
Imagining a society that isn't dominated by police - dollaaron
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/policing-is-a-dirty-job-but-nobodys-gotta-do-it-6-ideas-for-a-cop-free-world-20141216
======
jessriedel
Another one: Any time an agency of the government collects a fine to deter bad
behavior, the money must be given to another agency that is significantly
removed from the decision making process that sets the fine, or to charity.
Likewise for seized goods, etc. If the county police department starts writing
more tickets for rolling stops, the money just ends up with the parks
department. (Obviously it is possible in principle for different agencies to
collude, but the same can be said about all checks and balances. The point is
to make coordinating the collusion difficult/dangerous.)

People can complain all they want about individual instances of civil
forfeiture or predatory red-light cameras, but those sorts of issues are all
caused by the incentives induced when the agency that enacts the fine benefits
from the money collected.

(This does not apply to the separate penalties/restitution used to compensate
victims, pay for fixing actual damage, etc..)

If some agencies are currently dependent on revenue through fines, then this
requires a one-time adjustment to their budget. But this is good as it just
means that the cost of running their agencies becomes more transparent.

~~~
chrishynes
That sounds like a good idea on the surface but it doesn't actually discourage
anything. If the revenue is getting into government at all it still has the
same perverse incentives.

Case in point: the many small towns that get a substantial chunk of their
overall revenue from fines and police action
--[https://www.google.com/search?q=town+police+revenue](https://www.google.com/search?q=town+police+revenue)

~~~
redacted
I think the better way would be that such fines are sent straight to a
national/federal agency, which in turn disburses the fund across the entire
country as needed. That would prevent any corrupt small-town police force from
simply fining people to raise money because they may never see any of it
themselves.

~~~
nostromo
Just destroy the money.

There should be no incentive for the government to collect fines. We should
incentivize fewer crimes and fewer fines, not more.

If you're worried about deflation, then another solution would be to put all
the fines collected into a fund that is split up and given directly back to
the citizenry every year. But the point is that crime shouldn't fund
government as it's a perverse incentive.

~~~
alexbecker
It's worth noting that from the federal govt's perspective, destroying money
and collecting it are basically the same. As long as the supply of money
decreases, they can just print more.

------
tomp
No need to "imagine" it. Just come to Europe. I can recommend either the UK or
Slovenia based on personal experience, cops are completely domesticated.
Portugal, Germany or Netherlands if you want decriminalization. Switzerland
for direct democracy. Most EU countries for treating the mentally ill.

~~~
tptacek
One of two places in the world I've been searched intrusively outside an
airport, without warrant or probable cause: Switzerland (my wife used to live
there). The other place: also in Europe.

I'm sure Europe is much nicer if it's evident that you're from whatever
country you're in.

(Not exactly on point, but, whatever: the TSA has nothing on Heathrow
international terminal for intrusive, pointless, rude searches).

~~~
poulsbohemian
My family came from Switzerland about 200 years ago, and our name is
recognizably Swiss. I actually got my passport temporarily confiscated and
went through an interrogation about 20 years ago (before 9/11/2001) because
they didn't believe I was an American. The fact that I was speaking to them in
German was used as evidence against me - because how on earth would an
American know German? I giggle at the idea that my ancestral home interrogated
me, but the border guards when I went to scary communist China or muslim
Turkey barely opened the cover of my passport before they passed me through.
But really the worst I've ever been treated was coming back into the US from
Canada...

------
Zigurd
Two more ideas:

Bonding tip-of-the-spear employees of the criminal justice system: cops,
prosecutors, parole officers, prison guards. That way you can do away with
qualified immunity, municipalities are not on the hook for paying settlements,
and thugs price themselves out of the system.

Special prosecutors for police crimes.

~~~
jessriedel
I haven't heard anyone suggest the bonding idea, and it seems very sensible.
Is this discussed/criticized anywhere?

~~~
Zigurd
Not that I know of, though it seems like such a simple idea that someone must
have thought of it.

------
enobrev
I'm not necessarily "anti-police" but I do agree that treating "criminal"
behavior as a mental health issue rather than one to be handled by punitive
measures is the best way forward.

~~~
anigbrowl
This is a huge problem in the US; lots of people have mental health problems
but there are very few votes in trying to fix it. I've gone on at length about
this before so I'll just offer these two links for people who want to get up
to speed on the issue:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/w...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/what-
happened-to-u-s-mental-health-care-after-deinstitutionalization/)

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/timeline-
mental-...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/timeline-mental-
health-america)

------
kenesom1
Disarming most police patrols would be an excellent start. Most of the
violence committed against innocent civilians is perpetrated by the police. In
major cities like Los Angeles, "no criminal organization kills as many people
as the police.” [1]

[1] [http://www.fatalencounters.org/shocking-police-homicide-
perc...](http://www.fatalencounters.org/shocking-police-homicide-percentages/)

~~~
kahirsch
> Most of the violence committed against innocent civilians is perpetrated by
> the police.

That sentence is completely different from "no criminal organization kills as
many people as the police." While it is shockingly high, 3 to 8 percent is not
50%.

EDIT: Also, the majority of police victims are probably not "innocent"
civilians, but armed, violent criminals.

~~~
ChristianBundy
> ...the majority of police victims are probably not "innocent" civilians, but
> armed, violent criminals.

Citation needed.

------
mikerichards
As long as we have a society dominated by government, we'll have a society
dominated by its enforcement agents.

~~~
krapp
This brings up the inevitable question of what you would have society be
dominated by, if not government?

~~~
rayiner
I don't know why this is always posed as some sort of hypothetical or thought
experiment, as if we don't have ample empirical evidence. Before modern
nation-states emerged, we had feudal war lords in charge. When you overthrow
nation-states, as in Afghanistan or Iraq, the feudal war lords return to
power. Those are the two options.

~~~
mikerichards
_Those are the two options._

You were already arguing a false dichotomy, and then ended up admitting it
with that last sentence.

Hopefully one of these days (probably in the far future, if ever), we'll have
a society dominated by individuals cooperating and interacting with each other
without the need for a top down autocracy, which the U.S. is moving towards
now.

But as long as you have government agents and those in the media actively
trying to divide people and pit groups against each other in order to gain
power, that will never happen.

And as long as we have indoctrination of individuals into thinking that
government should be involved in every aspect of their lives in order to
promote fairness, there's no hope.

~~~
rayiner
It's only a false dichotomy if there's another choice, and in history we
haven't seen one at any substantial scale. In any society where there's no
centralized power, a small organized group skilled in violence can terrorize
and dominate a large, disorganized population. That's how feudal warlords came
into power over scattered tribes in the first place.

~~~
phaer
You could have argued the very same way against the possibility of nation-
states before the emerged historically. There's just no way to use history as
some sort of "proof" that there are no other forms to organize a society
besides what has already been there.

~~~
rayiner
Existence is always the favored proof of possibility.

~~~
phaer
Yes, but you are trying to use non-existence as a proof for the opposite of
possibility.

------
stevebot
They recently created uniforms for the Seattle Police department here. Its
nebulous what they hope to accomplish with the added surveillance and
personally it freaks me out.

I'm not saying were an Orwellian police state but at least we are headed that
way.

~~~
anigbrowl
My impression is that most people want the police to wear cameras so they have
something more objective than the officer's verbal assertion when disputes
arise - where they've been deployed, such cameras seem to lead to a reduction
in complaints because officers know their behavior is being recorded.

~~~
lotharbot
It's two sided -- officers behave better because they're on camera, and people
make up fewer false accusations because they know they were on camera.

My city (Denver) passed a law mandating body cameras for police during the
last election. It'll probably be a year or two before we get data on how well
it's worked.

------
tim333
The article seems pretty US focused. There are a lot of countries out there
that are less police dominated that could be used as examples. In the UK where
I am the policing is fairly light. It would be hard to say society is
dominated by it outside a few bad areas where gangs stab each other so the
police have to intervene. I was last stopped by the police about 20 years ago
for driving 130mph in a 70 limit and let off with a warning.

~~~
username223
Yeah, it's a bit different here. The last time I was stopped was a few years
ago for having a burnt-out brake light in Nowheresville, Wyoming. The cop
probably didn't like my dirty car and out-of-state plates, but my paperwork
was in order, and I'm a harmless-looking white dude, so I got away with mild
harassment and a warning.

~~~
poulsbohemian
This is really at the heart of the problem I have with the American approach
to policing - everything becomes a police issue. Your tail light is out. Does
the cop: a) tell you your tail light is out and to have a nice day and drive
safe or b) demand license and registration, take 10 minutes to run a complete
background check, insult you for having the tail light out, threaten to search
the rest of your vehicle, and finally get around to giving you a ticket so
that they can meet their quotas and fill their coffers.

Drugs: we treat it like a policing issue, other countries treat it as a social
and health issue.

Immigration: we turn it into a policing deal when really its an economic and
social system matter.

Gangs: our cops talk tough on the nightly news and the newspaper, but really
this is directly tied to the drug and immigration problem and is again, and
economic problem of when you have disfranchised young men.

Even a lot of the speeding and traffic problems are really cases of poor civil
engineering and traffic management, but we "fix" them through a convenient
policing trick that also generated revenue without raising anyone's taxes
visibly.

Homelessness, especially due to mental illness? Let's make laying on the
sidewalk illegal so we can turn a social problem into a police issue.

So in short, our US system turns things into policing issues because you know,
fixing the real problems would be tough.

------
te_platt
There have been a lot of different ways to make and enforce laws through
history, each with their particular costs and benefits. For a review of
several I recommend this work (in progress) by David Friedman.

[http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_sy...](http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_systems_very_different_12/LegalSystemsDraft.html)

------
anigbrowl
Another suggestion: abolish the practice of 'perp walks' and police
publication of mugshots. They badly prejudice the right to a fair trial, the
government is under no particular obligation to release that information until
someone comes up for trial, and they're a grotesque infringement on the
privacy and dignity of arrestees, many of whom are never even charged with a
crime.

------
mc32
I can certainly imagine the proposed alternatives. I personally don't think
they'll solve the behavioral issues in society at large. They likely would
reduce the amount of policing and supplement traditional policing, but I don't
think it'll eliminate the need. It's not as if all countries conspired and
said, let's all have a police force!

I think the policing grows out of necessity. It's not as if there aren't
lawless places where there is either little police or no police. Those places
exist, for the most part, most people would choose to live in a different
place where there are decently funded police. I'm not saying 'militarized'
police are necessary or desired, but i think large societies need a force
(people or robotic) which enforce the rules (reasonable/constitutionally
sound) out by the population at large. Maybe a robotic force would be more
impartial than people personafying the police force....

------
KevinEldon
If you don't like police in your community elect officials (or get elected
yourself) to stop paying for them. If you don't pay the cops they will not
show up. I assume many of the commenters on this post have some advantages
that would aide in persuading the local citizens of the benefits of
transferring funds for police to education, mental health care, tax reduction,
or whatever.

------
kuni-toko-tachi
Imagine a society not dominated by main stream media. That is much more
important. Control the ideas and dialogue, control the people.

~~~
SwellJoe
I believe we're beginning to see that happen, slowly. Younger folks tend to
get their news from their friends on facebook, twitter, etc. Mainstream media
sources are toward the late stage of the conversation rather than the
beginning and end. I don't know that it's necessarily improving things, in
that a lot of Fox News style bullshit gets passed around in the form of photos
with inaccurate captions, etc. But, "mainstream" it is not.

Then again, the dialogue is still being controlled for enough of the
population that the state line gets reproduced by a large number of people,
possibly even the majority of people, in most instances where the state
interests are at stake. Even seemingly without mainstream media, the message
is well-controlled.

Some recent examples of a large percentage of people seemingly buying into the
state story without question that I found unnerving: "North Korea was
definitely responsible for the attack on Sony" (despite many technically savvy
people having serious questions about that), "Michael Brown was definitely in
a rage and running into a hail of bullets toward an armed police officer when
he was killed" (despite significant evidence to the contrary), "Eric Garner
wouldn't have been killed if he had just obeyed the law; it had nothing to do
with his race", "Tamir Rice pulled a gun on cops" (despite video contradicting
this claim).

------
andyl
I want to patrol my own streets like I want to grow my own food, or supply my
own home energy.

No thanks. People who provide these services do a better job than I ever will.
I'm thankful that they are there, so I can focus all my energy on writing
software.

~~~
SwellJoe
The article makes several suggestions, and only one of them is "community
patrols".

~~~
akira2501
Yes, but it starts with the premise that these are alternatives. If anything,
I think these are things that are good in _addition_ to our current system,
but as a replacement I think it's a bit of a pipe dream.

Further, I take issue with the whole notion of the United States being a
society "dominated by the police." It looks like we have just the right
amount[1], so it seems to me that the issue is lack of training,
accountability and open reporting combined with effective police review that
are likely to be our problems.

1:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers)

~~~
SwellJoe
And, yet, our police seem to be _extraordinarily_ effective at imprisoning
people, comparatively speaking. If we have the right amount of police (at
their current efficiency), does that mean we have the right amount of people
in prison?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate)

~~~
akira2501
I don't mean to be flip, but police do not have the power to imprison people;
it's Juries and Judges do that.

~~~
SwellJoe
That's part of it, and the laws are part of it, too. But, I believe policing
accounts for a significant portion of that disparity between the US and other
developed, democratic-ish, nations.

Here's why I believe that: Black folks are arrested at a rate of 2.5 times, or
more, that of white folks, despite committing crimes at about the same rate as
white folks (actually, for some classes of crime, such as marijuana use,
whites commit crime at a higher rate). This tells me that police exercise
discretion when making arrests. And, were they to exercise that discretion
equally across races, there would be either a lot fewer or a lot more arrests,
and a lot fewer or a lot more people being imprisoned.

In short, to put it into language that HN folks will understand, it is like a
sales funnel. Police are an early stage in the funnel for filling prisons, and
every stage in the funnel plays a role in the prison industrial complex.

Sources on the 2.5, or higher, number (any time race comes up as a factor,
someone will challenge it...so, preemptive response):

[http://www.thenation.com/article/176915/scandal-racist-
marij...](http://www.thenation.com/article/176915/scandal-racist-marijuana-
arrests-and-what-do-about-it)

[http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/11/20/usa-today-finds-
black...](http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/11/20/usa-today-finds-black-people-
arrested-us-much-higher-rates-whites-paper-wont-call-racism/)

[http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/05/us/us-race-marijuana-
arrests/i...](http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/05/us/us-race-marijuana-
arrests/index.html)

[http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/03/02/us-drug-arrests-skewed-
ra...](http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/03/02/us-drug-arrests-skewed-race)

------
omgtehblackbloc
Someone had to say it.

------
simonmd
I don't have to imagine it, It's called Colombia, where the Police is at best
ineffective, and it's fxxxxing anarchy.

So let's imagine instead if the liberal media in the USA had global context
instead of complaining because you have a functional police force with a few
problems that need correcting.

tl;dr First world problems boohoo.

~~~
ende
A few problems? We have something between a state sanctioned fascist
subculture that hates minorities and an organized crime syndicate.

Burn it to the ground and start over.

~~~
mieses
Are you talking about Colombia?

