this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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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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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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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
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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Yeah, that hiding in the bushes bullshit is some wil-e-coyote nonsense.
There's a spot by me that has a tiny dirt path leading into a small crop of bushes and trees that the fuckers cut a portion out of so it will cover everything but their window lol it's absurd...
Reminds of the kind of place I'd probably spread a bunch of nails... wouldn't want people to be without building supplies near those bushes.
And as soon as you found out about it you littered the area with nails and broken glass, right? ...right?
How could he? The police were already there!
Lock eyes, assert dominance. What are they going to do, chase you with flat tires? Jump out of the car and step on rusty nails? You've got them right where you want them. 😎
That's when you light the bushes on fire.
Drivers will slow down an behave when they see a marked cruiser. For traffic enforcement i don't mind undercover cruisers.
Getting people to slow down and behave is the entire point though?
If that only works when they see a police cruiser then we are going to need a lot more cops. Like, a lot.
I didn't say anything like that, though. You're attacking a position that hasn't been argued.
If public safety is the goal, maximizing the number of drivers that are driving an appropriate speed and following the rules of the road is the pathway to success. Utilizing marked cars on patrol accomplishes this, as already noted earlier. Having varied patrol routes would keep reasonable people from assuming there were "safe" speeding areas, so reasonable people would choose not to risk speeding in order to avoid consequences.
If punishment and money extraction is the goal, sure, unmarked cars are the best bet. I would argue that public safety should be the goal, though.
Public safety is the goal. Some people don't learn to follow speed limits and do full stops at reds or other road rules until they have had a consequence from it. I'd rather they learn that lesson through a speeding ticket than accidental manslaughter of a pedestrian.
Unmarked cruisers gives a cop a more unbiased view of the reality of traffic flow/conditions than a marked cruiser cause most drivers will notice a marked cruiser and drive accordingly. Ultimately road safety is many many factors, but i believe enforcement of the rules is one of them.
Just look at the pushback against automated speed cameras, even the ones in school zones often get vanadalized. Many drivers only give a shit about a speed limit because of fines and their insurance costs.
Automated speed cameras are also bullshit though... How much of a police state are people actually on board with? Holy moly... I really don't think we need, nor should we accept, robots policing us.
Actual good patrolling along varied or semi-random routes is the way you illustrate to the public that you are watching for people to be on their best behavior, not playing "gotcha" style entrapment games. Show people you are there and actually interested in their safety.
Yea the whole "gotcha" of exceeding a posted speed limit in area where a sign often warns you a camera is checking your speed in a position the municipality will often publicly announce its presence. Real gotcha moment.
So police should hide behind bushes, use unmarked cars, and also deploy cameras to watch and make sure no one gets out of line. K.
Yay, surveillance state!
Y'all are bitching cops shouldn't be allowed to enforce speed limits, we have a modern solution that is often deployed in areas with high pedestrian injury rates and you're calling it some mass surveillance state.
The internet is doing far worse things to your privacy than a speed camera. Dont trust them? Your city probably has a map of them on their website. Dont drive or walk that specific spot.
Nope. Robots shouldn't be able to enforce anything. And entrapment is already a thing we're supposed to not do.
Voluntarily giving up your rights without being asked is what's fucked up.
Edit: your whataboutism about the internet is noted, and is still a whataboutism. Again, it's arguing against a point that was never made.
I feel like the people doing traffic enforcement should be different than the police. Like, they shouldn't have guns and authority to search and murder. Just, like, a radar gun. and the authority to issue tickets and direct traffic.
It's a thought, but unfortunately any member of an 'authority' is going to be in harm's way with a real criminal. Remember that (as an example) the son of sam and the oklahoma city bomber were both caught because of ticketing, and that a great many felons (like, actual felons that we care about, not the 'felons' of trump gang (tm) that have the wrong skin color) are encountered on traffic stops. I wouldn't want kindly and vulnerable meter maids to be expected to interact with people who have everything to lose, or hostile sovereign citizen types.
If a traffic enforcement type were to work, they'd have to have the authority to detain, and that inevitably means conflict with someone. I'd rather it not be with meter maid sally, and rather with officer dickstain, where I'm happy if either or both party gets hurt.
I don't think the average person is so dangerous that it justifies having driving infractions be handled with firearms by default.
I don't think you even need to force a stop. If they don't stop when asked to pull over, you have the license plate. That's registered. Send them a ticket or court summons. If they refuse to come to court, then you can have some muscular folks go resolve the issue.
Granted, I'm just spitballing. But I don't think the current system works at all.
I agree with you. ACAB. In the future I want, I'm sure there will be a need for some form of law enforcement, but right now it's beyond fucked.
I just want to acknowledge that while the system needs to be torn down, I also don't think we can implement a 'nice face' traffic enforcement without consequences right now. I don't know. I'm just some idiot spitballing as well. Hopefully iron sharpens iron.
This is the biggest point. There are countless bodycam footage available of some crazy shit going down at traffic stops. Someone with an active warrant is going to resist being IDd. Someone high on cocaine in a stolen car may not act rationally.
Shouldn't that be the whole point? Get people to slow down and behave? Or is punishment the entire purpose?
I think the aim is to get people to slow down even when there isn't a cop, since one could always be around. It doesn't really work that well and is a poor substitute for good road design, but still.
I'm pretty sure some places use the traffic ticketing as income, which is a huge perverse incentive. Or maybe they just have quotas. Or benefit from seizing property from people. The police are a problem, but i'm sure this community is aware.
Behave? Causing people to suddenly slow down or slam on their brakes, and go 5-10 mph under the speed limit is infinitely more dangerous
Drivers need to be ready to stop or swerve for any reason at any time. A dog crossing a road, an accident in front of them, an emergency vehicle passing. If you slam into the car in front of you because they slowed down to the speed limit, that is your fault.
Well if you get rear ended at least you can take solace in it being the other person's fault.
So is your solution to someone following too closely to just speed up?
Is that what I said?
I love that you are voted negative on this. You're absolutely correct, but people don't want to hear it.
Had a long argument with someone a few months back where they insisted if they come around a curve and a tree is laying across the road, and they can't stop in time, the tree is at fault...