this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
718 points (98.9% liked)
THE POLICE PROBLEM
2796 readers
1127 users here now
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.
♦ ♦ ♦
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.
♦ ♦ ♦
RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
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.
♦ ♦ ♦
ALLIES
• r/ACAB
♦ ♦ ♦
INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• 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
• When the police knock on your door
♦ ♦ ♦
ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You know, that's an opportunity.
Any time attention is focused on one place, there's less on another.
Take the moment and target something else.
Chicago has a pretty big police force unfortunately. Looks like around 12- 13k little piggies (source)
So about 25 cops here leaves... roughly 12- 13k cops in the rest of the city :P
ETA: fun facts, the Chicago Police Dept budget is just below $2 billion. That puts it right below Slovakia's entire military budget. Slovakia's population is ~5.5 million vs. Chicago's 2.7 million people.
Chicago alone has almost as many cops as the entirety of Ireland (which has 14.6k cops for 5.3 million Irish citizens)
That would probably work if there wasn't a ridiculous overabundance of cops in just about all American cities.
As it is, there's enough of them to function as a private security force for billionaires and their property (their primary raison d'être) in greater numbers than usual like this without neglecting any of their usual oppression of minorities, poor people, and especially combinations thereof.
Unless these cops are in superposition, they can't be both protecting Tesla and, say, in their actual cars.
Their numbers are finite.
Double checks instance name
In Minecraft. Always in Minecraft.
In GTA VI Pre-Release IRL outside VR simulation testing edition*
Their numbers are finite, yes. However, those finite numbers are much larger than they need to be and society would be much better and safer for the vast majority of people if there were almost none of them.
Not in Minecraft.
Brother, there's an overabundance of greedy, shitty corporate targets and storefronts, and many more of us than cops.
They can't be everywhere.
Sure, you gotta still use stealth and planning, but you're dealing with a different level of attention.
Vandalism normally isn't a high priority in the cities I've been in. People report it, and the response time is slow, even in wealthy areas or business centers because it's just not an emergency. They'll dispatch a car or two, or the equivalent, but they won't send bigger numbers, and any kind of riot response is going to be slower because they're held back for the obvious target.
Same with small numbers of people making quick strikes at targets that support the main focus of the actions.
Couple that with coordination at targets and false actions to distract, and you can do some decent amount of work in the time you'll have
This was a significant plot point in Die Hard with a Vengeance