[alehul]

> omnipurpose paramilitary law enforcement

U.S. civilians own nearly 400 million firearms, which is larger than the country's population. The intentional homicide rate is comparable to Kenya, Pakistan, Ecuador, or Argentina (5x higher than Western Europe). Are you sure that police will be able to operate effectively without being armed in a somewhat militaristic manner?

> redistribute law enforcement responsibilities among domain-specific entities

What will happen if I call 911 and report someone stole from me at gunpoint? What if I report that someone violated my restraining order against them? What if I report that someone is yelling threateningly at waitstaff at a restaurant?

> not violate the public trust

While we absolutely need more oversight, there are over ~55,000,000 documented police-public encounters in a given year, and ~1,000 cases of lethal force used by police (vast majority were people attempting to harm the officers).

The rate of lethal force as a percent of interactions: 0.0000206473%.

The rate of lethal force against the total U.S. population: 0.00000343477%.

[dragonwriter]

I don't have a problem with the existence of paramilitary local law enforcement agencies.

I have a problem with centralized, all-purpose paramilitary law enforcement agencies.

If you ignore half the words of a description, it can change the meaning significantly.

[alehul]

It's a good distinction, so I asked what would happen in each of the three cases. I think that's one of the trickiest parts of this concept.

In a country as armed and violent as the United States, escalation happens quickly and dangerously. We've all seen videos of officers pulling a car over for speeding and being executed the moment they look away, there's been more than a few in the past couple months alone [1] [2] [3]. Nearly any situation can become lethal for the officer and civilians [4], so I think it's fair to ask in what situations there would be an armed responder.

Edited with sources as it was downvoted:

[1] https://nypost.com/2020/09/15/police-release-footage-of-fata... [2] https://apnews.com/article/808248ed232ca2a83dad8780359bf69b [3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/us/south-carolina-deputy-kill...

[4] https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/16-153...

[bberenberg]

>> redistribute law enforcement responsibilities among domain-specific entities

> What will happen if I call 911 and report someone stole from me at gunpoint? What if I report that someone violated my restraining order against them?

FYI, the police have no obligation to do anything in the restraining order scenario: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzale...

In fact, police have no obligation of duty to you as an individual in almost any scenario.

[alehul]

They may not have the obligation to enforce a restraining order, but I imagine >99% of the time they do, and they have for me.

Wasn't an open warrant for violating a restraining order what led to the Jacob Blake alteraction?

[bigbubba]

Exactly right. A few weeks ago there was a shooting in my neighborhood. I heard the gunshots but before I could find my phone to dial 911 the much maligned Seattle PD were already here. They may not have been obliged to come, but they did come, and fast.

[bberenberg]

My anecdotal experiences have been that police haven't done anything to help or protect me every time I have asked for help. Your anecdotal experience seems to be different. Do you have any data to support your 99% claim?

[scythe]

>there are over ~55,000,000 documented police-public encounters in a given year, and ~1,000 cases of lethal force

>The rate of lethal force as a percent of interactions: 0.0000206473%.

Could you explain this number? I get 0.001818%. Did you forget to correct for the factor 100 in giving a percentage?

[sumedh]

> The rate of lethal force against the total U.S. population: 0.00000343477%.

What is the percentage when it comes to Black and Latinos in the US?

[unnouinceput]

Quote: "The rate of lethal force against the total U.S. population: 0.00000343477%"

I would argue that anything above 0.00% is wrong. Police must and should always use non-lethal approach. Regardless of their situation. Sound / visual / sensory approach would incapacitate the violent persona and bring it to justice. Police in now way should be granted judge and executioner roles.

We are either consider life precious or not at all. No middle ground.

[alehul]

We should reduce it as much as we can, but this is a country of >300,000,000 with >6,000,000 crimes occurring each year.

Of the percent I cited, >90% of that lethal force is against an armed individual.

I don't know what sensory approach could prevent every single death, when there are so many cases of violence in this country.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6080222/

[unnouinceput]

What are you talking about? Shooting syrings instead of bullets to incapacitate is one low cost that can easily be deployed. Not to mention a plethora of all other non-lethal weaponry that exists. Another is this, though less economical viable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System.

Where there is a will...

[d1sxeyes]

So 0.00000343477% IS below 0.00%.

[unnouinceput]

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0.00000343477%25+%3C+0...

Result: False

[d1sxeyes]

I should be clearer:

There are values of 0.00000343477% which are below 0.00%.

[watwut]

You know, the bad murder stats in your first paragraph do not suggest people should trust the police. They suggest police is not doing good job and that people are rightly frustrated

[dragonwriter]

> You know, the bad murder stats in your first paragraph do not suggest people should trust the police.

Yeah, I don't know why the biggest argument people raise against radical reform of the US law enforcement system is "the current system is doing a spectacularly bad job at controlling crime, so we shouldn't mess with it".

[alehul]

Seeing a high crime rate doesn't automatically call for radical reform — and in a way abolition — of the status quo of law enforcement.

Why is the crime rate high? Is it really because of police, or do they help? How will some radical restructuring reduce it?

There are many questions here.

Preventative policing, while effective in social democratic countries with low inequality like the Nordics, isn't on the table when we see violent crime that mirrors African and South American countries. Disincentivizing homicide in a country rife with inequality and materialism is a harder task than we imagine.

There are ~900,000 police officers in the United States, and 240 million 911 calls, and 50 million police-public interactions. That's an average of over 50 interactions per day for a police officer.

[watwut]

African and South American countries you have in mind have typically highly corrupt police force. Police themselves being often also criminals or cooperating with them is big part of problem. I dont think that is argument for why it is good idea to adopt their tactics.

The murder clearance rates are quite low when I checked, so at least part of issues is the way police prioritize their work. And you wont raise murder clearance rates by surveilling protesters nor by having guns from army nor by arresting people for loitering and what not.

You cant disincentivize homicide when you don't catch murderers. And most murders are also among people who know each other, not random events.

[jjk166]

> There are ~900,000 police officers in the United States, and 240 million 911 calls, and 50 million police-public interactions. That's an average of over 50 interactions per day for a police officer.

Those are numbers per year, not per day.

[throwaway9980]

Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.

- Mao Zedong

It's easy to wonder how the government would collect taxes without armed police. Or confiscate guns if stricter gun control laws are created. The reality is, of course, that they merely want to defund or disarm this version of the police.