[bko]

> administrators of state power capitalizing on their execution of it for fame

Aren't the administrators of state power the prosecutors? Police are more rank and file dealing with the issues. Then it gets kicked up to prosecutors and court system that indirectly drives police action. If crimes don't get prosecuted, police don't make arrests. That's why I pass by half a dozen people illegally selling weed or fake handbags on the streets every day.

For instance, police can have a different perspective more in line with reality. They'll arrest the same person multiple times, know his story and the story of the victims. By the time it goes through the legal system (essentially upper management) and through all the layers of bureaucracy, it morphs into something else entirely.

If body camera footage taught me anything is that overwhelming majority of the time I sympathize with the police. They're often very reasonable and act with restraint in a difficult situation. I see clips regularly where without a video the situation would appear very bad for police. This is so common, some commentators like John Oliver came out against police cameras because they're too sympathetic to police because I don't know, angles or something? Really broke the illusion that cops are mostly a group of bullies terrorizing neighborhoods and arresting people at random.

Sure bad cops exist, but I trust their incentives and instinct a lot more than the judicial process, the true "administrators of state power"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP4_2soVZe0

[inigyou]

No, because the primary instruments of state power are arrest, detention, interrogation, etc. permanent jail (which requires a prosecutor, judge, lawyers) takes less importance than people think it does. By the time you get there, the police have already smashed all your stuff, taken away your job, ruined all your future background checks even if the court finds you innocent.

Why do you think police grab protestors, beat them up, declare they have nothing to charge them with and release them? That is the punishment for protesting. The punishment for protesting is not getting a jail sentence (usually), it's getting beaten up and released by cops. In America it's getting shot by cops and probably dying. In the UK it's getting picked up from your home after the protest and taken to the police station for questioning.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

The police have an enormous amount of power in the system. They can unilaterally decide to let people get away with something illegal, or arrest people for doing something fully legal because they felt like it. And even if prosecutors drop the charges in the latter case, being arrested, processed, and jailed until that happens is very much a punishment and an act of state violence in and of itself. The bad cops you mention, do exist and continue to exist because the police have so much power in the system that bad ones can't be fired for inexcusable behavior or even doing crimes themselves (exceptions exist, but are rare). They are as much as administrator of state power as the judges and prosecutors. I would even argue they are more so because of the directness of their actions.