Comment by wmf
2 days ago
There's an entire book on this topic if you want to read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop
2 days ago
There's an entire book on this topic if you want to read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop
to me, the most interesting, actionable police-ology has been reforming two trends:
- modern 911, which rewards reactive, rather than proactive, policing
- the ever expanding mission of police officers. there's only one uniformed police officer class. experts and police all want specialization, just like in the medical field.
from a police chief:
> We’re asking cops to do too much in this country. We are. Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding, let the cops handle it…. Here in Dallas we got a loose dog problem; let’s have the cops chase loose dogs. Schools fail, let’s give it to the cops … That’s too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/law-and-social-inqui...
warrior versus guardian isn't really actionable - what are you going to do, pass a law that says that training materials have to say guardian? versus, pass a law that appropriates funding for specialized workforces, that's par for the course in municipalities.
Words indicate intentions, and framing changes mindset.
Starting by changing the names of the ranks to British-style ranks and changing the training materials to the American guardian / British Peelian mindset wouldn't suddenly fix everything, but it would at least be a start.
>what are you going to do, pass a law that says that training materials have to say guardian?
What if you did? You don't think that would have any effect at all?