this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM

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    The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.

    99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.

    When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

    When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."

    When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.

    Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

    The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.

    All this is a path to a police state.

    In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

    Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.

    That's the solution.

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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.

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RULES

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Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

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It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.

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ALLIES

[email protected]

[email protected]

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

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INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

Killings by law enforcement in Canada

Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom

Killings by law enforcement in the United States

Know your rights: Filming the police

Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)

Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.

Police lie under oath, a lot

Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak

Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street

Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

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ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The investigators also asked Hair for permission to check his uniforms for semen.

“I don’t know my rights. Do I have to?” the former officer asked. “I don’t think I want to do that.”

I plead the right to no blacklight searches!

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's not an argument in defense of rape, that's a reason to expand the legal definition to align with the reality of the situation.

Anyone who is empowered to take away all freedom from an individual cannot have consensual sex with that individual. Whether explicit or not, there is always the threat of force when a police officer has someone in custody. It is not possible to consent to sex under those circumstances. It is always rape.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

They aren't able to just take away all freedom because they don't actually have that power. A cop can only hold you in custody for so long. A system can still only take away your freedom based on the crimes committed and that is still for a court to finally decide on whether you're found guilty of that or not. In this case the situation is that the cop can make you NOT go to prison by looking the other way or falsifying data. It's the opposite scenario of what you're describing. This is a quid pro quo situation where both parties would be benefiting from their underhanded deal that they've made.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Yes you get due process, with a bias towards believing the system. People can often spend months in jail before the process progresses to the point where the charges get dropped. So yes a police officer doesn't have the power to put you in custody for your whole life, but they do have the power to put you at the mercy of a flawed system where you are rolling the dice with your future.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh, you sweet summer child. Never change, the world needs your optimism.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sure buddy, whatever. Love the thin veiled ad hominem though. Really underlines your argument.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's not an ad hominem. I'm not dismissing your argument because of who you are. I'm saying you're being naive in your expectations of what the police can and will do. And if you actually do believe that an arresting officer who is willing to fuck a detainee will be constrained by legal limits to their power, then I really don't know how to respond to that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

I'm not dismissing your argument because of who you are. I'm saying you're being naive in your expectations of what the police can and will do.

You claim I'm naive so you dismiss my argument. You're literally contradicting yourself here.

And if you actually do believe that an arresting officer who is willing to fuck a detainee will be constrained by legal limits to their power, then I really don't know how to respond to that.

What would he do? Put someone into his cellar? That would not be backed by his supposed power level of being a cop, that would just be an act of a criminal like any other, cop or not. Your whole argument is that it is rape because of the power imbalance and what he could have done to her if she refused, based on the power granted by his job. You're spinning one hypothetical scenario after another to make a point that just boils down to a black & white ACAB.