THE POLICE PROBLEM
The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
♦ ♦ ♦
Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
♦ ♦ ♦
RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
♦ ♦ ♦
ALLIES
• r/ACAB
♦ ♦ ♦
INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
♦ ♦ ♦
ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
view the rest of the comments
Yeah, the jails and prisons here (in Alabama) are notoriously dangerous and all around awful. When I got arrested I was taken to a jail cell in Birmingham. I was put in a tiny cell with 8 other guys. There was no AC it was August and Alabama summers are brutal. It was at least 90 in there. Plus there was a toilet full of feces and urine that wouldn’t flush.
After about 6 hours of that a cop took me and one other guy to county. I think that’s because our charges were potentially felonies. I say potentially because mine was a felony but I did a drug program that made it not a felony.
So they strip searched us and put us in a holding cell. By this point I hadn’t had a fix in about 24 hours. I was sweating bullets. I was puking bile. I could barely talk.
After, that they took us to our cells. When I got to mine the guys pretty much instantly gave me a bunk and said that they’d leave me alone as much as they could. It just so happened that even though we didn’t know each other we had grown up in the same town outside Birmingham.
I assume I was there for about 24 hours. They served me 3 meals and I gave away 3 meals. They came and got me told me to sign my own bond. Then at 2 am kicked me and like 15 other guys out on the street.
I walked like 5 miles to get to the place I was staying at the time. Still sick and puking the whole way. It was unpleasant to say the least.
I’m clean now. I even got off the methadone. I am stone cold sober, and it fucking sucks. Alcohol makes me feel like shit. Weed makes me paranoid. Don’t even get me started on uppers. I fucking hate uppers. I tried micro dosing mushrooms. That is awesome, but it gives me migraines sometimes. Oh well, c’est la vie.