government action is no conservative. Even - no, ESPECIALLY - when the government action is by means of police or military.
Military occupation.
It was a good piece, but I concur with Lazs conclusion.
And the roots of that attitudinal difference go back to Peel's original concept, cited in the article. The essential point for Peel was that this was to be a civilian force, accountable to the local community: and thus the converse of the militarised police of the European mainland, who were unequivocally a means of state control. The 'unarmed' status reflected this: the police were not part of the 'armed forces' - the soldiery - who could nonetheless always be called on for support when arms were required (rarely, as it happened).
Echoes of this concept still survive to this day, despite all the radical societal changes of the last 175 years.
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