Epidemic of cops committing sex crimes: what can be done?

You're looking at it all wrong though.

Police have always been like this, probably worse.

But society hasn't been like this or worse. This is the worst in a long time. This happening and there being video evidence and widespread news of most of these cops getting off with getting fired at most?

Today there are tens of thousands of people who walk around knowing from their own eyes and mind what is going on, and continuing to buy groceries in a neighbourhood where this stuff takes place. It's not enough to say the information is more spread. It's beyond that. The information existed in the form of statistics and documentaries and what not. What exists know is that people know. Average joe knows the body language, the violent behavior, the coverup, the exoneration.

It's a totally different thing when you hear the statistics than when you walk down the street and you see a uniform on a guy which is the same uniform someone was wearing when they executed a member of the society without any good justification. It's just different and you can sense it.

Things do no repeat themselves in the same i.e. the 60's but something must happen. The people of Ferguson, for example, are not going to just get over this. They might bury it for now, but it's there, waiting for an "I told you so."

 

I agree that a huge majority wouldn't support that kind of thing.

However, it's patently false that most Americans have it well. Over half of Americans are in poverty or near poverty if you take debt into account, and they view the standard of living of a shrinking class of people above them.

Unemployment is high among youth and ridiculously high among minority youth (upwards of 50%). Those people have nothing to lose, and those tend to be the people that ignite resistance.

This is not a people that are well off, and equally important they know the means exist to be better than "have it well". Perhaps you're thinking they have it well in comparison to the whole world, but that's not how people think nor is it how societies make decisions. What's worse is that it has stagnating or is getting worse over time. You live in the richest country in history. Don't allow this macho bs to cover up for the fact that your people are getting robbed. I'm sure you believe you or your dad worked really hard to get what you deserve and have, but the truth is you deserve much much more and that there are many people who worked as hard or harder and have much much less.

 

Only one thing you can do, right?

 

A majority of people in the United States have it well enough to not make the effort it would take to partake in an armed confrontation with the government.

The issue of working hard or not is another issue. Yes I think my father worked hard and I work a lot of hours... but many other people do, I am not going to claim it is unique to me. Also, it has been my observation that in general Americans work harder than many other first world nations.... which is not a surprise knowing American history. I do think that many Americans would be shocked by how much easier in some Western countries... but everything is a trade off.

 

Debt really doesn't mean much in the United States. It is a very hard concept to understand unless you live here a long time. When I was living in Ireland it was a major concern, not in the USA. So the idea that half the United States lives in poverty or close to poverty is absurd. I am not saying that there isn't poverty in the USA, but it isn't even close to 50%.

Also, unemployment in the minority community is sadly nothing new.

 

I think your subsequent post about video evidence explains it. I like to assume if there was an undeniable smoking gun that's easily spread, then there would be a similar reaction. Who knows nowadays...the other half of the us only flip on outrage mode if their trusted demagogues tell them it's bad. Claims in the article are pretty sobering...1000 officers being dismissed from sexual misconduct whereas the path of lessor resistance is to dump them off to a different precinct with a less obvious reprimand. A years long investigation into how pervasive this is with a formal conclusion that they have no idea.

Even with that "undeniable smoking gun", there's plenty of recorded cases of police brutality but reform for that hasn't been swift, to say the least.

The factors weighing down active reform for this are many though.
-It's the officers word against theirs.
-His colleagues are hardened against these accusations by the victims.
-The officer is embedded in the system and possibly knows people across all its levels on a more personal basis.
-City officials generally aren't going to actively pursue these accusations because of the litigation risks and because you don't poke into something with that gravity unless you're absolutely verifiably sure.

Those ingredients seem colorblind to me. This is not something a victim can easily report. The opportunity costs might be lower in poorer streets, but who knows how many women from middle class non-disadvantaged ethnicities have suffered the same thing.

Don't know and the system doesn't have the uniform or mandated tools for knowing.

 

I agree with almost all of what you say here CH. Today's freedom fighter is indeed more often than not tomorrow's oppressor.

My response though is to say, instead of having a police entity appointed and controlled by centralized and hierarchical governmental agencies and then , as you seem to want, have oversight by decentralized non-hierarchical community organs -- why not just get rid of the police as they exist now, and then reform a new system directly controlled by the decentralized non-hierarchical community oversight organs themselves?

When I talk of organizing armed resistance to cops I am definitely picturing the basis of this organization being a decentralized and non-hierarchical model as is used by groups like the YPG/J in Syria or the Zapatistas in Mexico. Indeed, the Zapatistas have done exactly what I am proposing (arm themselves and make abusive state police unwelcome in their communities), and, since the organization of their armed wing are decentralized and non-hierarchical, they have managed to not turn into oppressors themselves -- and it has been 20 years now.

 

I don't think police are the source if the problem. In other industrialized nations, the scope and lethal authority of police are lessened yet anarchy doesn't reign on the streets. In fact, I'm genuinely surprised and impressed how safe western Europe can be while roaming around late night.

Law enforcement are the frontline defense to the ills of society for many Americans. I don't think they should be the deal the brunt of the mentally ill on the streets or the homeless working people casually ignore. That they're steeped with power and authority to deal with this and then subsequently handicapped by funding and red tape would make any situation stressful and not a great place to work let alone handling their job description.

Hamjam, what you're proposing sounds tech centered on the organizational end. What about the unofficially segregated parts of the city that wouldn't be able to appropriately handle, fund, and organize their law enforcement solution?

Because I think those areas are good plausible excuses for why being a policeman can induce chronic stress

 

Actually, the groups who currently have their security forces based on decentralized and non-hierarchical community organs (e.g. the Kurds in Syria and the Zapatistas in Mexico) are not very much not technologically equipped. I do agree that technology can help facilitate what I am proposing -- but it is by no means necessary.

I do agree with the other things you said though regarding the police being more the symptom of social and governmental issues rather than an isolated problem. However, those social and governmental issues are so intertwined into the structure, culture and level of militarization of the police that the police themselves are inseparable from those other causes of police brutality.