Here is a real example of a place (Cherán, pop. 16,000) which kicked out their police, party-politicans and other organized criminals in 2011, replacing it with a local militia of citizens and direct democracy. Crime dropped massively, “Right now there is no crime. These days, it doesn’t get worse that a brawl. A bar fight, a street fight.” Their homicide rate is (last I remember) the lowest in their state and among the lowest in the country.
Police are frequently not citizens of the place where they work. I work for a small city in the Development department, and not a single person at City Hall from police to court to administration has ties to the city itself.
In our case it’s because the tiny city is an enclave for the mega-rich and you literally can’t buy a house for under 3 million dollars right now, and the new-build homes are between 5 and 30 million, and they’re not gonna pay staff enough money to live in town.
But even in other places, lots of police live outside the city where they work, if for no other reason than specifically because they don’t want to enforce the laws on their neighbors.
The militia itself makes (or not) the people accountable, versus the judicial system where the laws are heavily biased towards cops (qualified immunity for example).
Another community doing the same thing could end badly, but at least, there isn’t a judiciary system in place, with a different caste, that favors one group over the other.
So, creating a militia doesn’t guarantee accountability, but it gets rid of a system heavily in favor of cops not being held accountable, thus giving it a chance to hold everyone accountable.
Ok so get rid of qualified immunity, that’s an actual tangible change that could be made. Changing the oppressors from one group to the other doesn’t sound like a solution to me. We need a strong rule of law that places limits on the power of whomever is doing the policing.
Who enforces the ‘strong rule of law’? There’s no way we can have some perfect incorruptible authority on which to depend and that’s why organizations that are more horizontal than vertical are better for us. A citizen militia is organized enough to get shit done and leaderless enough to be resistant to centralized corruption. The model is not without its flaws but we mustn’t pretend that the coercive vertical hierarchy of our current system is better.
The limits on power you desire can only be enforced with power and it’s best if the power doing that work is decentralized.
Certainly not.
They are not loca and they do not serve the interests of the local people, or any people for that matter, nut only the interest of the state.
In reality the few people who control it.
The police aren’t state controlled where I live. We have a seperate provincial police force that is different than than the local police force that polices our city.
Any group of people who are given power over others will inevitably become “the police”.
Maybe a grassroots effort is made to pick people from your local area to be the police, it might seem rosy for a couple of years, but they will still be the police, they will still become corrupted by the power they wield.
Which is why the entire community is responsible not a group of people.
And no, you can look at autonomous regions in Mexico that have been doing this for decades now and still going ‘rosy’. I understand you have a need to rationalise why the system we use must be the best, but reality says otherwise.
That’s just not true though right? You’re making up falsehoods. The entire community meaning every single person, is not responsible for keeping the peace and security. It is still only a group of people from within that community.
Where I live our police are local and our police are chill and we don’t tend to have many conflicts or issues with them. I agree with keeping police as local as possible. I disagree with pretending that a local community electing a local group of people to ensure law and order is fundamentally different that a police force.
And no I’m not going to “look at autonomous regions in Mexico” aka “do my own research”. It’s up to you to provide evidence for claims that you are making. You tell me how exactly it’s different rather than taking me down into your logical fallacy.
From there you can ‘do your own research’ because I highly doubt you’ll even look at those 3 basic sources without trying to come up with a reason to discredit it all in favour of the status quo.
The police structure is not strictly local, that’s an assumption I wouldn’t make. Here’s a reddit thread (I’m assuming mostly USA responses) with many verified officers saying they live half an hour, an hour or more away from their jurisdiction: https://reddit.com/r/ProtectAndServe/comments/1c59je6/how_far_away_do_you_live_from_your_department/ - “Seems most LEOs I’ve met don’t live in the same area they work”
Someone in another thread says to an OP: “I am assuming you are in the US, but elsewhere it is somewhat unusual for a police officer to live within the jurisdiction they police. Often you will find particular towns where officers might cluster, but living in the same part of a city, or in the same small town, is undesirable due to familiarity and reprisals. Obviously there are exceptions.”
A local militia of citizens will tend to be more familiar and accountable to the community they work within than some strangers working for the state, who are alienated to the subjects of their law enforcement. Plenty of systemic issues with police are a result of this alienation from the society they police.
In this example of Cherán, IIRC the corrupt police they evicted were municipal police, not local. By being members of the community, the local militia that replaced them could resolve more issues socially rather than by violence (inc. threat of violence) and were not accountable to the national government, but instead to a local government directly elected by citizens. So what this means is, unlike most police forces, these law enforcement agents are accountable to the community they govern. This reduces the tendency for corruption and abuse, and makes the job less enticing to those would seek to abuse it.
Here is a real example of a place (Cherán, pop. 16,000) which kicked out their police, party-politicans and other organized criminals in 2011, replacing it with a local militia of citizens and direct democracy. Crime dropped massively, “Right now there is no crime. These days, it doesn’t get worse that a brawl. A bar fight, a street fight.” Their homicide rate is (last I remember) the lowest in their state and among the lowest in the country.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SrPBdLiqMb0
How is a local militia of citizens different than the police?
That’s literally what the police are. The police are a local militia of citizens.
Police are frequently not citizens of the place where they work. I work for a small city in the Development department, and not a single person at City Hall from police to court to administration has ties to the city itself.
In our case it’s because the tiny city is an enclave for the mega-rich and you literally can’t buy a house for under 3 million dollars right now, and the new-build homes are between 5 and 30 million, and they’re not gonna pay staff enough money to live in town.
But even in other places, lots of police live outside the city where they work, if for no other reason than specifically because they don’t want to enforce the laws on their neighbors.
The police is unaccountable and above the law.
That’s a non-answer.
Explain who a local militia of citizens would be more accountable than a local police force.
The militia itself makes (or not) the people accountable, versus the judicial system where the laws are heavily biased towards cops (qualified immunity for example).
Another community doing the same thing could end badly, but at least, there isn’t a judiciary system in place, with a different caste, that favors one group over the other.
So, creating a militia doesn’t guarantee accountability, but it gets rid of a system heavily in favor of cops not being held accountable, thus giving it a chance to hold everyone accountable.
Ok so get rid of qualified immunity, that’s an actual tangible change that could be made. Changing the oppressors from one group to the other doesn’t sound like a solution to me. We need a strong rule of law that places limits on the power of whomever is doing the policing.
Who enforces the ‘strong rule of law’? There’s no way we can have some perfect incorruptible authority on which to depend and that’s why organizations that are more horizontal than vertical are better for us. A citizen militia is organized enough to get shit done and leaderless enough to be resistant to centralized corruption. The model is not without its flaws but we mustn’t pretend that the coercive vertical hierarchy of our current system is better.
The limits on power you desire can only be enforced with power and it’s best if the power doing that work is decentralized.
Ok, so police reform. Sounds like a good idea.
Certainly not.
They are not loca and they do not serve the interests of the local people, or any people for that matter, nut only the interest of the state.
In reality the few people who control it.
The police are state-controlled rather than community-run, following state laws not community rules.
And as the results show, empowering the community to defend itself works out much better.
The police aren’t state controlled where I live. We have a seperate provincial police force that is different than than the local police force that polices our city.
That’s still part of the state apparatus.
Any group of people who are given power over others will inevitably become “the police”.
Maybe a grassroots effort is made to pick people from your local area to be the police, it might seem rosy for a couple of years, but they will still be the police, they will still become corrupted by the power they wield.
Which is why the entire community is responsible not a group of people.
And no, you can look at autonomous regions in Mexico that have been doing this for decades now and still going ‘rosy’. I understand you have a need to rationalise why the system we use must be the best, but reality says otherwise.
That’s just not true though right? You’re making up falsehoods. The entire community meaning every single person, is not responsible for keeping the peace and security. It is still only a group of people from within that community.
Where I live our police are local and our police are chill and we don’t tend to have many conflicts or issues with them. I agree with keeping police as local as possible. I disagree with pretending that a local community electing a local group of people to ensure law and order is fundamentally different that a police force.
And no I’m not going to “look at autonomous regions in Mexico” aka “do my own research”. It’s up to you to provide evidence for claims that you are making. You tell me how exactly it’s different rather than taking me down into your logical fallacy.
Here’s a quick 5 minute VICE documentary on 1 town’s approach, they’ve been doing this for 15 years and it has not devolved into your fears.
https://youtu.be/SrPBdLiqMb0
If you want to know more, here’s a bit more reading about that town and how women are participating in the process.
https://schoolsforchiapas.org/cheran-resists-women-weaving-life-in-the-face-of-patriarchal-and-extractivist-siege/
And how they’re defending against much larger actors trying to destroy their way of life:
https://itsgoingdown.org/armed-attack-against-the-autonomous-purepecha-community-of-cheran-keri/
From there you can ‘do your own research’ because I highly doubt you’ll even look at those 3 basic sources without trying to come up with a reason to discredit it all in favour of the status quo.
The police structure is not strictly local, that’s an assumption I wouldn’t make. Here’s a reddit thread (I’m assuming mostly USA responses) with many verified officers saying they live half an hour, an hour or more away from their jurisdiction: https://reddit.com/r/ProtectAndServe/comments/1c59je6/how_far_away_do_you_live_from_your_department/ - “Seems most LEOs I’ve met don’t live in the same area they work”
Someone in another thread says to an OP: “I am assuming you are in the US, but elsewhere it is somewhat unusual for a police officer to live within the jurisdiction they police. Often you will find particular towns where officers might cluster, but living in the same part of a city, or in the same small town, is undesirable due to familiarity and reprisals. Obviously there are exceptions.”
A local militia of citizens will tend to be more familiar and accountable to the community they work within than some strangers working for the state, who are alienated to the subjects of their law enforcement. Plenty of systemic issues with police are a result of this alienation from the society they police.
In this example of Cherán, IIRC the corrupt police they evicted were municipal police, not local. By being members of the community, the local militia that replaced them could resolve more issues socially rather than by violence (inc. threat of violence) and were not accountable to the national government, but instead to a local government directly elected by citizens. So what this means is, unlike most police forces, these law enforcement agents are accountable to the community they govern. This reduces the tendency for corruption and abuse, and makes the job less enticing to those would seek to abuse it.
Where I live the police are accountable to our city and not to our state. Their budget comes from municipal taxes.
They are still the police.
Give any group of anyone power over others and eventually they will act like the police do.