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Comment by deathgrips | Hacker News Reader

American police departments have no duty to protect you. They are law enforcement officers who choose at their own discretion to arrive at your home seven minutes after you dial 911.

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Make it their duty to protect you.

What do you do with all of the people, and the entire system, that's been built and trained for a century to not do that?

I doubt many people are against the idea of a specialized government role that provides protection services.

What they are against is:

* Thinking we can get that role by reforming existing police systems, given how opposed police systems are to such reform

* That these systems need the absurd budgets of police departments

* That the role requires absurd levels of protection for violent actions

* That the role requires armaments in the majority of cases

Going form police to a role that fits those criteria is going to start with not having police.

You fire them all and rehire the ones that are capable of being proper police officers.

It's federal case law that the profession of policing doesn't require what you're asking.

Then you make it law that it becomes required.

I guess I'm just on the side of: if the only thing we think police should be doing is something they already legally don't have to do, achieving the goal of getting that covered is better handled by tearing the entire system down and building a new system with a new name and new members than trying to force reform on orgs that have fought it tooth and nail. The actors that have gotten rulings like Warren v. District of Columbia obviously don't want reform in this area, and I don't see much success in forcing it on them. They have the time, resources, and inclination to fight it at every step, and piecemeal subvert the spirit of the reforms as they occur.

Maybe we haven't voted hard enough?

I'd say Minneapolis voted pretty hard the past couple weeks and are getting tangible results from it.

Absolutely. Now we realize the decades of voting more softly were just a waste of time.

That's what I pointed out upthread, tear it down and rebuild it.

I guess the point I'm dancing around is that words have power, and rebuilding a force called police is still a half measure. Don't just rebuild, but instead create a new force with a new name as part of gaining new semantics. People bring baggage with them when you use the same words.

I don't think that is true, plenty of police forces around the world call themselves police without feeling the innate urge to shoot at innocent protesters with lethal force.

I don't think they'd be qualified for the job.

Then they don't get hired.

It's really strange how people in this thread refuse to believe that the "reform the police" option even exists. As though we must either have a subpar police system or no police system at all. It's also strange how many people think that getting rid of the police will just work itself out.

1. Abolish police.

2. << A miracle happens. >>

3. Prosper.

Many other countries have a police system that works much better than the US but obviously the only possible solutions in the search space are "Americanism" or "Nothing".

"Reform" is a well known word in the US that translates to "do the very minimum necessary to shut most people up for a while". The fact that proponents of radical changes to policing have not come up with terms you like more should not be an indictment of their perspectives.

If reform worked it would have already worked.

Right, because police rarely break the law?

Hence you ought to rebuild it from the ground up and if the police breaks the law they'll be punished for it.

Why is it so hard for americans to imagine that it's possible to have atleast a semifunctional police apparatus?

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