this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM

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    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.

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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.

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RULES

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If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.

Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.

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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.

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ALLIES

!abolition@slrpnk.net

!acab@lemmygrad.ml

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

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INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

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

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

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ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

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[–] turboshadowcool@lemmy.dbzer0.com 90 points 8 months ago (7 children)

I'm much more concerned by "(excluding domestic violence)"

[–] dont_lemmee_down@lemm.ee 45 points 8 months ago

Domestic violence is ok, but have you smoked weed the last year?

[–] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 29 points 8 months ago

That's encouraged. It's considered honing your skills while off the clock.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Must be applying to be a cop

OP explain yourself

[–] Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 8 months ago

I can't really screenshot my query into indeed (as it very easily identifies a 5 mile radius of my house)

But apparently there is a police station within 5 miles of my apartment? Who the fuck let that happen?

[–] Godort@lemm.ee 15 points 8 months ago

If that were an issue they'd need to fire a staggering number of cops

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 7 points 8 months ago

Either domestic violence is "okay," or even they know that the whole "someone has to get arrested" thing is bullshit.

[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

They know who they're hiring. I'm just surprised they said the quiet part out loud: "It's okay if you're dangerously violent, everyone here is, so long as you only do it in private. "

[–] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 60 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Probably need to be 21 to start, and the onboarding process is at least 6 months.

[–] prayer@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

Which makes sense because many states require you to be 21 to carry a handgun.

[–] anarchost@lemm.ee 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Fake. No maximum education requirements, no maximum test score limits.

[–] morphballganon@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Those exist, for sure. They just don't say it.

[–] Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Are there genuine education maximums? I could see test scores barring you for being too much of a free thinker, but why not let the rich kids play w/ the boom-boom-sticks after their PHD?

[–] Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Nah, they aren't set in stone requirements, just an excuse they are allowed to use to reject a candidate. That means they get to selectively enforce it.

[–] idiomaddict@feddit.de 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Because they want you to follow orders.

[–] Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Young people follow orders better than old people. I don't get it

[–] idiomaddict@feddit.de 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

But education teaches you to try to understand why things are so, instead of just accepting that they are so, and the longer you spend there, the more you internalize it. There was a guy in Connecticut who was rejected because his IQ was too high because they thought that would make him less likely to want to do the same thing every day (which seems like or speak for the same, to me).

I think the rest of the comment section has the right idea that after six months of training, the potential police officer needs to be 21, either due to local laws or actuarial calculations from the department’s insurer (which they’d probably describe as internal policy).

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

If I were to guess... the onboarding/training takes 6 months, so they want applicants to be at least 21 by the time they are fully certified.

Imagine having a police officer who couldn't go into a bar.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That is not even close to being a problem. Age requirements make sense, and so does that of.

It's the rest of the shit that's a problem.

[–] Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean if that much training is good for some yee-yee 30 y/o, why does it need an age minimum at all? If you "train" them, tf does it matter?

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago

Legalities.

In a jurisdiction where there is a minimum age to be able to perform the duties of a job, be it for good reason or not, the employer is obligated to follow that law until it gets changed.

Since US police training is relatively shit, and there are plenty of jurisdictions where the age limit is 21. I can't recall offhand at the moment if the post covers where the job opening is/was, but that could be looked up.

Six months of training to start as a cop is not impossible. Again, that's by jurisdiction, there's no single limit afaik. With US police training being shit, a six month span of training wouldn't surprise me at all.

If that's the case, and they're being required the be able to legally carry in their jurisdiction, then dropping the minimum age to apply and be hired for training six months makes as much sense as it only being six months of training in the first place.

Frankly though? I remember that age. I remember how damn many of the people my age at the time were complete idiots. I would be perfectly fine with the age limit being higher than 21 to be a cop. There is such a thing as maturity coming with age. It might not be perfect, but you usually weed out the real idiots by the late twenties.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Idk what it's like in the US, but in the UK age discrimination is illegal as a protected characteristic.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

In the US, at least federally, you are protected against age discrimination only if you are over 40. You can discriminate against younger people on the grounds of their age all you want.

Which, incidentally, governments on all levels (federal, state, local) happily do all the time with inconsistent ages of majority depending on the topic at hand:

  • 16: Age to get a driver's license.
  • 18: Age to vote, enter into contracts, buy a rifle or shotgun, legally considered "adulthood," except...
  • 21: Age to drink, smoke, or buy a handgun, and...
  • 25: Age before which no rental car agency will rent a car to you. (Go figure.)
[–] acetanilide@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

Don't forget hotel rooms!