There’s an obvious answer to that question—to enforce the law—but that’s pretty facile. Without much comment let me suggest some possible reasons:
- To deter crime.
- To protect people from criminals.
- To avenge crime. I’m using “avenge” with a very specific meaning of investigating crimes after they’ve been committed and arresting those for whom there is a probably cause that they’ve committed a crime.
- To preserve order. Again, I’m using “preserve order” with a very specific meaning of reducing the likelihood that ordinary citizens will start enforcing the law themselves.
Any other suggestions? How good a job are our present LEOs doing at the first three? Let me suggest that the worse a job is done at the first three, the more likely the last one becomes.
Law enforcement also has first-responder roles in manmade or natural disasters, search and rescue, and quarantine. Some of this might fall into order (directing traffic), but I think there are a number of miscellaneous tasks that fall on the police in emergencies.
Radical proposal: Get rid of almost all law enforcement officers except those that serve in an investigative capacity. Instead of cops on the beat, buy all citizens who can pass a course in basic law enforcement procedures (and whatever other requirements a municipality desires) a side arm, and deputize them as needed. Probably cheaper in the long run, given pensions and benefits.
Note: Making the proposal does not equal endorsement!
Note that this proposal
Hmmm, how did that last line get in there? Weird.
To serve as a reassuring symbol of order. In Times Square I see lots of cops, all basically chilling, and I know despite the apparent chaos, everything’s under control and I can stop looking over my shoulder.
To serve as a warning of danger to civilians. In downtown Oakland I see a bunch of cops and they don’t look happy, well, that’s a different signal.
I do agree with Dave’s conclusion. I think he is describing a system, and a disruption will cause a breakdown or re-balancing within the system.
When policing is done well they stop a lot of small troubles from becoming big ones. They intervene in domestic violence cases, catch teens doing stupid stuff and counsel them, de-escalate troubles between neighbors, etc. In small towns they do a lot of the stuff that makes towns function, like keeping the town drunk from becoming too much of a nuisance, help find people places to stay when there are disasters, including personal ones, help with the mentally ill, provide security for the town parades and high school football games….
Steve
I think we can safely speculate that none of those is being done effectively in Chicago. There was a recent case in which the police were called in on a domestic disturbance and went in with guns blazing, killing a teenager and an innocent bystander, the woman who lived downstairs.
I honestly don’t know what’s going on here. I think it’s possible that the police are so terrified of the people that they’re shooting first and asking questions later.
Well, I have it on good authority that the police aren’t here to create disorder, they’re here to preserve disorder…..
In both police and military forces we’ve strongly emphasized force protection, placing a high value on the life of the individual cop or soldier. This seems like an obvious good, but the effect may be to put too much weight on one side of the scale. Statistically police work is not especially dangerous work, with police deaths dropping fairly steadily, probably due in part to the emphasis on force protection.
Given a heavily armed population, your gun is your go-to defense, not your baton. No one brings a baton to a gun fight. If you think you’re facing a potentially armed opponent, and you’ve been taught that your first job is your own safety, you’re going to shoot faster than if your default assumption is that your opponent is not packing and your training has placed more emphasis is more on, say, not shooting random people.
Then too there’s the fact that we have clearly made it okay for cops to shoot people without fear of legal or even career repercussions. I’m surprised there aren’t more shootings – the badge is a carte blanche. That goes to the essential decency of most cops, and I say that from some experience dealing with cops. My sense is that while some cops will pump a full magazine into an unarmed black kid, most cops are closer to being officer Jesse Hartnett, the guy who was shot at twelve times, took three in the arm, and still left his cruiser and took the bad guy down. We’d be doing ourselves and the Hartnetts of the world if we made at least some effort to weed out the bad, the better to reward the good.
http://abc7chicago.com/news/store-employee-shoots-2-armed-robbery-suspects/1157778/
Let’s assume that law enforcement serves a societal signaling action function. What signal does it send then that Wall Street bankers or other major political donors have a different set of rules, the Clinton’s have a different set of rules, Rahm Emanuel looks like he will get to play by a different set of rules, some immigrants get to play by a different set of rules and so on and so forth. Much of it determined by what and how information is fed by media to the masses. Now suppose that politicians ply the victim hood pitch to excuse all sorts of poor behaviors. In an environment of such obvious injustice, double standards, faulty information flow and cheap excuse making why would anyone be surprised that ghetto kids couldn’t care less about schooling in favor of the entertainment industry or gangs, mutual distrust and abhorrent behaviors exist between police and citizenry, frustration and violence run rampant……..basically broad based disregard for the law.
It’s “just win baby,” and ” hooray for our side.” There has always been some of that going on. The basic human condition. But it seems to be running rampant right now, almost an acceptable perversion of daily life. And we have only ourselves to blame.