I think the idea is more that police are actually mandated to enforce state power through violence. Middle-class usually just match up in their interests with the interests of the state. Even in countries where police don’t carry guns, they are still used to forcefully combat protests or other things which oppose or obstruct government interests, and they still enforce laws unequally among different demographics (and to be clear, even when they don’t carry guns around with them normally, they will still go get guns whenever they feel they need to).
Community policing is important in that it eliminates the use of one group to police another. White middle-class cops being used to police poor minorities, for example. Does it eliminate all biases? Of course not. But studies have shown that police are far less likely to employ excessive force against members of their own neighborhoods and communities.
There’s a lot of issues with this self policing thing that I don’t think is considered. If there’s nobody whose job is policing then you’re expecting people to put their lives on the line for strangers for free. What happens to isolated people? Who do they call? Who decides on what actually happens in justice? If someone killed your relative for example, and you were allowed to take that person and torture them, then would you? Many would.
There might be problems with current systems in different places, but the whole “get rid of the police” thing doesn’t make sense.
I think your questions reveal a lot more about how you envision society working, than they do to question the validity of alternatives. Are you under the impression that police have existed a phone call away for most of history? Why do you sound like you think they underpin all social order?
you’re expecting people to put their lives on the line for strangers for free
Not at all. Why are you under the impression that community labor is uncompensated? That has never been the case. Hell, even right now gated communities often hire private security guards.
What happens to isolated people? Who do they call?
Who do they call now that can actually intervene? Police response times in rural communities are often northward of 45 minutes already. People who live isolated like that already take steps ensure their own protection (including by organizing with their nearest neighbors).
Who decides on what actually happens in justice?
Are you under the impression that police oversee trials or sentencing or set punishments? Police have nothing to do with “what actually happens in justice”. I feel like you are confusing “police-less” with “society-less”. Police do not underpin all social systems. Are you aware that police have not existed for most of human history?
Look, no offence, but I think you are under a lot of really fundamental misunderstandings about the role of police in our current society, nevermind alternative models of policing.
Police are not omnipresent, instantly-available guardians. Police are not the creators or interpreters of law, nor are they responsible for punishments for breaking laws. They don’t even determine if a law has been broken, that’s what a court does. The only single thing that police are mandated to do is to investigate and intervene in activities which may violate laws.
They have no legal obligation to protect you.
They have no legal obligation to intervene before a certain threshhold of crime occurs.
They can legally stand by and watch someone shoot you, and arrest them afterwards, and in fact often they have.
Modern-day US police, as an institution, are not rooted in the city-guards of the Middle Ages, they’re a progression from slave-catching patrols, and their system of roving around looking for ‘trouble’ is a much more direct analogue to British colonial occupation forces in Africa than to the Bobby stationed in a police box on the street corner back home.
Your ideas just add way more questions. You suggest that you want to go back to a time before policing existed, what does that look like to you? We certainly had a form of policing for thousands of years, before that what? Tribal justice? Thats not as nice as you think.
You talk about trials but that requires something to happen first. Are you expecting these citizen helpers to do that? What qualifications are you offering here?
You state that you envision these citizen helpers as being compensated, that suggests that you want people employed to police… you know what those people are called?
The idea that one of your examples is hiring private security comes from a place of privilege.
You complain about police not turning up for 45 minutes, but want to replace them with what? What do you envision in these ‘community helpers’ who will turn up immediately and fight crime? I think you’re thinking of a superhero film.
You seem to have an odd idea of what a police force is.
Then you start going on about US police as if that’s the discussion here.
