this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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Police somewhat deter crime, sometimes. Sometimes they prevent a crime from being worse. For example, they race to a crime in progress and try to stop it if it is still going on.
I don't think you could have a successful society without laws, and you need someone to enforce those laws. But, the modern US police force is so far from what you'd want if you were designing things from the ground up.
Cops do not like confronting actual criminals - criminals are dangerous. But they love to intimidate and force total acquiescence from regular people and excuse it by saying 'its what we have to do 'in case' they are a criminal'.
Once criminals figure out that cops don't want to confront them, those criminals learn to accommodate that. So they get worse. They figure out who they can rob and intimidate with impunity - and it's mostly the poor. But also, they can break into middle class people's cars, porch pirate, even B&E into homes, and cops don't want to deal with that. So many people post on reddit bc cops won't do a thing if, for example, a disabled person has their motorized wheelchair stollen, so people try to play detective on their own. Have a stalker or an ex who has credibly threatened your life? That might only help them catch that person if you are actually murdered.
Cops deter crime in wealthy areas, but the rest of us are on our own.
Fear of being caught might deter the naive from testing if they can get away with shit, but in reality, there is essentially a truce between cops and criminals, and if you know how to be too much work and risk to bother catching, a lot of what we consider 'criminals' don't have a lot to worry about.
They also escalate crime. By a lot.
Welfare checks. Minor incidents. Petty theft.
Suddenly it's a dead guy.
Agreed but that does not at all relate to "they show up after the crime happens," which is a brain-dead take.
This is saying police aren't the answer to solving all crime and that the need for them would be greatly reduced if a society were to look after it's people instead of leaving them to wallow in misery and strife. It's not anti police to say that at all. Police are misused in many societies as a tool for all situations and then teach them only how to be a hammer.
Those kinds of crimes are exceedingly rare, and many (such as rampage killings) are the result of systemic issues that could be addressed in other ways (not merely just regulating firearm access).
This is a very post Renaissance take.
Is it?
i think the cover it in here but it's been a while... Behind the police
I'm not going to listen to a podcast that just might have an explanation for what you mean on the off chance you remembered the right one.
Yeah sure. Good podcast/series tho. It pulls a lot from The End of Policing by Alex Vitale. Robert Evans is also an incredible journalist/narrator.
Law enforcement in some form has existed far prior to the Renaissance.
Yeah sure, palace guards, militaries, mercenaries, and so on.
The "police man" is a concept from the last few hundred years.
E: don't lemmy half asleep folks...