New answers tagged police
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TLDR: The problem is unfortunately not only caused by racism in the police. Operating only under that assumption is unlikely to lead to good results. There are actually several main actors in this problem.
larger civil society
The US seems pretty unique amongst democracies in how retribution-focussed its penal system is. There's a strong element of get-...
answered 14 hours ago
Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
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You cite as an example the 2015 protests in the city of Baltimore. After these protests (and arguably as a result of them), the city of Baltimore and the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD) requested that the Department of Justice start an investigation into the BPD.
The findings of this investigation are publicly available and were released in mid-2016 [...
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Frame challenge: they don't have anything to explain, because that's not what systemic racism is.
There's an implicit premise in the question that progressives think that white police officers have ill intentions towards African Americans or other minorities, and of course those minorities wouldn't be prejudiced against their own kind. But...
Systemic racism ...
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systemic racism is a problem wider than any city or department and not the result of personal prejudice or "bad apples". It's far beyond the scope of an answer to explain or debate the applicability and utility of the theory, but there are some familiar touchstones that explain parts contributing to racial inequity via policing in minority-majority ...
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Let's start with the understanding that in the USA — at least for the moment — political power is distributed, not centralized. This is a feature of our system of governance, not a bug. The Founders wanted political power distributed over many people, on many different levels, in many different forms, so that it would be difficult for any tyrant to amass ...
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Based on what I've heard in the news, this seems to be the argument. Note that I disagree wholeheartedly with this argument and I don't believe I could actually find credible sources to back up the argument, so I won't be providing any, so take that for what you will; the question is asking "How do prominent progressive political thinkers <...> ...
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This is a good time to reiterate the point that a society is based on institutions not laws. When we state an idea like (pardon the Christian sentiments) "Thou shalt not kill" or "Thou shalt not steal" we are stating institutional principles: the general, socially derived and communally held principles that killing and stealing are ...
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Maybe
Left-libertarian or right-libertarian?
First, we have to decide on what we mean by "libertarianism". While in the USA, the word has a connotation of laissez-faire capitalism (perhaps mostly due to the Libertarian Party), in Europe it mostly associated with anti-authoritarian socialism.
From the Wikipedia article on libertarianism:
...
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In theory, you would support the movement, but in this situation no. When it comes to politics you have to look at the big picture and not focus only on the individual entities.
This movement isn't a push in the direction for a libertarian world. This is a push for anarchy (which is not libertarian) and then an opportunity for it to become a totalitarian ...
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The right position from the libertarian point of view is to privatize the police. Companies should be sanctioned by the state to maintain public order (by applying violence if necessary).
Companies that are proven to be racially biased would have their contracts annulled. The cheapest way to ensure social justice is to free the market.
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As other answers are pointing out: Libertarianism is not a monolithic ideology. Being libertarian doesn't mean that you have to be in favor of reducing the size of government in every single aspect wherever possible, which would be more likely to be called anarchism.
A common term amongst small-government oriented rightwingers is "limited government&...
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The core ideal of Marxist philosophy is the same as that of Libertarian thought: guaranteeing the liberty of individuals. In fact, I often find it useful to talk about Right-Libertarians and Left-Libertarians, where the latter groups incorporates significant portions of Marxism into their ideology to create something similar to modern progressivism. The main ...
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Sure. The law would be enforced by private corporate entities instead.
There's a long tradition of anti-police sentiment in libertarian thought, which is epitomized by the anarcho-capitalist ideal where there is no government at all, and all interactions are between private individuals moderated by the Non-Aggression Principle. No police, just private ...
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A critical distinction must be made for a modern libertarian in the US (I'm assuming this is US as that's where the "Defund the police" movement is currently prevalent). Others have covered the general libertarian ideologies, and this isn't intended to disagree with those assessments, in fact a key point is borrowed below. However, in general, ...
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To summarize the Defund the police position, it starts with observing that the (US) police is designed and trained to employ violence, and that a majority of situations where currently the police become active do not actually call for violence. It is then suggested to only use the police for the situations where the threat of violence is warranted (e.g., to ...
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Police and Marxism
The idea of Marxism is is not inherently anti-Police. In fact it is hard to fathom how a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" could be successful in the long-term without some form of police force to suppress counter-revolutionaries, prevent people from monopolizing means of production and ensure that resources are distributed ...
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According to one academic source:
The Supreme Court, however, has yet to review the constitutionality of curfews. They declined in 1976 to hear a case about juvenile curfews.
And in somewhat more detail, regarding lower courts' decisions:
Litigants challenging juvenile curfew laws generally have not argued that youth is a “suspect classification” like ...
answered Sep 16 at 10:24
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Carabinieri in Italy are a military police force, but they are basically indistinguishable from the police (they have essentially the same tasks). I would bet that many Italians don't even know that they are technically a part of the army.
A recent poll (January 2020) measured 'trust' in various Italian police forces.
Polizia di Stato (civil police): 69% (-...
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New Zealand
Background: Police in New Zealand do not typically carry firearms on their person, despite a longstanding stated desire from the police association to do so. Since 2012 pistols and semi-automatic rifles are stored in lock boxes in patrol cars, which may be accessed at the officer's discretion, but they must advise their command if they are going ...
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Unclear
This question should be answered by citing international studies on public trust in police institutions with a focus on militarization. Alas, a cursory search did not reveal any such studies.
I have found, however, some information that may hint at an answer.
Police militarization
The study OP linked in their question defines police militarization as ...
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There is a lot of confusion regarding the French Gendarmerie, fueled by descriptions like “military police” or “military force with law enforcement duty” which are technically correct but do not fully reflect the nature and tactics of the force. Its members are indeed military officers, which has some legal consequences (trade unions are strictly forbidden, ...
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A (currently WIP) study entitled Militarization and Perceptions of Law Enforcement in the Developing World: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment in Mexico by Flores-Macías, G., & Zarkin, J. looks at this factor in Mexico.
This study uses data from an image-based conjoint experiment in a nationally representative survey, in which respondents were presented ...
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End Qualified Immunity
Qualified Immunity is a Federal policy created by the Supreme Court that gives police some shielding against lawsuits stemming from their actions. The problem is courts tend to rule it applies where no police or municipality has been warned before, even if it should be obvious their actions are not legal
Qualified immunity has led to ...
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I found one 2018 study finding that policemen who were former military veterans had fired their weapons more often than non-veteran policemen. The study does have a somewhat narrow geographical scope...
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/10/15/police-with-military-experience-more-likely-to-shoot
Researchers at the University of Texas School of Public ...
answered Aug 31 at 3:25
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2
The police forces of the United States comprise a hodgepodge of agencies under various authorities. Aside from the federal agencies (e.g. the FBI) and the various state police forces, there are police forces associated with towns, counties, cities, and other areas. The standards of training, professionalism, and policy vary widely across those diverse ...
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Some answers here suggest that the federal government could influence the behavior of individual police officers indirectly by pulling the purse strings of the police officers’ employers. Perhaps so, but a more direct approach has worked to right other wrongs.
There are many federal laws that seek to directly influence the behavior and practices of local ...
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Consent Decrees
When a PD is alleged to have violated a citizen's civil rights, the federal government may intervene via the DoJ Civil Rights Division. If the DoJ finds the PD in violation, it may sue the PD. Instead of litigating a costly court battle and possibly losing the confidence of their city, many PDs enter into a consent decree to avoid admitting ...
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The federal government could end the practice of -- or put conditions on -- selling surplus military equipment to local police agencies: The Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO) or LESO Program... allows transfer of excess Department of Defense property (equipment) that might otherwise be destroyed to law enforcement agencies across the United States and ...
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How much influence can the federal executive and legislature have on the way in which local policing is done in the USA?
The federal government can influence state and local police agencies in the same way that the federal government influences state and local governments in other regards: Threaten to stop supplying the monies the federal government ...
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It seems like most of the recent articles I can find about the case are editorials against the AG, so I'm relying on statements and court filings from earlier in the year. This site claims the California Police Chief's Association released a statement from the Attorney General, but I can't find it on the CPCA website (if someone finds a primary link feel ...
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In the U.S. what's initially referred to as a riot can be:
Actual: the actions of an unruly and violent or panicked crowd, gang, or mob --
a kind of disorganized petty crime, with a scalable participation-based
emergent property of more serious unplanned mischief and regrettable
mishaps. Such riots are relatively rare in the US.
Slanderous: practically ...
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I'm late to the party here but I just learned that a state law effective since June 30 of this year specifies that police in Oregon must officially declare a riot in order to legally deploy tear gas. So while the accepted answer is a good one, this law in particular probably helps to explain why there seemed to have been so much media coverage of formal riot ...
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