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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• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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This is dumb, police have been hiding behind roadside billboards to catch speeders since the advent of the car. It's nothing new.
I for one am glad for speed enforcement, I fucking hate people who race on highways or city streets, dodging between cars with half a car-length to spare in front and back. Before texting, speeding caused the majority of highway fatalities.
I don't know who I hate more, cops or fucking asshole drivers.
I'm with you on this one. I don't support the corrupt/abusive actions of many police, but people who bitch and moan about being targeted for speeding and/or driving like assholes fucking deserve it. Now sure, getting popped for going just slightly over is garbage, but those aren't the drivers or the incidents I'm talking about. There's a weird sentiment among a lot of drivers that traffic laws are just arbritray and optional. I will always cheer for police who catch the worst of them, and I wish it happened more often.
I don’t object to speed limits in the abstract. I do object to speed limits not being set to reasonable levels, such as the 85th percentile. I definitely object to the assholes careening along at breakneck speeds, and I have no problem with police deterring them.
Now if we could just get traffic stops to stop being fishing expeditions for other stuff. The war on drugs was always made to be the war against minorities… that needs to end.
Hate bad designers. US has some egregious road design.
Don't make stroads. Either make streets with traffic calming or roads. This will reduce most of the need for speed checks.
And instead of hiding, just put that car in plain view. People will slow down automatically. You can even cheap our and out a cardboard car to fake a police car, studies have show this works😂
hiding and being visible are very different philosophies on speed enforcement:
hidden cars and cameras are intended to slow people down in general; marked cars and cameras are intended to slow people down in specific areas
neither are particularly right or wrong imo, and in fact where i live in australia both are used regularly
I live in the Netherlands with streets full of traffic calming measures people speed here all the time.
My take on this is, why hide? The mere presence of a police car typically makes people behave in traffic, and if they don’t then they can still get nabbed. Wouldn’t it be better to be visible and a looming threat without the profit incentive of just getting people for tickets?
Most of them don't hide. Not really. That bike cop behind the bush is something I've never seen. They are almost always in obvious sight, doing exaxtly what you're suggesting: deterring speeders.
As for the black-on-black markings. Yeah, I wish they were more obvious. Mostly so I can be sure I stay out of their way on the highway.