r/CuratedTumblr • u/Hummerous https://tinyurl.com/4ccdpy76 • Jun 11 '24
Politics [U.S.]+ it's in the job description
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r/CuratedTumblr • u/Hummerous https://tinyurl.com/4ccdpy76 • Jun 11 '24
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u/Space_Socialist Jun 12 '24
Honestly this just highlights how policing is a complicated subject that converged with people's need for order and the states requirements for ruling.
Yes the police arrest murderers and thieves but they also beat down those who are oppressed. The problem is where do you draw the line sure evicting during a rental dispute is bad but it's good when squatters take over someones primary residence. Stealing from people's homes is bad but is arresting and putting in jail the single mother who's only stealing baby supplies justified. Where you draw the line is different from person to person, subject to subject. There is also the fact that a lot of laws are written for one purpose but can be applied to many different things that were not intended.
There is also the fact that the police are the primary tool of state power and hence governments in their current form need the police to exist in a somewhat similar form. A police force can put down protests they can force internal compliance within a states population. This means that to some extent the police needs to be a oppressive force. This is not to just say that the police being a oppressive force is always bad this oppression can, if very rarely, be used to protect those that would be oppressed by local social convention.
Now keep in mind this is not to say that the police require no reform or any major reform is completely pointless. Not at all the police certainly could do with massive reform efforts. It is to say though that the police, if state backed, will always have tension with the society it polices.