What would be different if there was no police

[a completely inoffensive name]

I agree, private companies managed by a table of CEO's placed by a select group of stockholders are more accountable then local police governed by politicians directly voted in by the public. We need to privatize as much as possible including our safety. Government obviously can't even protect us, why do we have it in the first place?

[Fragony]

You can always hire a different company, so it's in their interest to do a good job. It's not in the interest of the police to do a good job you are stuck with them anyway, and the bigger the problem the more money they get from the state to fix it. Do you need police to watch shopping malls, security does just fine, so why not expand that to the entire public domain?

[rory_20_uk]

I agree, private companies managed by a table of CEO's placed by a select group of stockholders are more accountable then local police governed by politicians directly voted in by the public. We need to privatize as much as possible including our safety. Government obviously can't even protect us, why do we have it in the first place?

Sigh. Nice hyperbole. Concentrate on problems, don't think of solutions...

A mutual organisation owned by local people.
Locally held shareholders (or a percentage thereof) with shares linked to the house occupants and non-transferrable.

Look at the background to the Co-Op.

Politicians are chosen by a clique and the populace are given a few who they can elect on what they "promise" to do - although are not legally held to. There is no chance to get rid of them until the next election, and only then for another in the same process.

[a completely inoffensive name]

You can always hire a different company, so it's in their interest to do a good job. It's not in the interest of the police to do a good job you are stuck with them anyway, and the bigger the problem the more money they get from the state to fix it. Do you need police to watch shopping malls, security does just fine, so why not expand that to the entire public domain?

Saying that you can always hire a different company is an assumption that does not always hold true. I want fast internet, oh well I have a "choice" of Comcast or AT&T in my region. AT&T is charging me too much, I want to switch. Well Comcast knows they are the only other company, so they put a strangle on my wallet by charging as much if not more then AT&T. I don't want to stick with one crappy company but the only way to ditch it is to shell out tons of money to the other. If I decline to give either of these companies my money, I am without protection period and anyone can come kill me and my family.

Quite frankly, I don't trust mercenaries to genuinely care about my safety, they only want my money, cops in local areas are generally from the area and have a connection to the region.

EDIT: Also, no one reports the times when cops do their jobs right as often as when they do it wrong. When a cop does his job right, the outcome is usually boring (waiting for a deranged person to simply come outside and give up after a 5 hour standoff or waiting for a car chase to result in an empty tank of gas and one screwed escapee). You all know how it is, it's the same with guns. Guns are killing everyone! We hear about it everyday, but I'm sure a lot of those I am arguing against here would agree that there are many, many cases where the guns do their job safely and correctly with the proper use by responsible citizens.

[Husar]

Fragony, ask a small shopkeeper in town whose shop is not in a big mall what he thinks about paying a security guard 2000€ a month to guard his little shop. Even if they hired one guy for 5 shops it would be 400 a month, now how much of his tax currently goes towards funding the police? The police are also not nearly as useless as you make them out to be, you're completely exaggerating that, you sound like it was safer in the middle ages.

[Fragony]

Fragony, ask a small shopkeeper in town whose shop is not in a big mall what he thinks about paying a security guard 2000€ a month to guard his little shop. Even if they hired one guy for 5 shops it would be 400 a month, now how much of his tax currently goes towards funding the police? The police are also not nearly as useless as you make them out to be, you're completely exaggerating that, you sound like it was safer in the middle ages.

They can hire collectively, so can entire neighbourhoods. Taxes can lower if we dismantle the police so that shouldn't be a problem. Another advantage, the most dangerous criminal is a corrupt cop, who's going to protect the small shopkeeper abuse from them?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Sigh. Nice hyperbole. Concentrate on problems, don't think of solutions...

A mutual organisation owned by local people.
Locally held shareholders (or a percentage thereof) with shares linked to the house occupants and non-transferrable.

Look at the background to the Co-Op.

Politicians are chosen by a clique and the populace are given a few who they can elect on what they "promise" to do - although are not legally held to. There is no chance to get rid of them until the next election, and only then for another in the same process.

I have a solution. Care more about local politics and vote better people in who want more accountability. If we are willingly acknowledging that people cannot vote in the right people, then I guess democracy is just one big failure and everything should be privatized including decision making on the nation as a whole.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I agree, private companies managed by a table of CEO's placed by a select group of stockholders are more accountable then local police governed by politicians directly voted in by the public. We need to privatize as much as possible including our safety. Government obviously can't even protect us, why do we have it in the first place?

Scar Face & Black Water endorse this public service announcement.

[rory_20_uk]

I have a solution. Care more about local politics and vote better people in who want more accountability. If we are willingly acknowledging that people cannot vote in the right people, then I guess democracy is just one big failure and everything should be privatized including decision making on the nation as a whole.

At University, there was a null vote which meant a call for all new candidates. That allowed the voters to have real claws. We don't. Even if 1 vote is cast, we get an MP. Do you see that form of democracy making its way into UK politics?
Running a campaign even at local level requires money, so you need backing, or to be very rich. There are limits on spending, but the abuse of the system is rife. Who is going to reform it? The people abusing it? Fat chance.

More accountability? Don't make me laugh. If they say on their manifesto they'll publish everything that goes on, even if they wanted to they'd be stopped by central government. Even if central government wanted to the Civil Service would probably delay it for years. There is so much embedded self-interest in the current system that only radical ways to in essence bypass it will achieve anything. Get the Civil Service to reform and come back in a decade - and it's bigger. Their internal audit found they were massively understaffed...

Government should be there for overarching strategic matters and oversight. It plays to their strengths.

Most other matters should have as little to do with government as humanly possible - except the aforesaid oversight.

[rory_20_uk]

Saying that you can always hire a different company is an assumption that does not always hold true. I want fast internet, oh well I have a "choice" of Comcast or AT&T in my region. AT&T is charging me too much, I want to switch. Well Comcast knows they are the only other company, so they put a strangle on my wallet by charging as much if not more then AT&T. I don't want to stick with one crappy company but the only way to ditch it is to shell out tons of money to the other. If I decline to give either of these companies my money, I am without protection period and anyone can come kill me and my family.

Quite frankly, I don't trust mercenaries to genuinely care about my safety, they only want my money, cops in local areas are generally from the area and have a connection to the region.

EDIT: Also, no one reports the times when cops do their jobs right as often as when they do it wrong. When a cop does his job right, the outcome is usually boring (waiting for a deranged person to simply come outside and give up after a 5 hour standoff or waiting for a car chase to result in an empty tank of gas and one screwed escapee). You all know how it is, it's the same with guns. Guns are killing everyone! We hear about it everyday, but I'm sure a lot of those I am arguing against here would agree that there are many, many cases where the guns do their job safely and correctly with the proper use by responsible citizens.

IN the UK, one village was going to be charged £50,000 to be connected by BT. They formed a company and got another povider to do it for a lot less. As Fragony said, it does require collective action.

Everyone is a Merc. We do jobs for the money (unless we're loaded enough not ot need it - I certainly do need the money). Being employed by the state doesn't alter that fact. Most teachers do their hours and go home. They do their job and mainly do what's best for them. Same as lawers, firefighters, nurses, doctors (I know one who saw a pedestrian hit by a car being treated by paramedics. Didn't even break stride).

Why do you think that private security guards would suddenly be employed from miles away? In the UK, police chase targets. So whatever the new targets are is the area that gets targeted. Set by central government with no interest on what the locals want. Certain crimes are also branded misdemeanours to reduce the levels of certain crimes in areas. Same with medicine. But somehow this is much better than what the nasty private sector would do...

Cops do often do a good job. Although it has been found that the public's perception of police decreases the more interaction they have with them. That's certainly been my experience (man banging on door late at night. Called police. Am I in an imminent emergency? Well, unless he kicks the door in and is armed then no - but shall I call back as I'm being attacked? They sent 2 officers around in the morning. I wanted something at the time for probably only a few seconds, not two the next morning to waste 1 hour of their time each as well as mine).

Guns are as safe in the right hands as drugs are.

[Husar]

They can hire collectively, so can entire neighbourhoods. Taxes can lower if we dismantle the police so that shouldn't be a problem.

Great, so now he pays 200€ for security and gets a tax cut of 30€, where exactly was the advantage again?

Another advantage, the most dangerous criminal is a corrupt cop, who's going to protect the small shopkeeper abuse from them?

How many cops do abuse small shopkeepers?
Who is going to protect the shopkeepers from abuse by their own security guard mafia which has 100% control over their area?

[rory_20_uk]

Great, so now he pays 200€ for security and gets a tax cut of 30€, where exactly was the advantage again?


How many cops do abuse small shopkeepers?
Who is going to protect the shopkeepers from abuse by their own security guard mafia which has 100% control over their area?

Oh, so you've plucked the numbers out of thin air.

There is currently not one officer per 10 shops. If there's one per 60 shops the cost is the same.

Who protects the shopkeepers? That would be the national oversight. The same thing that stops the police from doing exactly that at the moment. Or are all current police instinctively honest (as a public service) and all future ones instinctively corrupt (as private)? Beginning to sound like a cracked record.

[Slyspy]

They can hire collectively, so can entire neighbourhoods. Taxes can lower if we dismantle the police so that shouldn't be a problem. Another advantage, the most dangerous criminal is a corrupt cop, who's going to protect the small shopkeeper abuse from them?

Yes, we could hire collectively. But who should organise it? Maybe everyone in the parish (borough, county, postcode?) should vote to form a Policing Committee. And maybe some of that Committee should also attend a regional organisation, so as to ensure that information is shared and cooperation effective. And then members of that organisation could form a national body to coordinate the whole thing. And then after a few years the whole thing would become an institution, thus defeating the whole purpose of the exercise. Except that now the police presence would have "Group 4" instead of a Crown. Not very reassuring.

[Husar]

Oh, so you've plucked the numbers out of thin air.

Fragony plucked his whole argument out of thin air, he keeps saying police are useless without any proof at all.

There is currently not one officer per 10 shops. If there's one per 60 shops the cost is the same.

Then his argument that it would be cheaper is simply not true and you'd have to wonder what exactly the benefits of the private security would be again?
Fragony seems to say police are never there when you need them and/because there are not enough of them.

Who protects the shopkeepers? That would be the national oversight. The same thing that stops the police from doing exactly that at the moment. Or are all current police instinctively honest (as a public service) and all future ones instinctively corrupt (as private)? Beginning to sound like a cracked record.

So the national oversight would also tell them how they have to conduct their training, what they can and what they cannot do and in the end you'd have the same thing as the police except it's all a for-profit thing that is paid by the communities instead of, well, the community? Where is the advantage of that, especially if they have to satisfy shareholder interests as well?

[Jolt]

You can always hire a different company, so it's in their interest to do a good job. It's not in the interest of the police to do a good job you are stuck with them anyway, and the bigger the problem the more money they get from the state to fix it. Do you need police to watch shopping malls, security does just fine, so why not expand that to the entire public domain?

Oh my god, my eyes are even bleeding from reading this. No wonder I stopped reading this Backroom.

Ooo! I know! What what what about we create different private Governments! That way, we won't be stuck with the same government and the government will be forced to do a good job! That's bloody brilliant! If a government is doing a bad job, we just switch to a different government with a different set of Political and Administrative Rules!

Also privatize Justice! Privately owned tribunals! Offer different Law Packages and Systems! Different rights and duties based on wealth! After all, this is what already happens in the today's world - the justice is much better for the rich. Why keep it this way? If a Tribunal doesn't show inclination to acquit you on your 7-people killing spree, just change to another tribunal who is more lenient! After all, a State Justice has little incentive to actually give you Justice or fulfill the Law as you are stuck with them anyway.

Privatize national defence! Do you really think the ARMED FORCES is going to protect you? Do you think the Generals, with all their privileges, will intervene in case there is rioting in the streets? So long as the trouble-makers guarantee the continuation of the benefits of soldiers and officers, the army will never intervene as they hold the monopoly of high caliber weaponry! Even then, you are forced to pay for your army to buy things like tanks and howitzers and jet fighters and stealth bombers and submarines and cruisers! Can you imagine the sheer size of the cost? BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS! We need privatized armed forces to make sure there is an incentive for the armed forces to actually protect its citizens, and to make sure the cost of financing the armies is significantly reduced.

Thank you all, and God bless our Nation.

[rory_20_uk]

I've no problem with you reading, but if you could cease posting that would be appreciated.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Ooo! I know! What what what about we create different private Governments! That way, we won't be stuck with the same government and the government will be forced to do a good job! That's bloody brilliant! If a government is doing a bad job, we just switch to a different government with a different set of Political and Administrative Rules!

So with all that hyperbole all you really did was describe a typical system of political parties, where if you don't like one, you elect another?

Or are you itching to get back to the days of Salazar?

[Jolt]

So with all that hyperbole all you really did was describe a typical system of political parties, where if you don't like one, you elect another?

Or are you itching to get back to the days of Salazar?

Eh? Where did you get the idea that I was itching to get back to the days of Salazar by using irony?

Notice I did not mention terms, which is something to Fragony fundamentally wrong as it ties you to a single government for a set period of time, as that government does not have competition. Besides, you might not fundamentally like a Republican regime being the only choice in your country, so why not make an Absolute Monarchy and Corporate Fascism and Communist dictatorship (Each with their own Juridical systems) available for people who want it? Surely according to Fragony, that competition would be welcome as by then we are stuck just with a single regime who has no incentive to do any better.


As far-fetched as it may be, it makes as much sense as saying the police have little incentive to protect their own countrymen, neighbours, friends, the society as a whole by making it a safer place to live in and for people to be happy in it.

[a completely inoffensive name]

At University, there was a null vote which meant a call for all new candidates. That allowed the voters to have real claws. We don't. Even if 1 vote is cast, we get an MP. Do you see that form of democracy making its way into UK politics?
Running a campaign even at local level requires money, so you need backing, or to be very rich. There are limits on spending, but the abuse of the system is rife. Who is going to reform it? The people abusing it? Fat chance.

More accountability? Don't make me laugh. If they say on their manifesto they'll publish everything that goes on, even if they wanted to they'd be stopped by central government. Even if central government wanted to the Civil Service would probably delay it for years. There is so much embedded self-interest in the current system that only radical ways to in essence bypass it will achieve anything. Get the Civil Service to reform and come back in a decade - and it's bigger. Their internal audit found they were massively understaffed...

Government should be there for overarching strategic matters and oversight. It plays to their strengths.

Most other matters should have as little to do with government as humanly possible - except the aforesaid oversight.

Ok, so this post is basically just one big circular logic post. Government is too corrupt. It resists my efforts to put in place people that legitimately want to improve it. So I'm not going to bother to attempt to make it better and instead attempt to dismantle it and put in place organizations that don't pretend like they care about my input in the first place. Oh look, now government is even more corrupt and broken down since I changed my philosophy to ignore and deconstruct instead of awareness and progress. I guess my philosophy is justified. More privatization for me please.

Why do you think that private security guards would suddenly be employed from miles away? In the UK, police chase targets. So whatever the new targets are is the area that gets targeted. Set by central government with no interest on what the locals want. Certain crimes are also branded misdemeanours to reduce the levels of certain crimes in areas. Same with medicine. But somehow this is much better than what the nasty private sector would do...

Why do you think that any sort of problem you have just described about government police would not also apply to private? Every company wants to present themselves as the best. If somehow certain crimes are looked over and instead criminals are arrested for less offensives crime, then the felony rate would go down in their region which makes them seem more competant.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I've no problem with you reading, but if you could cease posting that would be appreciated.

His post was more constructive and added more to the discourse then your complaining shown above.

[Megas Methuselah]

Man, nobody read my post about the indians and da gunz?

[rory_20_uk]

Yet you felt the need to mirror them... Somehow tragic.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Yet you felt the need to mirror them... Somehow tragic.

Almost as tragic as your inability to counter arguments logically, without insults.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Notice I did not mention terms, which is something to Fragony fundamentally wrong as it ties you to a single government for a set period of time, as that government does not have competition.

But unlike the police force, governments are still in a sort of market environment, since the people will just pick another party if they don't like the current one.

As for the OP, I do not think private security can replace the police force. It's just a matter of efficiency.

For a national police force, as with any state-funded organisation, it will be more innefient since it will work to meet arbitrary targets as opposed to doing what actually needs done on the ground (think of traffic wardens and how they have to give out a set number of tickets every day). And the worse they do their job, the more they will need funded, and so on. You can't entirely stop these phenomenons, it is just a case of needing damage control through proper scrutiny etc.

With smaller, independent private security firms, their lack of a central structure will make them inneficient, and completely incapable of dealing with any sort of criminal activity that crosses the borders of the different security organisations. This will then result in them having to work together, which would end up getting formalised into different institutions, and eventually they would end up operating on a national basis and becoming increasingly centralised, and so defeating their whole purpose.

For practical reasons, security has to be provided at the national level. You can either have it state-run, or run by a corporation. In theory, if it's state run, accountablity would lie in the voters; for a corporation, with the shareholders. When it comes to security, I think I would prefer it to be run by the state, since the people that hold it accountable are interested purely in the effectiveness of the police/security force, and not in profit.

That's why there's a clear line IMO with what should be state-run, and what should be privatised. The prime purpose of commercial industries is to generate profit and expand, so it makes sense for them to be privately run, and hence why state capitalism fails. But things like policing, education, and I would also say health, are best state-run, since their primary purpose is the service itself, and not to generate profit.

[Husar]

You guys do know that the police works different in every country, right?
Just tonight I walked through the city and saw at least two patrolling police cars, I've also seen police stationed in the city center at night with several people several times, yet you're telling me they're superfluous, innefficient, not doing their job, maybe in your country they are but in my country I see them often enough and feel they are doing their job. Perhaps your countries are doing something wrong? Or perhaps you would complain about living in a police state and the government spying on you etc. if you saw more than one police car per night and then the government would reduce patrols which would lead you to complain that police is never there when they're needed? There can be many factors to this but the police does not necessarily have to be useless just because it's government-run, otherwise I can also claim the US army is completely ineffective and should be disbanded.

[Fragony]

Yes, we could hire collectively. But who should organise it? Maybe everyone in the parish (borough, county, postcode?) should vote to form a Policing Committee. And maybe some of that Committee should also attend a regional organisation, so as to ensure that information is shared and cooperation effective. And then members of that organisation could form a national body to coordinate the whole thing. And then after a few years the whole thing would become an institution, thus defeating the whole purpose of the exercise. Except that now the police presence would have "Group 4" instead of a Crown. Not very reassuring.

Yes it takes a lot of direct community effort and restructuring, but people can organise that. There is a lot that can go completely wrong of course, but when done right it's the scalpel not the axe.

@Jolt, you can take anything to the extreme, you would make it very easy for me. Sorry about your bleeding eyes, hope nobody quarantaines you

[Jolt]

@Jolt, you can take anything to the extreme, you would make it very easy for me. Sorry about your bleeding eyes, hope nobody quarantaines you

Well at least I'm glad you see that the options you are proposing are extreme. Private companies weren't and aren't the example of ethic and moral values, and it isn't competition which will suddenly force them to be nice or operate in an ethical way. Just take the example of Blackwater. Or the security groups that already do what you proposed, in Joannesburg (Patrol the streets rather than guard buildings). They beat anyone up they dislike or is standing in their way, regardless if they are criminals or innocents. They have zero to little accountability to any public authority because they hold much more power and influence than those they protect. There was quite a good BBC documentary on those private security groups, a few years ago.

All in all, a terrible proposal which practically never existed throughout history, and with good reason.

[Slyspy]

Yes it takes a lot of direct community effort and restructuring, but people can organise that. There is a lot that can go completely wrong of course, but when done right it's the scalpel not the axe.

@Jolt, you can take anything to the extreme, you would make it very easy for me. Sorry about your bleeding eyes, hope nobody quarantaines you

But why? I don't see how it would help. It strikes me that you would be gaining local accountability at the cost of effciency and increased chances of corruption. The chances are that whatever happened to you to start this rant off would still have happened. Unless you were head of the Policing Committee.

[Fragony]

But why? I don't see how it would help. It strikes me that you would be gaining local accountability at the cost of effciency and increased chances of corruption. The chances are that whatever happened to you to start this rant off would still have happened. Unless you were head of the Policing Committee.

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.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You guys do know that the police works different in every country, right?

I sometimes think Fragony lives in a different country than I do, but I guess that feeling may be mutual.
Regardless I rather think that in general “the police” we got is doing its job just fine.