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I don't think i get why people hate cops. I live in a country with a great deal of police violence that is not the united states.
We won't be better without the police, not having police won't solve our violence or our crime rate. Having better social programs, and better investment in education will.
The origin of the police in the US was a group hired in a state by the governor to return slaves to their slave owners.
Then they were contracted to protect the properties of the wealthy slave owners when there was a revolt about capturing slaves (some who were "free men"),and they put down that revolt with violence.
Since then, police have been conscripted to protect wealth from the lower class, by the wealthy. That was, and has been their main purpose in the US. It is not to protect and serve, that's just a slogan they made up out of thin air and has no legal backing or requirement.
They exist for the wealthy, to stay wealthy and protect their interests/property.
Before the police, we had US Marshals, and that worked great. But they wouldn't go after slaves for slave owners, so they invented the police.
Edit: I'll include an article that talks about some of this.
Police exist to perpetuate the power of those at the top and to repress the people. It is a lie that they exist to defend civilians. They are a means of taking power away from civilians and making us dependent on the state.
The police represent the state’s monopoly over organized violence. If you get rid of the police then what you have is called a failed state and a power vacuum. What happens then? Read about cartel-controlled areas of Mexico, warlord-controlled areas in Central African Republic, jihadist-controlled areas of Nigeria or Syria, or criminal gang-controlled areas in Haiti for examples.
Don’t get me wrong. The police in the US are quite bad. But things could be so much worse. I’m talking about guys driving around in pickup trucks with machine guns mounted on the backs, firing indiscriminately into crowds of people and homes and public places. Mass kidnappings, massacres, rape as a weapon of war. This is ugly, horrific stuff.
What happens then when something bad happens ? I mean, imagine I get stolen from, beaten, humiliated, etc. I will still need to see someone with some kind of power to do something to make myself whole and hopefully avoid it being repeated on someone else. How do we deal with that without any kind of police ?
That was community is about, people that care about you and willingly will defend you and your community with they power.
The existence of police take the power of the community and insolate you, making you feel helpless without them.
I don't live by any family, I don't want to know or talk to people in the community or help them with their problems. I like just using my tax money to pay someone else to handle that. If somebody breaks into Mr. Johnson's car to steal his change, we aren't putting a posse together to find the guy.
And if we were responsible for solving our own crimes, I am going to go from being for gun control to loving the second amendment. Nobody better steal my change, because I value my property more than I value most people. Even my Aldi cart quarters in the cup holder.
Well, police its already trigger happy.
I agree. The issue is not the fact that a police exists. The issue is that often, there's no body in charge of investigating it proper, sure you have Internal Affairs (it you don't, as here in Germany), but it can't be part of the police itself. It needs to be an autonomous body that isn't part of police itself and does nothing but investigate them.
I've heard it called a luxury issue by some. As in an issue that privileged people take up because they already have the privilege of safety and order.
I mean yeah cops disproportionately target certain groups of people. Their training sucks and has the added bonus of making them trigger happy schizos who see crime and offence where it doesn't exist. But also I think it's pretty obvious that there needs to be some sort of law enforcement/peace keeping group.
Police reform? I can get behind that. Abolishing police? Sounds kinda dumb.