What would be different if there was no police

[Beskar]

Robocop called, he wants his alternative reality back.

Ie: The Future

[Slyspy]

Why not? More interesting a question to start with imho, why such trust into a single entity. Nobody asks why in the shopping mall, having a set of eyes and ears isn't all that hard, outsourcing makes total sense. Cheaper, less prone to corruption, and an incentive to do a good job because you can always do business with someone else. Quik easy and painless.

Currently shopping mall security staff here in the UK are largly powerless, so there is no point corrupting them. I fail to see how local law enforcement of the type you suggest could be anything other than corrupt. Local councils are bad enough. I also fail to see how subject policing to market forces is going to automatically be A Good Thing (tm).

[Crazed Rabbit]

Maybe someone could tell me how private police officers would have made this story worse:

Exposing DEA agent costs KCK police detective his job

By JOE LAMBE

The Kansas City Star

Max Seifert shot men who tried to kill him and helped solve one of the area’s most horrific animal abuse cases.

But a federal judge says the case that cost the Kansas City, Kan., detective the most was his honest investigation of a road rage attack by a federal agent.

Seifert exposed the truth about a man who was beaten and charged with a crime after he wouldn’t let an unmarked car pass him on the right.

For crossing “the thin blue line,” U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson wrote, Seifert was forced into retirement.

“Seifert was shunned, subjected to gossip and defamation by his police colleagues and treated as a pariah,” Robinson wrote. “… The way Seifert was treated was shameful.”

Before Seifert started working on the beating case, she wrote, evaluations noted his “diligence and dedication.” He’d won commendations for shooting an armed man and freeing two hostages, and for shooting a man who tried to run him down with a pickup truck.

But none of that saved him from being forced out, the judge wrote.

Seifert never sued anybody.

His case might never have come to light if Robinson hadn’t mentioned his ouster from the Police Department in her recent ruling that awarded Barron Bowling, the federal agent’s beating victim, more than $830,000 for assault, battery and excessive force.

While Bowling found justice, Seifert lost part of his pension and health insurance when he was forced to leave his career early.

“That’s why he’s still working,” his wife, Mary Ann, said last week.

Seifert’s troubles began seven years ago after Drug Enforcement Administration agent Timothy McCue tried to pass Bowling on the right in a wide lane. Bowling sped up and the cars collided.

Bowling drove forward before he pulled over so he wouldn’t block traffic, the judge wrote. That’s when McCue, gun out, rushed him. Bowling was beaten unconscious by McCue and then taken to jail.

The case ended with the recent order for the U.S. government to pay Bowling for McCue’s actions, but a previous ruling outlined allegations against the Kansas City, Kan., Police Department.

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., settled its part of the case last year for $425,000 but admitted no liability on conspiracy, malicious prosecution or abuse of process.

Before that settlement, the judge issued the pretrial ruling that described how Seifert was pressured to play along with a cover-up that started soon after the crash. Officers at the crash scene failed to report or photograph Bowling’s injuries or report what witnesses said, the judge wrote.

Instead, Police Officer Robert Lane told Bowling he was going to jail because DEA agents “do pretty much whatever they want,” the judge wrote.

Bowling was accused of assaulting DEA agents by intentionally causing the crash, and Lane ordered a reporting officer to omit the evidence of the beating and witnesses’ statements, Robinson wrote.

After Seifert spoke to Bowling in jail, though, the detective told a boss that internal affairs should take the case instead. Seifert got it anyway and called Lane to ask why there were no witness reports.

“It would look bad for DEA agents,” Lane replied, according to the judge’s report, adding that police “should cover for them.”

Seifert still proceeded to record interviews with three witnesses who confirmed the beating, but the judge later noted that the tape mysteriously disappeared after Seifert turned it over to superiors.

Deputy Chief Steven Culp told Seifert he should investigate only the alleged car assault on McCue, the judge wrote, not the accusation of beating.

Seifert finished his investigation and submitted it to prosecutors. They declined to charge Bowling.

But Culp — who discussed the case over golf with a special agent in charge at the DEA — later gave the prosecutor more statements from the DEA agents and urged charges, the judge stated.

The prosecutor ended up charging Bowling with felony criminal damage to property and the misdemeanors of leaving the scene of an accident and possessing drug paraphernalia, a marijuana pipe.

Throughout the case, Culp and Maj. Dennis Ware managed it for police, the judge wrote. Police Chief Ronald Miller got updates from them but was not directly involved.

In a sworn statement for Bowling’s civil case, Seifert said his bosses managed a cover-up.

“I’ve never seen Col. Culp walk into my office and take such an interest in a case. … I’ve never been paid visits by Maj. Ware like they were.”

In the end, the judge said, the criminal case was based on McCue’s false statement that Bowling intentionally hit the DEA car, when McCue was the one who had tried to force his way into traffic.

Seifert testified for the defense at Bowling’s criminal trial, where jurors found the man not guilty of the felony, but convicted him on the misdemeanors.

But to police, the judge said, the detective was guilty.

Seifert said in the sworn statement, taken shortly before his retirement, that police started an internal affairs investigation of him and Miller made it clear he was unhappy with him.

Miller told him that he alone would determine whether Seifert got a reserve commission to do police work after he retired, Seifert said, which is something that officers typically rely on. He didn’t get it.

Seifert, 60, and his wife still live in Kansas City, Kan. His wife said he was forced to retire less than a year before he would have been fully vested. That meant the detective who helped solve the 1997 torture and killing of Scruffy the dog — whose case led to “Scruffy’s Law” — lost health insurance and 2.5 percent off his pension, she said.

Jody Boeding, chief counsel for the Unified Government, said the government “respectfully disagrees with Judge Robinson’s conclusions about the actions of the police commanders” and believes they acted appropriately.

Miller has left the force and is now the police chief in Topeka. He did not return phone calls.

As for Lane, he became an Edwardsville councilman. He left the Police Department in 2007 after he pleaded no contest to four misdemeanors associated with a drunken-driving ticket-fixing scheme. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and probation and is no longer on the council. He could not be reached for comment.

Culp is now the executive director of the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training. He declined to comment on details of the judicial rulings, which he said he had not read.

Ware has retired from the force and now works for the police in a civilian capacity. He did not reply to an e-mail request for comment.

Kansas City, Kan., Police Chief Rick Armstrong said the judge’s depiction of the case does not reflect past or current attitudes in the Police Department.

“This Police Department vigorously investigates allegations of misconduct,” he said.

Wyandotte County prosecutors declined to comment.

McCue is still a DEA agent, a spokesperson said. The DEA and federal attorneys representing the agency declined comment. They said they are still studying the ruling.

CR

[Askthepizzaguy]

Personally I think we should abolish all current government regarding the law and have everything decided by me personally. Armed, untrained, macho vigilantes working purely for the adrenaline rush (and a drum of various mind-altering drugs) will bring me all sorts of offenders who will have no rights that need to be read, and I will personally decree that all the lawyers will now and forever be forced to dress as clowns and perform tricks at children's parties. I will shred the current body of laws in an actual shredding machine. The law will be whatever I had to say on the matter the last time I offered my opinion, to be changed at my discretion, even if I am drunk.

I will have a finger on a button that says "flush" and every case brought before me will involve the parties in question standing on a trapdoor. They each have 5 seconds to make their case. When it stops being amusing to me, I will press the "flush" button. Where they go, after they enter the trap door, will be something that is subject to my whims. I propose a high-speed series of clear plastic transport tubes that deposit people in various locations, depending on my mood. They can end up being flushed down a pipe that leads to the bottom of the ocean, where they are ejected and turned into fish food. They can end up 50 feet above a snowy mountain slope, and there will be television cameras positioned so that every time someone falls, their bodies will drop down the rocky, snowy face of the mountain until they stop tumbling, and there will be prizes based on where their broken body finally stops moving, like a Plinko machine. I will be the recipient of all such prizes, because I am awesome, but once per year I will allow two hobos to fight it out and claim a prize, and they must claim it by killing the other one with a plastic picnic spoon, without using their hands, which leaves only the teeth or the toes or another creatively strategic location to hold it steady. Another tube will transport them to a room that is filled with sexy dancing girls, and for 3 whole seconds they will believe I am being a kind and generous man, but then another trapdoor opens and they will have to battle the Rancor, again using only a plastic picnic spoon, and this time, without the use of their hands, feet, or mouth, so they will have to be very creative in how they wield it.

I will genetically engineer the Rancor using only the finest public funds that would have otherwise been spent on wars and silly things like education.

Also, I will get backlogged, often, as sometimes I have to sleep, so there will be a chamber where all the people who are too impatient can go and get my "express service" where I render sudden summary judgment on all of them. They will be allowed to collectively plead their case by voting on which single word from the English language they wish to submit as their testimony. If I do not laugh, I will press the "flush" button, and they will be forced to spend the next 70 years in a room with a man named Frank who never speaks and always wants to comb their hair while viciously poking them in the eye with his finger. For this he will be paid a handsome salary, and be given medical benefits and a huge pension, which he will never be allowed to collect, but I will tell him it is there.

I will settle all civil disputes by forcing the parties in question to do improvisational comedy, and whichever one makes me laugh the least gets flushed, and the other person gets all their worldly possessions.

I promise that my brand of justice will be cruel, absolute, and there will be no appeals process. I will be appointed for life, and my work schedule will be "whenever I feel like it" which will be every third tuesday for 1 hour. After that, it's off to Bermuda with a gaggle of nude models.

Surely we can all agree that this system is better than what we have now?

[Fragony]

Currently shopping mall security staff here in the UK are largly powerless, so there is no point corrupting them. I fail to see how local law enforcement of the type you suggest could be anything other than corrupt. Local councils are bad enough. I also fail to see how subject policing to market forces is going to automatically be A Good Thing (tm).

More accountable and more flexiblity, I don't see how it would lead to more corruption, current system is much more prone to that.

[Husar]

Maybe someone could tell me how private police officers would have made this story worse:


CR

Ah yes, because one case proves that police is the worst thing ever and everyone knows that the USA have the best police in the world so there couldn't possibly be any police system that works better.

I'm totally with Askthepizzaguy's idea, I mean why not?

[Rhyfelwyr]

What's with all the hyperbole in this thread?

What?! You want one centralised police force controlled by some suits with an institutionalised monopoly on the use of force? Oh know, there will be nobody to question them! Their powers will go unchecked! And their power is even legally ingrained in the political system?! The government will be able to use them whenever and however they want! They'll be a new Gestapo, we'll be living in a fascist police state. Nooooo!

I do not support the OP's proposals but can we at least keep things sensible?

[Quid]

Personally I think we should abolish all current government ...

Pure class! Thanks!

A privatised police force is a terrible idea on so many levels. All I have to say on this as most has already been said.

Quid

[Fragony]

Ah yes, because one case proves that police is the worst thing ever and everyone knows that the USA have the best police in the world so there couldn't possibly be any police system that works better.

I'm totally with Askthepizzaguy's idea, I mean why not?

Because it's taking a tiny bit of government back where it belongs, ie own responsibility. That needs people wlling to organise, put them in a situation and they will. Why such lazy thinking, if it were a college assignment it would probably spawn nothing but creativity.

[rory_20_uk]

What's with all the hyperbole in this thread?

What?! You want one centralised police force controlled by some suits with an institutionalised monopoly on the use of force? Oh know, there will be nobody to question them! Their powers will go unchecked! And their power is even legally ingrained in the political system?! The government will be able to use them whenever and however they want! They'll be a new Gestapo, we'll be living in a fascist police state. Nooooo!

I do not support the OP's proposals but can we at least keep things sensible?

Something that is "clearly" so preposterous can be shot down without this drivel [illustrated in the aforementioned quote]

Rhyfelwyr, you forgot deathsquads, concentration camps, illegal torture, deportations...

Hang on, all have been set up by current systems.

[Fragony]

Pure class! Thanks!

A privatised police force is a terrible idea on so many levels. All I have to say on this as most has already been said.

Quid

Which is that it's a bad idea. Because, ehhhhhh we agree it's a bad idea, now let's get naked.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Unless you find people who all care about the police as much as you do, I doubt the creativity of the people you want to burden with running their own police force is going to come up with something much different from a police force -- only many times more expensive. It's costly to hire private contractors who want money up front. It costs nothing up front to use the police (literally: nothing). And the reason is that police is written off on the national balance sheet rather than your own, that police is not a for profit organisation, and that police are paid a lot less than private contractors doing equivalent work.

Private contractors and other private security staff earn much, much, much more as private contractor than as equivalent employee of a state agency.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Rhyfelwyr, you forgot deathsquads, concentration camps, illegal torture, deportations...

Hang on, all have been set up by current systems.

I was parodying the lefties, just to be clear, eg Jolt's outburst..

As Tellos said, the problem with private security isn't that it would lead to gang chaos/anarchy, most people simply don't care enough for all the fuss that would come with maintaing their own private security. And even if it was done collectively within communities, the social links within them these days are far too weak compared to even 30 years ago, so it would end up getting placed in the hands of some committee, which would probably end up being dependent on the council, then for the sake of ease the links between them would be formalised, and suddenly it's in the hands of the government again.

[gaelic cowboy]

I bet you any money private cops would be badly paid due to the parent company trying to save money in order the shareholders got a return.

That would lead to high turnover of staff, low morale etc etc gimme comfortable lazy civil servant anyday when it come to security.

[Strike For The South]

What would be different if there was no police

The muslims would rape your women and steal your possesions AND then as the coup de grace install sharia law


Edit: so basically you're back where you started lol.

[Fragony]

The muslims would rape your women and steal your possesions AND then as the coup de grace install sharia law


Edit: so basically you're back where you started lol.

Since when did you become 100% normal, get in line to deliver that doomsday argument

Did you notice by the way that you make less spelling mistakes when you are drunk

[Tellos Athenaios]

Fragony I think you're onto something here. Maybe its is because when you are drunk you can't muster the energy to get in a mad typing frenzy and the SNR of your typing may depend on the number keystrokes per second?

[Kagemusha]

The main problem with private police forces is the same problem that makes them redundant as option. If we would have private companies offering law enforcement, how would we make it sure that each company would set standards and the citizens would get equal service from different companies? We would need to standardize their training and set up an institution to monitor these companies. Also we would need some sort of organisation to coordinate the efforts which would need cooperation of several local operators. So in the end we would have to create a similar institution we already have, in other words we would be disbanding and reinventing the police. So in the end if the problems currently are not in the organisation of police forces, why should we have to disband such organisation? If the only reason is that someone wants that organisation to be in private ownership, why dont we just sell the current police organisation to the highest bidder, thus creating a private monopoly of violence instead of public one? Any takers?

[rory_20_uk]

Not so.

Currently all police forces are separate and have central oversight and standards. Keep these two as they are and the rest are private.

Many Public institutions go to private companies for training. As the private companies are accredited to train at a certain standard they then can undertake this.

You'd be amazed at how private companies manage to work together all the time. It's surreal. Cars are made. Foodstuffs are shipped to shops, buildings are created. All without the state needing to be in charge of ever stage to make it work. Some have even noticed that this is done more efficiently than if all were owned by the state - although in theory that should be impossible.

The whole point is that different areas do things slightly differently as opposed to the "one size doesn't fit anyone" approach. The forces would be far more likely to adapt and learn off each other.

"If a Supermarket makes a change to improve efficiency / services / profits within a week all the other supermarkets are doing it. If a Hospital makes a similar change, within a week all others are saying it's impossible / dangerous / counter-productive".

[Slyspy]

I believe there is still some hazy notion that shops and hospitals are somehow different.

[Strike For The South]

Since when did you become 100% normal, get in line to deliver that doomsday argument

Did you notice by the way that you make less spelling mistakes when you are drunk

I posted that at 1:45 in the afternoon.....

[rory_20_uk]

Sadly there is far too much of a difference.

There is almost no desire to learn from the best, to innovate or to engage staff in hospitals. Except when it is killing off competition in ways that in any other industry would get one referred for market distortion / cartel formation.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Police officers are essentially a hybrid public/private security in the US. They work for companies, campuses, towns, counties, cities, states and the Federal government.

The common bond is that they tend to uphold both laws held in common and local ordinances. I'm not sure what the benefit would be of having a police force that was not beholden to the concept of equal justice for the people, but rather extra justice for the patrons.

[Fragony]

I posted that at 1:45 in the afternoon.....

Never been drunk at that time?

epic=-1

again

[Kagemusha]

Not so.

Currently all police forces are separate and have central oversight and standards. Keep these two as they are and the rest are private.

Many Public institutions go to private companies for training. As the private companies are accredited to train at a certain standard they then can undertake this.

You'd be amazed at how private companies manage to work together all the time. It's surreal. Cars are made. Foodstuffs are shipped to shops, buildings are created. All without the state needing to be in charge of ever stage to make it work. Some have even noticed that this is done more efficiently than if all were owned by the state - although in theory that should be impossible.

The whole point is that different areas do things slightly differently as opposed to the "one size doesn't fit anyone" approach. The forces would be far more likely to adapt and learn off each other.

"If a Supermarket makes a change to improve efficiency / services / profits within a week all the other supermarkets are doing it. If a Hospital makes a similar change, within a week all others are saying it's impossible / dangerous / counter-productive".

I work in a private company.I dont need a lecture how private companies work. Please tell me how adaption only works in private sector? Maybe private sector should also train and provide militaries also, as they are superior to any public organisation by default? Public institutions do not have to be inefficient by nature. Also profit making and maintaining law is hardly a good combination.

[rory_20_uk]

I work in consultancy so I've got a pretty good idea of how many Private and Public services work.

The data - and there is a vast amount of is shows how much better the Private sector is on adapting on average. I'm not a idealist, I'm a pragmatist. I want a system that works, not one that is based purely on ideals.

Public sector doesn't make profit, and hence quickly becomes bloated and inefficient as why not?

Do you really have to reiterate the tired old hysteria that charges towards privatising everything as proving that it's a bad idea somehow mirrors what was actually being discussed.

[Kagemusha]

I work in consultancy so I've got a pretty good idea of how many Private and Public services work.

The data - and there is a vast amount of is shows how much better the Private sector is on adapting on average. I'm not a idealist, I'm a pragmatist. I want a system that works, not one that is based purely on ideals.

Public sector doesn't make profit, and hence quickly becomes bloated and inefficient as why not?

Do you really have to reiterate the tired old hysteria that charges towards privatising everything as proving that it's a bad idea somehow mirrors what was actually being discussed.

Are you now talking about UK or world wide? Profit in itself is not only way to create efficient organisations. Could it be that for example the problems in your police services might spring from too low public spending? Could it be that too big contrast between the salaries of public and private sector springing from low spending might result into most talented people going into private sector in UK?For example Finland where i live has for years and years been at the top of the lists of most efficient economies in the world, while we have a large public sector. If supported and monitored enough and thus made competetive a public organisation can be just as effective as a private one.

There are reasons why the essential organisations of society are by large handled by public organisations. A company trying to make profit geopardises equality, which governments should try to offer to citizens. Second private companies can go bancrupt and are unstable depending on the market, which does not apply to governments so easily. We cant loose our police forces because of a market crash. Last at certain fields making of profit just does not suite the role of a organisation. This applies directly to defence and police forces.

You can accuse me of hysteria against privatizing, but i might as well call you out of uncalled preaching about superiority of private companies compared to public organisations.