[leggomuhgreggo]

>law enforcement officers performing their official duties can be secretly recorded because they have no expectation of privacy.

Sounds about right.

I was worried that this referred to personal conversations and was about to say "dang have we gone too far?" but yeah this makes sense.

Probably goes without saying but — we don't want to condemn/bastardize/immiserate the entire institution...

[yareal]

The institution of uniformed police forces is relatively recent, established in the 1800s, and it reflects an 1800s era sensibility towards crime. In that it is predominantly focused on protecting the property interests of the wealthy. (The original police forces grew out of a desire to socialize the costs of protecting merchant investments -- the warehouses and docks and factories in much of the world, and slaves held as property in the south of the U.S.)

Prior to uniformed police, communities maintained order themselves -- often through night watches in which everyone participated, or eventually through hiring people to "cover my watch".

Police in the modern era have been used as a threat of violence against common people more or less since their inception in the 1800s, from slave patrols to strikebreaking. They've been used as political assassins killing the political opponents of the state (see Frederick Hampton) to the systematic oppression of gay and trans people (see, for instance, Stonewall inn). Lest these feel like old examples, just this year police shut down a gay bar in Seattle for having "indecent apparel" being worn by the gay men in attendance.

I think it's absolutely fair for people to think critically about the history and legacy of the institution and wonder, is this the best institution we can imagine to fill this role? Are there better ways to imagine the roles it fills today? Are there systemic issues that need fixing with it?

The reason I bring this forward is that any thoughtful critique of the institution is often painted broadly as, "you are just an anarchist who cannot think beyond your slogans!" Perhaps the institution could do with some immiseration.

[edflsafoiewq]

Prior to uniformed police, law enforcement was a largely private matter, and private "thief-takers" were enlisted to apprehend criminals. My understanding is modern state-run police forces developed in response to public anger over misconduct and corruption in the thief-takers, such as the Macdaniel affair.

Particularly they were infamous for playing "both sides" by taking money from a victim to arrest a thief, then taking money from the thief not to arrest them.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Prior to uniformed police, communities maintained order themselves -- often through night watches in which everyone participated, or eventually through hiring people to "cover my watch"

Dispensing violence as part of these watches was also generally accepted. I'm not sure how that would work in a modern environment.

(You're also referring to a period during which most of the world was feudal or quasi-feudal. The people maintaining order had their own security forces.)

[quickslowdown]

This was way better written than the expletive filled reply I had cooking in my head. I appreciate the history, and in reply to the other commentor, I DO condemn the whole institution, and anyone who participates in it. This isn't some job where you're tricked into doing heinous things to ordinary people, they choose to be that way & anyone working to further the goals of the organization is part of the problem.

[clbrmbr]

Appreciated. Could be a fascinating read, how societies through history have maintained internal order with various approaches to security. Did Rome have police? What about the Venetians or 16th-18th century europe? Any reading recommendation?

Also, I’m now curious what a the future of homeland security could look like. Is anyone writing rationally about this?

[magnetowasright]

Beautifully said.

Your comment about slogans reminds me of the 'thin blue line between anarchy and order' slogan the police themselves use which, to me, is a bare-faced admission of existing to protect the property and interests of the wealthy by suppressing the rest of us. I've never quite understood why that slogan became so popular.

[Terr_]

Now I'm wondering about analogies to useful-but-dangerous technologies, where "why do you worry so much about the police" is a bit like "why do you worry so much about butane lighters and cans of gasoline."

[gjsman-1000]

Ah, no; this is historically completely inaccurate. Even as early as 1285, King Edward I put into law rules on the minimum number of officers (“constables”) per area.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constable