Police cameras

[AFK]

I wonder if it has ever occurred to RWHN that the reason he gets along so well with cops has nothing to do with cops and everything to do with him.

Well, sure, obviously I have many partnerships with them working towards some similar goals, and by that token, given that we are partners, they are more comfortable to be themselves and show their true colors, and what I can tell you, in my experience, is that they aren't all a bunch of jacked-up monkeys with guns looking to make trouble.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I wonder if it has ever occurred to RWHN that the reason he gets along so well with cops has nothing to do with cops and everything to do with him.

This reminds me of the interesting disconnect, bordering on animosity, between criminologist PhD students and social work PhD students where I work, and the fact that so far I have met three PhD students who started out in criminology with the intention of helping to change the system to prevent crime, and ended up switching to social work.

The impression I've gotten from the conversations I've had there is that criminology studies are permeated with the philosophy that criminals are bad people who need to be caught and punished. They have little patience for either theories of prevention or theories of rehabilitation, outside of a punishment-as-deterrent context, and have very little respect for the efforts of social workers.

It's an interesting phenomenon, and hearing all of this has really made me wonder if the general philosophy of the field of criminology as it stands today is fundamentally antisocial, and that antisocial training is being passed on, in the form of bad memes, to everyone who trains in any branch of law enforcement.

[AFK]

In my experience, it isn't siloed like that, and in fact two of the criminal justice programs in my area have reached out to me to place interns in my agency precisely to give them that more well-rounded, and yes nuanced view, of dealing with people who are at-risk.  So I don't believe that it is fundamentally anti-social training, and seems tombe quite the opposite.  Concerted efforts to make sure students realize there is more to law enforcement than cuffing bad guys.

[East Coast Hustle]

I wonder if it has ever occurred to RWHN that the reason he gets along so well with cops has nothing to do with cops and everything to do with him.

Well, sure, obviously I have many partnerships with them working towards some similar goals, and by that token, given that we are partners, they are more comfortable to be themselves and show their true colors, and what I can tell you, in my experience, is that they aren't all a bunch of jacked-up monkeys with guns looking to make trouble.

Translation: as long as you're buddies with them and agree with their agenda (oh, and are white), they probably won't look to capriciously ruin your life.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

In my experience, it isn't siloed like that, and in fact two of the criminal justice programs in my area have reached out to me to place interns in my agency precisely to give them that more well-rounded, and yes nuanced view, of dealing with people who are at-risk.  So I don't believe that it is fundamentally anti-social training, and seems tombe quite the opposite.  Concerted efforts to make sure students realize there is more to law enforcement than cuffing bad guys.

It's good that your experiences have been different. I haven't had enough direct experience with the criminology program here to really know what's going on in it.

I do know that our police (and, for that matter, our city) are insanely corrupt.

But it's so nice here.

[AFK]

I wonder if it has ever occurred to RWHN that the reason he gets along so well with cops has nothing to do with cops and everything to do with him.

Well, sure, obviously I have many partnerships with them working towards some similar goals, and by that token, given that we are partners, they are more comfortable to be themselves and show their true colors, and what I can tell you, in my experience, is that they aren't all a bunch of jacked-up monkeys with guns looking to make trouble.

Translation: as long as you're buddies with them and agree with their agenda (oh, and are white), they probably won't look to capriciously ruin your life.

No, not at all.

[East Coast Hustle]

Oh? Well you should come down here or go out to Portland and spend a day being black. Or just poor and not well-dressed. Or mentally ill. Or basically anything but a middle-class white guy who buddies up to and agrees with the cops.

[P3nT4gR4m]

TBH, I'm not sure I have an idea of how I think it should be set up, just a reasonable certainty that the way it is NOW is not set up to benefit the average citizen. I will think on it though and see what I can come up with. It will obviously be more idealized than practical but it sounds like an interesting mental exercise.

I hate the scum as much as the next guy. I was brought up that way but I gotta admit, for all the fact that they're generally bent bastards who will fuck you over if you give them half a chance, the net result still looks better to me than Somalia. The fact of the matter is, they do make it much harder for Joe Bastard to just walk into an old couples house, shoot them in the head and take all their stuff. I'm pretty sure things would be worse if there were none of them.

It would be nice if they could clean up their act a bit but who the fuck are we kidding here? They only recruit human beings and you know how fucking useless those things are.

How does the existence of police stop crimes from being committed?

Deterrent? They don't stop all crimes being comitted but are you seriously telling me that if the police all disappeared in a puff of smoke tomorrow there'd be no increase in crime? Like for reals? You're one of those anarchists?

[AFK]

Oh? Well you should come down here or go out to Portland and spend a day being black. Or just poor and not well-dressed. Or mentally ill. Or basically anything but a middle-class white guy who buddies up to and agrees with the cops.

A middle-class white guy who also buddies up with people who spend their days being black, the mentally ill, the poor and not well-dressed....and those same police buddy-up with those types as well, volunteer their time to support those same people, are out there putting their lives at risk to serve and protect those people....

[East Coast Hustle]

[East Coast Hustle]

TBH, I'm not sure I have an idea of how I think it should be set up, just a reasonable certainty that the way it is NOW is not set up to benefit the average citizen. I will think on it though and see what I can come up with. It will obviously be more idealized than practical but it sounds like an interesting mental exercise.

I hate the scum as much as the next guy. I was brought up that way but I gotta admit, for all the fact that they're generally bent bastards who will fuck you over if you give them half a chance, the net result still looks better to me than Somalia. The fact of the matter is, they do make it much harder for Joe Bastard to just walk into an old couples house, shoot them in the head and take all their stuff. I'm pretty sure things would be worse if there were none of them.

It would be nice if they could clean up their act a bit but who the fuck are we kidding here? They only recruit human beings and you know how fucking useless those things are.

How does the existence of police stop crimes from being committed?

Deterrent? They don't stop all crimes being comitted but are you seriously telling me that if the police all disappeared in a puff of smoke tomorrow there'd be no increase in crime? Like for reals? You're one of those anarchists?

I don't see how thinking that Police don't do much to stop crime makes me an anarchist.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

TBH, I'm not sure I have an idea of how I think it should be set up, just a reasonable certainty that the way it is NOW is not set up to benefit the average citizen. I will think on it though and see what I can come up with. It will obviously be more idealized than practical but it sounds like an interesting mental exercise.

I hate the scum as much as the next guy. I was brought up that way but I gotta admit, for all the fact that they're generally bent bastards who will fuck you over if you give them half a chance, the net result still looks better to me than Somalia. The fact of the matter is, they do make it much harder for Joe Bastard to just walk into an old couples house, shoot them in the head and take all their stuff. I'm pretty sure things would be worse if there were none of them.

It would be nice if they could clean up their act a bit but who the fuck are we kidding here? They only recruit human beings and you know how fucking useless those things are.

How does the existence of police stop crimes from being committed?

Deterrent? They don't stop all crimes being comitted but are you seriously telling me that if the police all disappeared in a puff of smoke tomorrow there'd be no increase in crime? Like for reals? You're one of those anarchists?

Interestingly, there is a fair amount of evidence that increases and decreases in police coverage don't have much correlation with increases and decreases in crime. Social conditions have a much greater bearing on crime levels than police force.

[P3nT4gR4m]

So we really don't need the police? At all? Zero effect on crime whatsoever? Can't help feeling just a tad sceptical. I'm pretty sure there's at least a couple of people in the world, who're in jail and deserve to be because the police caught them doing something bad. Maybe I'm just being naive and drinking Kool Aid, tho.

So is the whole justice system a waste of time then? I mean with no one to investigate, capture and bring to trial, I don't suppose there's any point having courts and prisons and shit?

[AFK]

Of course they have an impact and effect on crime, but they also aren't superheroes meant to stop every crime from happening ever.  If you didn't have police there would be more crime, period.  Criminals will still be criminals, yes, but they will deter the person who isn't normally a criminal.  They also make it harder for criminals to commit crimes, AND, get away with it and CONTINUE to commit crimes.  This is a very straightforward concept that is evident by the simple fact that pretty much every community everywhere has law enforcement and has had it for a long time.  Because, it DOES have a positive impact on communities.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So we really don't need the police? At all? Zero effect on crime whatsoever? Can't help feeling just a tad sceptical. I'm pretty sure there's at least a couple of people in the world, who're in jail and deserve to be because the police caught them doing something bad. Maybe I'm just being naive and drinking Kool Aid, tho.

So is the whole justice system a waste of time then? I mean with no one to investigate, capture and bring to trial, I don't suppose there's any point having courts and prisons and shit?

Oh, yeah, that's exactly what I said.