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The police job in the history of modern republics was never to maintain "public order", unless by that you mean preventing disruption of existing systems of privilege. I can only recommend reading Michel Foucault "Discipline and Punish" about the society of control, and the roles of the police and judicial system.

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If you do so, I recommend keeping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#Views_on_under... in mind

Hello, that's a good point! We should always point out pedophilia where it's hiding. However, from previous readings and from following the linked sources of that Wikipedia article, i don't think that Foucault was a pedophile. He did (like many other thinkers of the time) sign a petition defending someone who didn't deserve it, but it's easy to judge in retrospect as the precise context of the case was not publicly known at the time of the petition. But nowhere could i read him arguing for pedophilia or suggesting he himself engaged in such abhorrent behavior.

Here is a not-terribly-biased source:

https://theoryreader.org/2021/03/30/french-philosopher-miche...

Here is a more conservative one (yet still, the essay is very good), which also brings up how he knowingly spread HIV to young men in San Francisco:

https://newcriterion.com/issues/1993/3/the-perversions-of-m-...

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