The Largest Street Gang in America

[Alcon]

Do civilians have lower violent crime rates?  If not, I'm not sure what points trying to be made.

[Alcon]

Do civilians have lower violent crime rates?  If not, I'm not sure what points trying to be made.

That there may be some institutional problems with oversight and police culture that need to be fixed?

Sure, but the street gang analogy is borderline offensive glitter then, and it's pretty much the running theme of the docu.  I was curious about what sort of "basic idea" was Bono's take-away.

[Alcon]

Hmm, I jumped around.  I'll give it a fair shake.  I suppose I may be falsely recalling Bono's old writing on cops.  I'm the last to say that police culture is flush with oversight .  I come from a town with a police force with a healthy history of corruption, and I have a harmless friend who was put through the wringer (on a BS civil case for that matter) by a cop I will politely describe as possibly psychotic.  Even there, in a case that didn't involve any sort of systemic challenge to the police, there was no recourse whatsoever.  And in this case I think the roots of the problem are systemic and cultural at even the most simplistic level of analysis.

I just, y'know, am not sure that Bono was intending that message, but my memory has been faulty before.

[Alcon]

Quite honestly? I'm in favor of privatizing the police to as great an extent as possible. And not because I think "RAWR THE FREE MARKET RULES ALL D00DZ!!1111!", but because I think the economic burden of assuming ownership of the police force would cause them to massively scale back their operations. I do believe that there is room where the interests of the minorities and of the poor and a free-market can meet. Our present system is almost openly hostile to their interests. No investor, no matter how wealthy, could possibly meet the costs of our "War on Drugs", for instance, nor would he likely be interested in doing so.

Yea, but what kind of free-market model would incentivize minority interests?  And what exactly are minority interests not represented in the police?  There are certainly racial issues surrounding the police, and a lack of recourse.  But is the cause of the police failure to represent minority issues really systemic (in a way addressed by a free-market model?), and how, and how do we make that model?

[Alcon]

Quite honestly? I'm in favor of privatizing the police to as great an extent as possible. And not because I think "RAWR THE FREE MARKET RULES ALL D00DZ!!1111!", but because I think the economic burden of assuming ownership of the police force would cause them to massively scale back their operations. I do believe that there is room where the interests of the minorities and of the poor and a free-market can meet. Our present system is almost openly hostile to their interests. No investor, no matter how wealthy, could possibly meet the costs of our "War on Drugs", for instance, nor would he likely be interested in doing so.

Yea, but what kind of free-market model would incentivize minority interests?  And what exactly are minority interests not represented in the police?  There are certainly racial issues surrounding the police, and a lack of recourse.  But is the cause of the police failure to represent minority issues really systemic (in a way addressed by a free-market model?), and how, and how do we make that model?

Well, I think that I answered this pretty well in response to Lunar, but to elaborate: our centralized government can afford such abuses, because it can just pour more money into the system. A private police force, however, could be crushed under the weight of lawsuits if it tolerated abuses.

If the abuses aren't rooted in the systemic nature, how could the private police force avoid being crushed?  And considering it's our police force doesn't that openly invite disaster?  Wouldn't there be a massive counter-incentive either way?  The reasons that the public police force are untouchable aren't because they are granted actual exception in the legal process.  You're just changing the check from election/appointment by the elected to market forces.  And what's to say such an omni-present company wouldn't be able to rather easily blow off lawsuits?

And that's only in terms of how to address the current problems -- Lunar's point is extremely important, too.  Do you deny that the culture surrounding law enforcement in the U.S. is a factor in the prohibition of "victimless crimes"?  This could very well exacerbate two issues for every one that it eliminates.

Out of curiosity, how would you manage a camera at every arrest?   Capcams?