• Zorsith
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    11 days ago

    I like the idea of reform. Not a “retrain” sense, but a “purge every department and train the new department to the same standards as MPs, with regular auditing and oversight”.

    • stinky@redlemmy.com
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      11 days ago

      The problem is that the culture attracts new, awful cops.

      Kids grow up and see the news, the movies, the jokes, the memes, the entire culture surrounding police officers getting away with murder and think, “if I want to hurt people and get away with it, I should become a cop”.

      Even if you purge every department and train new cops, all of the new ones will be bad too.

      Reform won’t work. Abolition will.

      • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOPM
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        11 days ago

        Too many years ago, this light bulb came on in a eureka moment for me: If someone’s a bully, gets great joy from cruelty, meanness, keeping people afraid, and causing pain for anyone insufficiently afraid and ‘respectful’, there’s no career more appealing and secure than becoming a cop. That’s what most cops are.

        And any hypothetical ‘good cop’ who isn’t like that certainly knows the names of all their co-workers who are, but says nothing, is a collaborator, certainly not a ‘good cop’ in any fair assessment.

    • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOPM
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      11 days ago

      Honestly, especially since abolition is politically impossible, I’d be pretty happy with genuine reform. It’s never genuine reform, of course, if cops, ex-cops, and cops’ buddies are in charge, or even allowed in the room.