This is where policing and law have made its first big mistake.
It is not for you and against you, it is only, against you.
From the law's perspective, the police are there to prove you guilty, you are there to prove you are innocent.
When, from the citizens' point of view, the police are there to solve the crime, to catch the bad guy.
This is completely wrong. The police do not do that.
And because of this basic error in what police are, every interaction with a police officer is very dangerous, when it shouldn't be. If you have done nothing wrong, you should have nothing to fear, right? Wrong, the police are their to find something you have done wrong. They are there to get a confession from you. They are there to find any triviality that can be upped into a criminal case. The police are paid to arrest people (quotas... that shouldn't exist) not to arrest guilty or dangerous people.
This is why so many lawyers say, "DO NOT TALK TO THE POLICE!"
(nothing good can come from it, legally speaking, and you have everything to lose)
The police are not for you, they are AGAINST you.
Police are prohibited from doing anything real, or damaging to a criminal.
They are prohibited from hurting him (too much) or torturing him, so basically, no matter what he says or does, he may get a few years in the pen, and be back out on the streets. But now he has some cred.
However, to a middle class person, just being arrested (whether false or otherwise) then that person cannot get any good jobs for the rest of their lives. Legally, they can never work for a bank, ever. This is from just the arrest record. The person may never have been convicted, nor ever followed up on. But, BLAM, no more getting past HR to get a job interview.
A person is fragile as an egg. One interaction with the police and you are a cracked (or smashed) egg. Lowlifes have already shed their shell, and there is nothing more the police can do to them.
A middle class person can lose their job just because an upset police officer puts them in jail for three days. Three days of missing work and many people will find themselves unemployed. And a police officer can do this on any charge they can think up.
And the biggest thing is that criminals already know the police are the bad guys. They do not feel guilt or shame as the police officer grills them. But a middle class person who has tried to never do a wrong thing will have their life flashing before their eyes as the police lie and manipulate, shame and guilt that person who was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time. (bought two guns at the same time? Didn't know you had a parking ticket? The shitty kids down the street feel they should "swat" you? Or, you were out surfing during a lockdown.)
So, the police are set up so they can do nothing to actual criminals, but can destroy a middle class person's life with just a flick of their wrist.
A police officer can lie to you. Deceive you. Use any veiled threat to get you to say yes, so they can search your house. This is all perfectly legal. It is not good, it is not nice, it does not make the public feel safe while dealing with them.
A police officer is not obligated to help or save you. You can be being stabbed to death a meter away, and the police are not required to do anything.
A police officer is not required to actually investigate a case. The wife murdered, lock up the husband, case closed. (no, really) All they need to do is find enough evidence, meaning someone to pin it on, to close the case. In the above case, everyone could have said they saw someone burglar burst out the back door and run for it. But, the police find one case of a heated argument, and away the husband goes to prison.
50% of homicides are not even investigated. Yep, all those police officers out on the road writing traffic tickets, while half of the worst crimes to humanity aren't even looked into.
The police don't even try to get recovered items back to their owners.
They go into lockup, the trial happens, then they get auctioned off.
Little Timmy's stolen bike is never given back to Timmy.
Civil Asset Forfeiture is one of the biggest violations to ever been put into law.
Now, a police officer can see that you have money on you, seize it, and then require you to sue them, and prove that you weren't going to buy drugs with that money.
Basically, they have criminalized the possession of money.
They have inverted the law (innocent until proven guilty).
They make it very hard for you to recover your money.
Or, we have authorized police officers to steal your money... at gunpoint.
And, lets say you were on your way to buy a truck to get you set up in a new business deal.
You cannot sue the police for missing that deal on the truck, or losing out on that business.
All you can do, after all your work and hiring a lawyer, is get your money back... maybe.
The police are now the largest thieves.
The police have stolen more than reported total from burglaries.
And i haven't even brought up police abuse.
But this article is about the structure of policing being broken.
The typical police officer does very little of what we want them to do, and a whole lot of what we don't.
And we are powerless to do anything about this.
"They work for us" is the words usually uttered, but they do not. The police officer works for the bank, maritime law. They are the enforcement arm of contract law.
We need to change things.
The police need to work for us, the people.
Not for the mayor who wants the police to get as much revenue from traffic tickets as possible.
Nor for the banks.
We need to be able to vote them out, or reduce their operating funds at any time.
Also, we need to have police vote on a law before it is implemented. A bad law, or a law that cannot really be enforced, should go before the police to see if it something they would want to enforce. We should not have police enforcing bad laws.
Basically, a good person (even a mostly good person) should have nothing to fear from the police.
And a criminal should have everything to fear from the police.
Not the other way around.
