# Police and Prison Abolishment



## Yaoi Huntress Earth (Jun 3, 2020)

With what has happened to that poor man who was killed during his arrest, the raise of ACAB and people who want to do away with the police as a whole has come. Having grown up with a police lieutenant father has made me a little bias, but I can't help thinking that the world these people want would be worse than what we have.


Someone suggested that social service workers could do the same things cops do and in the case of bank robberies, it's better to just give them the money, let the insurance handle it and nothing else.
The common excuse I hear for when the prison abolishment people are asked about violent criminals is that they rarely get caught so why worry.
I'm curious how many of these people are pro-second amendment since this would mean more criminals running around.
One thing I find interesting is that they hate cops, but find nothing wrong with the FBI.

I agree there should be prison and police reform, but this is throwing the baby out with the bath water, don't you think?


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## NIGGER ASS PEE POOPY RAPE (Jun 3, 2020)

getting arrested for bullshit that shouldn't be illegal all the time might make me a little biased, but I hope all cops (and FBI, etc.) die. weak people who depend on cops to protect them should also die then all that would be left is strong alpha male Chads such as myself, women and blacks would be enslaved again and the world would be like heaven.


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## Stephanie Bustcakes (Jun 3, 2020)

Someone suggested that social service workers could do the same things cops do and in the case of bank robberies, it's better to just give them the money, let the insurance handle it and nothing else.
The common excuse I hear for when the prison abolishment people are asked about violent criminals is that they rarely get caught so why worry.
Both of these things are kept from happening by fear of law enforcement. Without it anyone could and would rob a bank anytime they wanted.


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## oldTireWater (Jun 3, 2020)

NIGGER ASS PEE POOPY RAPE said:


> getting arrested for bullshit that shouldn't be illegal all the time might make me a little biased


Are you a bum?


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## NerdShamer (Jun 3, 2020)

Prisons exist to keep the murders and rapists off the street. And before you tell me to give them an body pillow or throw them in the Army, I want to point out that things will get worse without some degree of accountability.


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## Orion Balls (Jun 3, 2020)

NIGGER ASS PEE POOPY RAPE said:


> getting arrested for bullshit that shouldn't be illegal all the time might make me a little biased, but I hope all cops (and FBI, etc.) die. weak people who depend on cops to protect them should also die then all that would be left is strong alpha male Chads such as myself, women and blacks would be enslaved again and the world would be like heaven.


You're a pothead who gets hassled, occasionally. Oh, boo hoo. Also, don't wish death on folk. It's childish. Revenge is best served to the living. That's why prisons exist. (Because, they sure aren't socially rehabilitating people.)


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## Son of Odin (Jun 3, 2020)

NerdShamer said:


> Prisons exist to keep the murders and rapists off the street.


Why not just shoot them and be done with it? Instead of using taxpayer money to feed and shelter them for the rest of their lives. Yes, I agree that the courts need reformed so that they don't kill innocent people who were wrongfully convicted, but prisons are a waste of taxpayer money in my opinion. Everyone in prison is there either because they're so dangerous that they're not fit to live among society or for bullshit laws.


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## verissimus (Jun 3, 2020)

Yeah...no, especially if such people also are against the 2nd amendment.


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## NerdShamer (Jun 3, 2020)

Son of Odin said:


> Why not just shoot them and be done with it? Instead of using taxpayer money to feed and shelter them for the rest of their lives. Yes, I agree that the courts need reformed so that they don't kill innocent people who were wrongfully convicted, but prisons are a waste of taxpayer money in my opinion. Everyone in prison is there either because they're so dangerous that they're not fit to live among society or for bullshit laws.


It'll traumatize the executioners and lethal injection is expensive.

But seriously, there isn't an lot of convient, _affordable_ resources for the mentally ill and it costs an fortune to run and navigate the legal system. And outside of just printing and throwing money at it, why not focus on rehabilitation? Oh, right, recidivism is an thing.

Honestly, some people are just born too crazy, violent, or dumb to function in society when I think about it.


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## NIGGER ASS PEE POOPY RAPE (Jun 3, 2020)

Orion Balls said:


> You're a pothead who gets hassled, occasionally. Oh, boo hoo. Also, don't wish death on folk. It's childish. Revenge is best served to the living. That's why prisons exist. (Because, they sure aren't socially rehabilitating people.)


yeah I'm sure all the rioters are going to arrest all the cops and put them in prison for being cops, that's a very deep thought. also I do much harder drugs than pot and many other illegal things like driving while drunk and high at the same time and vandalism and public nudity and hilarious pranks like throwing dog turds at people so call me childish again and see what happens kiddo


NerdShamer said:


> It'll traumatize the executioners and lethal injection is expensive.


there are plenty of psychos who would sign up to do it for minimum wage or even free and a bullet to the brain is cheap and even more humane than lethal injection.


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## Yaoi Huntress Earth (Jun 3, 2020)

NerdShamer said:


> Prisons exist to keep the murders and rapists off the street. And before you tell me to give them an body pillow or throw them in the Army, I want to point out that things will get worse without some degree of accountability.


The prison abolishists believe that if they talk enough with the rapist/murderer (even together with their victims), they will realize how they hurt others and want to make amends.


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## DumbDude42 (Jun 3, 2020)

the simple reality is that the law needs to be enforced, otherwise there is no law, and when there is no law there is no order, no state.
what happens when there is no state? people start forming armed organisations to fill the power vacuum. gangs, militias, religious groups, private armies, all that stuff. these groups become territorial and start enforcing their own rules, thus marking the return of law enforcement - only now it's a different set of laws being enforced, by a different set of people, under different operational procedures. no more lengthy investigations and jury trials, instead you get arbitrary judgements based on power and popularity, and summary executions.
tl;dr anybody saying "abolish police" is either a brainless moron or a psychopathic lunatic.



Yaoi Huntress Earth said:


> The prison abolishists believe that if they talk enough with the rapist/murderer (even together with their victims), they will realize how they hurt others and want to make amends.


these people are straight up deluded and in denial of reality.


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## NerdShamer (Jun 3, 2020)

Yaoi Huntress Earth said:


> The prison abolishists believe that if they talk enough with the rapist/murderer (even together with their victims), they will realize how they hurt others and want to make amends.


They do realize psychology doesn't always work? Along with psych meds, counciling, employment...


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## Watermelanin (Jun 3, 2020)

NerdShamer said:


> They do realize psychology doesn't always work? Along with psych meds, counciling, employment...


If normal psychology doesn't work, we can always try _reverse _psychology.


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## LazarusOwenhart (Jun 3, 2020)

Yeah so Norway make their prisons into comfortable, soothing spaces and staff them with people who are trained to actually deal with the prisoners issues. They offer things like counselling, psychiatric treatments, family therapy and vocational training so that the prisoners leave with a better sense of who they are and what they can achieve on the outside. Violent lunatics aside, most criminals are people who have underlying issues that cause them to behave a certain way, be that violence or theft or whatever. Reinforcing the idea that they're worthless perpetuates that behavior and you end up with repeat offenders coming out of your ass. Imbue somebody with a sense of self worth, and show them the worth in other people and they stop lashing out. The small minority of people who are 'wired' for crime, or who simply don't respond to the system are kept inside, but Norway has a ludicrously low re offending rate (20% vs the US' 70%). People don't like the idea of a kinder prison environment because they don't like the idea of prisoners not being punished but actually if you view prisons as places to fix broken people and sort out and store the irreparable ones rather than just places to make people miserable for a few years you end up with a better society as a whole. Also, less re offending means a vastly lower prison population and a huge reduction in spending of taxpayer money.

Abolitionists are fucking dumb as shit however.


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## (((Oban Lazcano Kamz))) (Jun 3, 2020)

easy, just kill every person convicted of a crime. treat everything like murder and start executing people publicly


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (Jun 3, 2020)

Oban Kamz said:


> easy, just kill every person convicted of a crime. treat everything like murder and start executing people publicly


China did that, and as a result their criminal underworld was so large and strong during the Imperial period that it acted like a second government.


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## (((Oban Lazcano Kamz))) (Jun 3, 2020)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> China did that, and as a result their criminal underworld was so large and strong during the Imperial period that it acted like a second government.


america isnt china


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (Jun 3, 2020)

Oban Kamz said:


> america isnt china


The Europeans did this during much of the Middle Ages, and as a result, there were literal bandit armies.
Here, let me quote Drakon (the man who is the reason we refer to incredibly harsh jurisprudence as 'Draconic") on why he _stopped_ punishing every single crime with execution: "I believe all crimes merit death; but if I punish public obscenity with death, I have nothing worse with which to punish murder".


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## Jewthulhu (Jun 3, 2020)

NerdShamer said:


> They do realize psychology doesn't always work? Along with psych meds, counciling, employment...


>Doesn't always
Try never. The best we can do is try to suppress symptoms, but the underlying psychological issue is usually next to impossible to actually treat. And for personality disorders (which many if not most violent offenders have), we can't even suppress the symptoms effectively.


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## Lemmingwise (Jun 3, 2020)

LazarusOwenhart said:


> Violent lunatics aside, most criminals are people who have underlying issues that cause them to behave a certain way,


Like low IQ


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## verissimus (Jun 3, 2020)

On cue...



			https://variety.com/2020/music/news/black-lives-matter-patrisse-cullors-blackout-tuesday-1234622767/


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## NerdShamer (Jun 3, 2020)

LazarusOwenhart said:


> Yeah so Norway make their prisons into comfortable, soothing spaces and staff them with people who are trained to actually deal with the prisoners issues. They offer things like counselling, psychiatric treatments, family therapy and vocational training so that the prisoners leave with a better sense of who they are and what they can achieve on the outside. Violent lunatics aside, most criminals are people who have underlying issues that cause them to behave a certain way, be that violence or theft or whatever. Reinforcing the idea that they're worthless perpetuates that behavior and you end up with repeat offenders coming out of your ass. Imbue somebody with a sense of self worth, and show them the worth in other people and they stop lashing out. The small minority of people who are 'wired' for crime, or who simply don't respond to the system are kept inside, but Norway has a ludicrously low re offending rate (20% vs the US' 70%). People don't like the idea of a kinder prison environment because they don't like the idea of prisoners not being punished but actually if you view prisons as places to fix broken people and sort out and store the irreparable ones rather than just places to make people miserable for a few years you end up with a better society as a whole. Also, less re offending means a vastly lower prison population and a huge reduction in spending of taxpayer money.
> 
> Abolitionists are fucking dumb as shit however.


While I can't argue with the lower recidivism rate, this shit sounds like it carries an price tag. In a way, it's cheaper to follow Apario's approach to crime; but the bottom line is that prisoners can't foot the bill until they go outside and get a job, which requires another investment into the American penal system.


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## ShortBusDriver (Jun 3, 2020)

People who stand in the middle of the street want to abolish the police.

Then anyone who doesn't want to deal with people standing in the street could just run them down

I mean whose gonna stop them, the police?

And let's be real, if there's no police you could have just shot Floyd for giving you a bogus $20 bill. Whose gonna stop you, the police?



Senior Lexmechanic said:


> The Europeans did this during much of the Middle Ages, and as a result, there were literal bandit armies.
> Here, let me quote Drakon (the man who is the reason we refer to incredibly harsh jurisprudence as 'Draconic") on why he _stopped_ punishing every single crime with execution: "I believe all crimes merit death; but if I punish public obscenity with death, I have nothing worse with which to punish murder".


Locking criminals up obviously works, Richmond, Virginia had the 5th highest homicide rate in the US back in the 1990s so they instituted an NRA backed federal program called Project Exile.

It was simple, get caught with an illegal gun get 5 years in prison, no parole

The homicide rate dropped 57% in two years.

I challenge you to find ANY place in the US that managed to cut it's homicide rate in half by not punishing criminals.

I don't like Stop & Frisk but there's a reason NYC is the safest big city in America.


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (Jun 3, 2020)

ShortBusDriver said:


> Locking criminals up obviously works, Richmond, Virginia had the 5th highest homicide rate in the US back in the 1990s so they instituted an NRA backed federal program called Project Exile.
> 
> It was simple, get caught with an illegal gun get 5 years in prison, no parole
> 
> ...


I'm not debating arrests.  I am debating the incredibly stupid idea that crime will go down if we bring back the headsman and just start executing everyone found guilty of a non-trivial offense.  All that will do is incentivize criminals to behave worse, because what are they going to do, execute you _twice_?


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## Just wandering (Jun 3, 2020)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> I'm not debating arrests.  I am debating the incredibly stupid idea that crime will go down if we bring back the headsman and just start executing everyone found guilty of a non-trivial offense.  All that will do is incentivize criminals to behave worse, because what are they going to do, execute you _twice_?


agree with @Senior Lexmechanic If we compare state with death penality and those without. Those with the death penality do have higher murder rate https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-...y-states-compared-to-non-death-penalty-states


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## Lemmingwise (Jun 4, 2020)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> Here, let me quote Drakon (the man who is the reason we refer to incredibly harsh jurisprudence as 'Draconic") on why he _stopped_ punishing every single crime with execution: "I believe all crimes merit death; but if I punish public obscenity with death, I have nothing worse with which to punish murder



Although you never said it, your comment made me think Drakon was from the middle ages. But though the term originates somewhere around 16-1700s, Draco was a Greek statesman from 621 B.C.



Just wandering said:


> agree with @Senior Lexmechanic If we compare state with death penality and those without. Those with the death penality do have higher murder rate https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-...y-states-compared-to-non-death-penalty-states


Which is the cause and which is the result?


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Jun 4, 2020)

I think the main reason you see people advocating for the abolition of police and prisons in America is because the US justice system is so broken at every level that it would appear easier to just abolish the whole thing and start from scratch.

The police are trigger-happy and poorly vetted, the courts are hobbled by legislative edicts and systemic problems of institutional bias, the prison system is compromised by vested interests which lobby the government to maintain a high prison population, and the people in charge are more often than not incredibly resistant to reform, and largely indifferent to the actual effectiveness of the system.

The results speak for themselves. The US has more incarcerated citizens per capita than any other country in the world, and yet it also manages to have one of the highest (if not the highest) rates of recidivism. Something is clearly very wrong.


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## LazarusOwenhart (Jun 4, 2020)

NerdShamer said:


> While I can't argue with the lower recidivism rate, this shit sounds like it carries an price tag. In a way, it's cheaper to follow Apario's approach to crime; but the bottom line is that prisoners can't foot the bill until they go outside and get a job, which requires another investment into the American penal system.


Actually the low recidivism rate means that despite spending slightly more per prisoner, the Norwegian system is cheap as hell compared to most other countries. They simply don't have the extraordinary prison population the states does. That goes hand in hand with the fact that a significant amount of the prisons in Norway are open prisons and function more as a community than a cage. They are, to a point, self sustaining. Some minor offences are punished with open sentences where a curfew is arranged around the prisoners job, they go out to work and return to the prison at night. They still lose freedom, and the right to a social life outside the prison, but they get to keep making a contribution to society and don't fall into the circular trap of leaving prison penniless and unemployed and having to commit petty crimes to survive thus breaching parole conditions and returning to jail. The problem with a hardcore system like the US is that prison serves as a vicious circle for smalltime criminals and a university, social network and training centre for the hardcore.


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## 737 MAX Stan Account (Jun 4, 2020)

I wonder if these dipshits truly understand what it is they're seeking...


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## ApatheticViewer (Jun 4, 2020)

Idk. Obviously murders and child rapists deserve to be put down but I always found it interesting that 

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐞 being 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of all prisoner's.


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## Just wandering (Jun 4, 2020)

Hellbound Hellhound said:


> I think the main reason you see people advocating for the abolition of police and prisons in America is because the US justice system is so broken at every level that it would appear easier to just abolish the whole thing and start from scratch.
> 
> The police are trigger-happy and poorly vetted, the courts are hobbled by legislative edicts and systemic problems of institutional bias, the prison system is compromised by vested interests which lobby the government to maintain a high prison population, and the people in charge are more often than not incredibly resistant to reform, and largely indifferent to the actual effectiveness of the system.
> 
> The results speak for themselves. The US has more incarcerated citizens per capita than any other country in the world, and yet it also manages to have one of the highest (if not the highest) rates of recidivism. Something is clearly very wrong.


It may sound good in theory. But it will bring probably bigger problem than keeping the deeply flawed statue quo in long term. Look at how deinstitution of the mentallly ill created an homless crisis
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...keeps-making-homelessness-worse/#3beb5e3f5a61


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## The Curmudgeon (Jun 4, 2020)

Should there be some form of reforms to the police and prison systems? Sure!

Should they be abolished altogether? NO!

I'm fine with realistic issues regarding the police and prisons being addressed, but the idea of getting rid of them entirely horrifies me. What exactly do these so-called abolitionists propose as an alternative to dealing with bad, stupid, or dangerous people? How will they protect society from the dregs and losers? Do they WANT increased vigilantism, mob justice, and anomie? That's what will more than likely happen if the abolitionists get their way. I don't want the People's Mob to descend on my house to lynch me because I offended someone online. That's hyperbole, but I'm sure you guys know what I mean.


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## Leonard Helplessness (Jun 4, 2020)

The below is something I started writing last night, got distracted, and picked up on later.  The discussion has likely evolved since then, but as an act of arrogance I'll dump this here anyway.



This is a complicated discussion to have.  I feel like it will be held most constructively by first looking at the purpose and nature of police and of prisons.  They are separate entities, for reasons I'll get into.  For the purposes of this discussion, I will focus on police and prisons as they exist in America.

To start, here's the rainbows-and-unicorns take on police, prisons, and why both exist.  I am focusing principally on the criminal justice systems of states.


The police are an arm of a state/local government, tasked with ensuring the safety of the citizens principally by enforcing the government's laws.
The government that the police belong to is a democracy, meaning that it is of, by, and for the people.  The government exists at the will of the people and its purpose is to serve them.  The government is elected by its people and is comprised principally of representatives and leaders who agree upon and pass laws.
The people are principally free to live life and pursue happiness.  The laws of the people's government exist to guarantee this.
Bad people do exist in the world.  For this reason, police exist to protect good people when bad people do bad things, and when a bad person does a bad thing, that bad person is punished.  Every possible bad thing a person could do is defined in the law, along with the punishment for doing it, and every one of those laws is agreed to by the government, and thus by the people.
Punishment occurs solely on a case-by-case basis, and it is not done by the police.  Instead, it is done by the penal system, a separate institution of the government that is tasked with punishing people who do bad things, in a very specifically defined and controlled way.

Note the separation of duties.  The legislative system determines what a crime is and how it is punished.  The police identify when a person commits a crime and detains the suspect, who is by definition innocent.  The suspect remains by definition innocent until the judicial system tries his specific case, with the aid of an attorney who understands the law and zealously represents the suspect to the best of his ability.  If the suspect is found guilty (meaning his guilt is proven to a unanimous jury beyond a reasonable doubt using the evidence presented in court) despite this zealous representation, the guilty person is handed over to the penal system, which punishes the person in strict accordance with the laws that the people have consented to.

I repeat that this model is a utopian ideal.  My observation is that the reality of how the criminal justice system operates in America is rife with problems and that most of the criticisms leveled against it are justified.  I'll try to separate some common grievances based on what part of the criminal justice system they principally belong to.

*The Government*


While the government's leaders and representatives are democratically elected, the elections are flawed.  Voter turnout, especially at the state and local level, is low and varies among demographics.  Even the people who do go out and vote are typically ignorant and apathetic to the point that nobody knows nor cares who the fuck they're voting for.  I remember being told that parts of Chicago decades ago had commonly agreed-to guidelines on who to vote for in local elections, and these guidelines were based solely on the candidates' nation of origin as implied by their last name.  A huge proportion of people nowadays throughout the nation just vote a straight party ticket.
The people who get elected are themselves very often ignorant, partisan, spiteful, and corrupt.  Ideally, checks and balances exist to prevent bad elected officials from doing bad things.  In practice, people rarely notice let alone care.
As government's role in society has expanded, so have the governments' powers and thus the powers of elected (and even appointed) officials to interfere in the daily lives of their constituents.  The pandemic has awoken millions of people nationwide to how many "emergency powers" they have given to their governments that are now using these powers to abuse their constituents.
Governments are selfish institutions and are not known to willingly relinquish power once it is handed over to them.  The pandemic has revealed countless politicians who, once they instituted and enforced lockdowns in the name of public health, began extending those lockdowns into permanence and selectively enforcing lockdown provisions in order to advance dubious political agendas.

*The Laws*


There are so many laws governing so many aspects of every single person's life that nobody knows what the fucking laws are anymore, and nobody has time to figure out any of it.  Everybody commits felonies every day, with nary a shred of awareness.
The laws are influenced by an ignorant and capricious public, by corrupt lobbyists and legislators, by partisan politics, and by outside forces such as the federal government.  The 1994 Crime Bill, for instance, contributed to mass incarceration particularly by requiring states to punish their citizens more harshly for various crimes.  Special interest groups are also to blame for this; for instance, the Mothers Against Drunk Driving have been blamed for influencing states to pass laws designed seemingly with the sole intent of ensuring that nobody suspected of drunk driving is ever acquitted under any circumstance, including and especially not actually being in way intoxicated.
The punishments are often extreme, both for the above reason and because people are rarely accused of just one crime.  In reality, every act of lawbreaking usually violates several laws simultaneously, and often violates each law several times.  Laws with three-month sentences wind up being ninety-month sentences every time they're used against someone.  Broadly-defined three-strikes punishments and similar legislation are also common.
The social consequences are often even worse than the punishments.  The internet has made it easier than ever to find people's criminal histories, and people are prejudiced against anybody who's been convicted of any crime regardless of how minor it may have been or the surrounding circumstances.  If you're a convicted felon, you're probably going to spend the rest of your life working shit jobs alongside other convicted felons.  If you're caught smoking dope out the window of your apartment, your ass is getting evicted and no landlord who runs a background check will ever let you lease from them ever again.

*The Police*


Police are people and as such they are usually irrational, prejudiced, lazy, ignorant, and violent.  Their profession also tends to attract people who like firearms and their use on human beings more than the typical citizen.
When police do bad things, it is very often difficult to fire and/or punish them, for a number of reasons: Both because they're in a position where they're more likely to know all the laws, how they are enforced, and how they can be circumvented and because they tend to be strongly fraternal.  Police unions are common and are usually among the first to defend any member suspected of wrongdoing.
Police are under pressure from external forces, including the judicial and legislative branches, to act in a prejudiced manner.  If there's a civic shitstorm because some public figure died of a drug overdose, the police had better come up with some drug arrests that lead to convictions, even when that means:
Fucking with suspects.  Interrogation is pure hell, and police interrogators know every trick in the book when it comes to getting people to confess to crimes, even unknowingly.  Lies, misrepresentation, and misleading statements/actions by interrogators are common, to the point that the rate of false confessions (as proven when DNA evidence showed that it was impossible for the convicted to have committed the crime he confessed to) is horrifyingly high.  The Miranda Warnings exist for a reason, and police know every way to circumvent and/or make people ignore those admonitions.
A growing rift between the police and the public.  Police are feared, hated, and shunned by much of the citizenry, to the point of being treated as (and often seeing themselves as) their own class.  Fear of police brutality can become a self-fulfilling prophecy when the cops are ostracized to the point that they only know or talk to other cops and regard everybody looking at them funny as a suspect interested in harming them.

*The Courts*


Per the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice, between 90 and 95% of federal and state criminal cases are resolved via plea bargains.  These cases are not tried.  Instead, a suspect is persuaded to accept an offered punishment in order to avoid a possibly harsher one if they are found guilty.  Innocent people fearing 40 years will accept 5 years with the possiblity of getting out on parole in 2.5 years.
Judges and jurors are fallible.  While the criminal justice system is designed to deal with this possibility (such as through strict and fair jury selection procedures and the possibility of appeal), it remains an issue especially when ignorance, prejudice, and public pressure come into play.  In the information age, poisoned jury pools are a worse problem than ever before.
The public defender system is also fallible.  It guarantees you will get an attorney, not that the attorney will actually give a fuck about you beyond doing the bare minimum necessary to say that he represented you properly, and he's likely to be unhappy because the state doesn't pay him as well as a client with means would.  Celebrities with celebrity attorneys get away with heinous shit; lowly mooks with public defenders -- even celebrity attorneys doing their public defender duty -- go to jail.
Trials are shitty and go on for days, and are hell for defendants.  In a criminal trial, the defendant's principal duty is to sit silently for hours and try to express absolutely no response whatsoever as they are verbally torn to pieces by the prosecution and every prepared witness.  Defendants never look good in this setting; they look only guilty, despite whether they are actually innocent, and juries render verdicts accordingly.

*The Prisons*

This is a difficult one because I do not know whether some or all of the problems I identify below are recent phenomena or if they are eternal facts of penal life.  Prisons in the United States are intended to be impartial dispensors of carefully prescribed, humane punishment and the Constitution expressly forbids cruel and unusual punishment.  However, problems do exist:


Nobody outside the prisons actually gives a shit what happens to the people inside.  Inmates are by necessity out of sight and out of mind and thus are almost never seen nor thought about by any member of the public.
Attempts at prison reform are almost exclusively reactive.  Prisons are money pits; a politician who acknowledges the existence of the prisons in his jurisdiction acknowledges that his jurisdiction has problems that require prisons to exist.  Whenever any changes are made to how prisons are run, they are in reaction to arbitrary external forces -- such as special-interest groups clamoring for transgender women to be placed in female prison populations, and the federal government attempting to combat prison rape by re-defining every sex act taking place in a prison as non-consensual, and mass release of prisoners in response to fears of viral contagion.
Much, if not most, of the punishment that prisoners suffer is not at the hands of the penal system.  If prison was merely miserable then ex-convicts would not suppress the memories of incarceration to the point of resembling a five-year-long nightmare.  Prisoners spend every day in abject terror of each other, mentally braced for sudden explosions of random or targeted violence that can occur any time for any or no reason.  Prisoners also often find themselves and their families extorted and forced to pay ransom to gangs during and for many years after their sentences.
Prisoners are not punished equally.  The cash-starved nature of the penal system lends itself to abuse.  Prisoners, or prisoners' families, who have money are often encouraged to pay for better, more private, safer cells, and when prisoners are allowed to communicate with loved ones, both often are forced to pay exorbitant amounts for the privilege if they are able to pay at all.  States that are strapped for cash also like to use cheap prison labor, and most of the prisoners doing the labor are non-violent offenders who can be counted on to quietly do the worst available jobs.  Prison staff are also often arbitrary and biased; a prisoner's rapport with the guards can be the sole factor in whether he lands on a sex offender registry because he was jerking off in a corner of his cell.
Prisons are tightly packed and most spaces are shared, with the result that prisons are hotbeds of disease and superbugs are common.  This, in addition to the other factors listed above, is sometimes cited as approaching the definition of cruel and unusual punishment.



Again, all of the above issues are principally in reference to state and local criminal justice systems rather than the federal criminal justice system.  Problems with the Fed differ in various ways; for example, federal prisons generally suck less but the FBI has some particularly awful tricks up their sleeves when it comes to prosecuting innocent people.

I'm also generally not taking into account issues with society in general.  People fucking suck nowadays.  Democracy functions properly only when the people are properly educated and have good moral grounding, and my personal opinion is that society is failing itself in this regard.

As for how to fix any of the above?  I don't fucking know.  Shit's fucked and I lack the education or experience to say definitively how to address any of this.  All I can do is try to identify, describe, and categorize all the various turds being thrown around in this shit tornado.


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## SigSauer (Jun 4, 2020)

Anarchism is fake and gay. Sure you have a constitution here in America, but that constitution is not absolute, nor does anyone have rights that are absolute. For example:

1st amendment - freedom of speech applies unless it's obscenity, fraud, CP, true threats, fighting words, incitement to imminent lawless action, solicitations to commit crimes, blackmail, copyright infringement, false advertising, perjury and defamation (including libel and slander). Freedom of religion applies universally unless it's the free exercise thereof in some cases. Say you're an indigenous American and use peyote in religious ceremonies. You can still be criminally prosecuted or fired from your job. Or if you're a Seventh Day Adventist and don't want to work on Saturdays because that's part of your beliefs. Or if your religion is anti-gay and you discriminate against homosexuals in employment, housing or other services or if your church doesn't allow gay weddings or if a religious institution doesn't want to pay for contraceptives. Freedom of the press applies, unless your confidential source violated federal law on exposing government or corporate corruption. Then a judge can simply subpoena you and require you to name names. Or libel. Or obscenity. Or incitement. Or using fighting words. The right to peaceable assembly applies, except the government can impose restrictions on the time, place, and manner of peaceful assembly, require a permit, the government can also make special regulations that impose additional requirements for assemblies that take place near major public events and they can deny your permit if there's a risk of a riot, disorder or interference with traffic on public streets. See UTR. The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances applies, except for lobbying, right to file suits, certain kinds of libel actions involving government officials and SLAPP suits.

2nd amendment - the second amendment applies, unless you're a convicted felon, have been convicted of a misdemeanor for domestic violence or are under a domestic violence restraining order, if you’ve been committed to a psychiatric institution or labeled mentally ill under a court ruling, undocumented immigrants and those in the country under nonimmigrant visas, are an illegal drug user, or a former military member who had a dishonorable ddischarge. Also, stalkers and people subject to other kinds of restraining orders, minors, juvenile offenders, and those convicted of alcohol- and/or drug-related crimes. And a few states allow courts to order some people to give up their guns temporarily if they pose an immediate risk to themselves or others (see: red flag laws). You also can't have fully automatic weapons or machine guns, bump stocks, or even handguns without a permit in some states. You used to have blanket bans on so-called "assault weapons" back in the 90s that weren't actual "assault weapons" but merely had certain features that were similar. And you also have "gun free zone" laws, with places such as schools, government buildings and courtrooms, public transit facilities, airports, and polling stations. You now need a concealed carry permit, and even then, states can deny a permit when the applicant doesn’t have a good moral character or a good reason for carrying a gun in public. And even then, nearly all states restrict concealed weapons in some places, such as bars, hospitals, and public sporting events. Licensed gun dealers also have to perform background checks, keep records of sales, and report multiple sales of handguns to the same person.

3rd amendment - the third amendment applies, unless during times of civil unrest, military emergency, and rebellion. See the War of 1812 and especially the Civil War for historical examples.

4th amendment - the fourth amendment applies, except for stop and frisk searches, searches incidental to arrests, vehicular searches, vessel searches, consent searches, border searches, open fields and plain view searches, public school searches of students, employee searches by employers in government offices, prisoner and probationer searches, drug testing of railroad and other public employees and government surveillance.

5th amendment - the fifth amendment applies, except in some situations where police may use silence itself as incriminating evidence, you have to affirmatively invoke the right to silence, and as for double jeopardy, if the case was ended on a hung jury or mistrial, that doesn't mean that they can't still try you for the same crime again, if a person violates both a federal and state crime just because the state failed to prosecute the defendant doesn't mean the federal government can't, nor does it protect you from multiple offenses. Sure you have the right not to self-incriminate during trial, but then again if you do choose to take the witness stand, your fifth amendment rights will be waived. Also, it doesn't really apply in civil trials. A jury is free to make inferences when a defendant chooses not to testify in a civil trial for fear of self incrimination. As for witnesses, they may have the fifth amendment right also if they too have committed a crime especially, but unlike defendants, witnesses may be forced by law to testify (typically by subpoena). Also, the fifth amendment does not apply to DNA or fingerprint evidence, which is considered non-communicative. Same with due process. Due process doesn't apply in cases of risk to life or safety. There are also exceptions to your property rights as the federal government could take your property either outright or through regulatory takings, with little to no compensation. And the list goes on for that last one too.

Libertarians and anarchists want every exception to those 5 amendments I listed as examples to be legal. Just wrap your head around that. Like I said, you don't have absolute freedoms, not even in America.


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## The Curmudgeon (Jun 5, 2020)

Leonard Helplessness said:


> The below is something I started writing last night, got distracted, and picked up on later.  The discussion has likely evolved since then, but as an act of arrogance I'll dump this here anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well done! This is an awesome analysis! I also wish I knew the answers, but I don't.


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## drfuzzyballs (Jun 5, 2020)

I'm an anarchist but completely disillusioned with the crowd. I can tell you with certainty are dropping keywords like prison abolition are the same far left phonies that demand communism because their fake disabilities keep them from working. It's just shit SJWs picked up because it sounds super progressive.


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## Yaoi Huntress Earth (Jun 6, 2020)

This video makes some good points.


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## potato in mah painus (Jun 6, 2020)

ApatheticViewer said:


> Idk. Obviously murders and child rapists deserve to be put down but I always found it interesting that
> 
> 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐞 being 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of all prisoner's.



 The vast majority of those are due to drug and organized crime related offenses. The prison population in the US is a direct result of the war on drugs, those failed polices and the corrupt institutions that have been built on it need to be dealt with before we even consider reform for the justice system.


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## Ughubughughughughughghlug (Jun 6, 2020)

The best thing to do with criminals is use them as slave labor in factory-prisons.


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## Baphomet_Chan (Jul 5, 2020)

Well... there are alteratives to prison: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...-back-the-lash/2011/06/10/AGBIpUWH_story.html


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## ToroidalBoat (Jul 5, 2020)

Unpopular opinion for sure, but I think prison is "cruel and unusual punishment" - at least the way it's done in America with very long sentences. But I can't think of a humane alternative.

At least it isn't torture or brutal execution like in the past.

As for law enforcement, it's kind of needed in modern society, which needs excessive rules to function - and that happens to be full of assholes, as well as people modern society drives insane.


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## Baphomet_Chan (Jul 6, 2020)

Don't cause trouble in Singapore. They will beat your ass with a cane as this American learned the hard way: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ller-Kamari-Charlton-set-caned-Singapore.html

Sounds like he will not be doing that again.


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## 737 MAX Stan Account (Jul 6, 2020)

Replace all prisons with labor camps. Then have all sentences tied to labor hours. I.E. a one year sentence means you have to do 8,760 hours of hard labor (Assuming eight hour shifts a day, this will have you spend 3 or 4 years in a camp) and so on and so forth. Wasting away in a cell won’t do anything to reform criminals, but maybe some old fashioned manual labor can put them on the straight and narrow.


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## Gravityqueen4life (Jul 15, 2020)

remove all of it. i just wanna see what happens.


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## Emperor Julian (Jul 15, 2020)

Historically most situations where all law and order collapse and authority immediatly defers to local military strong men,  meaning power to police the populace would either fall to the army, protection schemes/rackets or a local militia.....all three of which would eventually evolve into the police as necessity breeds specialization/
The ultimate issue is unless you find a way to circumvent human nature in heavily urbanized area's you need some guy with authority to use force to prevent harm and bring people who break the law to account.


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## LazarusOwenhart (Jul 20, 2020)

Emperor Julian said:


> Historically most situations where all law and order collapse and authority immediatly defers to local military strong men,  meaning power to police the populace would either fall to the army, protection schemes/rackets or a local militia.....all three of which would eventually evolve into the police as necessity breeds specialization/
> The ultimate issue is unless you find a way to circumvent human nature in heavily urbanized area's you need some guy with authority to use force to prevent harm and bring people who break the law to account.


Why is it always force? Crime, in most cases, is a symptom of deprivation and societal inequality. Yeah there are rich criminals, but most of them started at the bottom and worked up until crime became an inescapable way of life. Your average petty thief, the kind of person who's in and out of jail for silly little crimes is a person who has never managed to become part of society or has fallen out with it. We have a very narrow view of what an education should be and a significant amount of people with valuable talents are left behind because they're not broadly skilled enough to 'achieve' at school. These people very often leave school with an already jaded view of a world which has pigeonholed them as less 'useful' than their peers. Feeling worthless is a poison to the mind and people who feel that way will always struggle to find employment and contribute. The thing is, worthless or not, you still need to eat. Petty crime starts as a means to an end and as soon as a conviction happens, becomes an inescapable way of life.


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## I-chi (Jul 21, 2020)

No reform is going to come because nobody protesting the system actually wants justice. Worthless marxists and self hating white people want to smash it up to demonstrate their virtue and ( hopelessly ) spare themselves the culling they're in for or prove their loyalty to the future Commie utopia; and ghetto trash will always seek the path of zero accountability or a state in which they can pull a 180 on the 'oppressor' and enact social vengeance. 

They don't want justice, they don't want reform, they want power; which is the best case for preserving the system until they can quit acting like spoiled children sometime next century, fingers crossed.


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## Mr. Bung (Jul 22, 2020)

Oban Kamz said:


> easy, just kill every person convicted of a crime. treat everything like murder and start executing people publicly


brb getting a bullet to the brain for being caught with a half ounce baggie of weed.


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## TaimuRadiu (Jul 22, 2020)

Those who would demand that the police be abolished are usually those who have enough money to have private security. The police are better than having PMCs guard the privileged in gated communities.


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## Baphomet_Chan (Apr 12, 2021)

737 MAX Stan Account said:


> Replace all prisons with labor camps. Then have all sentences tied to labor hours. I.E. a one year sentence means you have to do 8,760 hours of hard labor (Assuming eight hour shifts a day, this will have you spend 3 or 4 years in a camp) and so on and so forth. Wasting away in a cell won’t do anything to reform criminals, but maybe some old fashioned manual labor can put them on the straight and narrow.


IE the GULAG method of correction.


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