Policing is a Dirty Job, But Nobody's Gotta Do It: 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World

[mystery-ak]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/policing-is-a-dirty-job-but-nobodys-gotta-do-it-6-ideas-for-a-cop-free-world-20141216#ixzz3NbNe9UXm


Policing is a Dirty Job, But Nobody's Gotta Do It: 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World
It's time to start imagining a society that isn't dominated by police

By José Martín | December 16, 2014

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:


    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. There are also feminist models that specifically organize patrols of local women, who reduce everything from cat-calling and partner violence to gang murders in places like Brooklyn. While police forces have benefited from military-grade weapons and equipment, some of the most violent neighborhoods have found success through peace rather than war.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/policing-is-a-dirty-job-but-nobodys-gotta-do-it-6-ideas-for-a-cop-free-world-20141216#ixzz3NgzWzBjO

[truth_seeker]

I want to hear about the successful, civilian neighborhood "peace keeping" efforts which have prevented blacks from killing blacks, at staggering rates.

The modern, trained and qualified law enforcement officer risks his life, going into the worst hellhole neighborhoods, to literally save lives.

OTOH the untrained civilians of the neighborhoods are for the most part sound but no fury. They let the drugs and prostitution and violence go on without risking their lives to stop it.

[jmyrlefuller]

I had to laugh:

The decriminalization of almost every crime


That's right folks, the way we get rid of police is to make everything legal!

[olde north church]

I want to hear about the successful, civilian neighborhood "peace keeping" efforts which have prevented blacks from killing blacks, at staggering rates.

The modern, trained and qualified law enforcement officer risks his life, going into the worst hellhole neighborhoods, to literally save lives.

OTOH the untrained civilians of the neighborhoods are for the most part sound but no fury. They let the drugs and prostitution and violence go on without risking their lives to stop it.

The modern, trained, etc., etc., is well paid and compensated for a profession that HE/SHE chose.  There aren't roving gangs pressing unwilling lugs into a situation. 
Don't get me bleep started on this shit.  I'm still waiting for the police to get back to me after 14 bleep years I had to call them after my house got robbed.
Everybody wants to get home at the end of their shift.  Cops, astronauts, pump jockeys.  Sure wish I heard one, just one say "I upheld the Constitution today."

--- CONT'D

There are also the "untrained civilians" who are prevented from instituting changes that would delay access to areas where drugs or prostitution are known to occur.  There are also enough stories of homeowners going to prison for protecting their families or property.
Can the LEO union boss talking points.

[Oceander]

Isn't this, essentially, the logical end result of what many hardcore gun-rights/concealed carry advocates argue for?  Self-defense, writ large.