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.
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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
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.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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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
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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Here in Australia, there aren't any bullshit field sobriety tests - the breathalyzer just comes out and you get tested. If you blow over, you then wait 15 minutes if you produce a lower reading, before trying again. If you still blow over, you then go to the station to get a proper test done before the police can legally prove anything.
There are obviously freedom-based downsides to mandatory roadside testing, but if the alternative is the kind of shit in this story, then I'm happy with our system here. Never had an issue with it myself... unless we're talking roadside drug testing, which is flawed as fuck, and most of the time produces a positive result the day after, leading to a loss of license. We literally have 'road safety' billboards along our highways plastered with the tagline "get caught long after the high is gone."
Australia is so fucking behind the times in so many ways, it drives me insane.
I believe us yanks are allowed to waive field sobriety tests and request a breathalizer instead.
Depends on where you are.
When I was a kid you could say no at which point they could get a court order to take your blood and test. This was “recommended” to me as a way to get out of you might blow over. The person who recommended this to me was a shitty human.
I don’t think that was actually law but I do know you can decline the field sobriety but then can be forced to breathalyze which while not open for human judgement it is known to be wildly inaccurate. The police can charge you “per se” here which is based solely on the breathalyzer though, so that sucks. That said don’t fucking drink and drive