In a staggering report last month, the Department of Justice documented pervasive abuse, illegal use of force, racial bias and systemic dysfunction in the Minneapolis Police Department. City police officers engaged in brutality or made racist comments, even as a department investigator rode along in...
I can see how that would work in some places, but where I live, the opposite would happen. There actually is crime for them to police. Hell, with organized crime going up after California turned certain types of stealing from a Felony to a misdemeanor, theft and smash and grabs have skyrocketed in some places.
Plus, in the rural areas, Cartels are moving in and setting up illegal weed farms and such and threatening the local government and communities.
I'm not saying that the police aren't a bunch of racist, sexist, militant fascists: they are. But if we could reform the police, they have a use protecting people from actual crime. The one benefit of having actual crime to police is that over the years, I've noticed much fewer cops harassing or ticketing normal people for stuff like minor traffic violations or "just because". Probably because they actually (for once) have better things to do.
Weed's legal in CA (don't get me wrong, it should absolutely be legal federally. I actually fully expect Biden to campaign on it).
Any time there's a highly regulated market, there's going to be a black market. The best way to get rid of that is try to decrease the financial overhead said regulations create over time, lowering the incentive for people to buy off the black market. Obviously that's not something that's feasible to do overnight though.
Hell, with organized crime going up after California turned certain types of stealing from a Felony to a misdemeanor, theft and smash and grabs have skyrocketed in some places.
Question: why are people stealing? Isn't it because they need money, because they are poor? Maybe the solution is to make people less poor, rather than to have a bunch more "racist, sexist, militant fascists" patrolling the streets.
Cartels are moving in and setting up illegal weed farms
Again, the obvious solution to this problem does not involve police.
Where I live, we didn't lower criminal penalties for anything like that, smash and grab crimes are also up, and cops still don't do anything about them. They also have stopped doing any traffic enforcement, and have basically been quiet quitting since there was unrest about how they shouldn't commit extrajudicial violence.
The one thing they do still do, is hassle black men about weed, despite that actually being decriminalized in the city. Since they can still cite people under state law, they can ruin your whole day or weekend over a roach if they feel like it. Unsurprisingly, the statistics are literally 10 to 1 black to white people being cited for pot.
This is one of those instances where it seems that cops are contributing to crime in an area where the ambient crime doesn't cover it up as a rounding error. In that case they do more harm than good. That same ambient increase in high crime areas gets overcome by police force. The ideal state is that police don't contribute to crime at all. Like the artical states, public trust in police is the only way that's possible (the cause and effect go both ways here). That and actually, across the board, effective police work. They are paid the same as or more than engineers. We should expect the same or higher competency for on the job skill set. Otherwise, turn them loose like any respectable company would in the same situation.
No, but maybe we need to rethink policing. Sure, nothing is perfect but we can get better if we took the time to get it right. It's probably not that hard if we can admit we all kinda want the same things.
That's not a conclusion supported by the facts here. What is supported by the facts is destroying the conventional wisdom that more cops means less crime.