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Most Police Don’t Live In The Cities They Serve (fivethirtyeight.com)
8 points by aaronbrethorst on Aug 20, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments



Apart from the racial mismatch in some places does this really mean anything other than suburbs are more attractive for some people and/or some people can't afford to live near their work?


A good question. City of Denver had police residency requirements until 10 (?) years ago, as I understand it, mainly because of some 70s-Brown-Power type of pious hope that if the police lived where they policed, there'd be a lot less bad relations and bad enforcement.

I think that police not living where they work is import in a Chomskyite way. From the Logic of Suveillance (http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-logic-of-surveillance/):

This is one of the biggest problems the current elites face: they want the smallest enforcer class possible, so as to spend surplus on other things. The enforcer class is also insular, primarily concerned with itself (see Dorner) and is paid in large part by practical immunity to many laws and a license to abuse ordinary people.

The ability to live in a separate community will only promote that insularity.




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