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.
You suggest that you want to go back to a time before policing existed
No, I am pointing out that police are not some integral part of human social systems.
We certainly had a form of policing for thousands of years
Yes, which were not the ones we have now.
Are you expecting these citizen helpers to do that? What qualifications are you offering here?
Do you know that citizens already can make arrests? What do you mean by “qualifications”?
The idea that one of your examples is hiring private security comes from a place of privilege.
No, I am making the point that “protecting people” is not synonymous with “modern nation-state authority” like you seem to be suggesting, not saying “let them hire guards”. Was that seriously your takeaway from what I wrote? The whole point is that you can have people protecting other people, without the people doing the protecting being police.
You complain about police not turning up for 45 minutes
I didn’t complain about that, I stated that it is the current reality for people in many rural/ isolated places, so police are already effectively absent the role of protecting them. They must and do protect themselves already. Your ignorance of how rural communities operate, while simultaneously trying to make claims about their vulnerability without police, is astounding.
turn up immediately and fight crime
Not anymore than police already don’t, which is my point. Neighbors are who you call to come help after the immediate emergency is done. The immediate emergency you handle yourself. You call the police when it’s wrapped up, to cover yourself. Police aren’t EMTs. Anything that a 2-person police unit can do , you and 1 other person can as well, and you can do it immediately.
You seem to have an odd idea of what a police force is.
I’m very interested in what you think a police force is, because it sounds far more to me like you’re the one speaking from a place of privilege if you think they’re benign protectors of the citizenry.
Then you start going on about US police as if that’s the discussion here.
I’m sorry, was the article in relation to somewhere other than the US? No? Cool!
What do you mean by “qualifications”?
police
the US
This best summarizes this discussion.
PS:
was the article in relation to somewhere other than the US?
You’re in a thread started by someone clearly stating they don’t live in the US, so you tell us who went out of context where.
