Cops are not above the law

TheEndOfUs said:

The USA is not the face or the leading nation of the western world, that would be Europe :)

Says you. And when did I claim the U.S. was a leading nation? I'm trying to figure out what that has to do with this discussion.

And pal, all those cute links you posted, while represetative of horrible police behavior, probably occur in places other than the U.S. more frequently. Not every single instance of reprehensible law enforcement actions gets reported, especially overseas. Just because you aren't aware of it doesn't mean it isn't happening. Try harder next time.

Vordakk said:

And pal, all those cute links you posted, while represetative of horrible police behavior, probably occur in places other than the U.S. more frequently. Not every single instance of reprehensible law enforcement actions gets reported, especially overseas. Just because you aren't aware of it doesn't mean it isn't happening. Try harder next time.

so you don't know, but your argument is that we don't know as well, therefore usa cops = #1 gentlemen. sighhhhh.

dew said:

so you don't know, but your argument is that we don't know as well, therefore usa cops = #1 gentlemen. sighhhhh.

If you can point out to me where I said "usa cops = #1", then I just might take what you have to say seriously. As it is though, you're a joke. As is typical, I'm getting ganged-up on because I'm putting a damper on the forum's America-bashing. First, I'm supposedly insinuating that the U.S. is the "leading nation", and now I'm apparently claiming that American cops can do no wrong? Show me where I said any of this.

All I'm doing is pointing out how ridiculously biased some people's views are. Your responses are by and large confirming what I already know.

I found this forum website that you might like. People on there are really prejudiced and enjoy stereotyping people for irrational reasons. Here's a link, have fun.

Vordakk said:

Says you. And when did I claim the U.S. was a leading nation?

You didnt.

Vordakk said: [insert name of "obviously superior" overseas country here]

Corruption is everywhere, its something that occur everywhere. Its a world wide problem.


I could spend days digging up links to cases of police brutality & the like, but it does not matter. What matters is: having actual police officers patroling schools (who carry guns,) arresting & handing out tickets to kids from the age 5 & up for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Its fucking perverse & a sign of a very unstable, broken & unhealthy democracy.

"In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later."

So, what message do you send to the rest of the world, when you have school police with firearms, arresting children & destroying their future lives & careers for bullshit charges like throwing paper & not picking up trash? Are you surprised about what people think about the USA with this shit going on? Are you not concerned?

The fact that America isn't necessarily the leading nation in terms of police corruption doesn't mean that it isn't a problem. However, while I generally don't agree with Vordakk on a lot of other subjects, I don't see what the problem with his stance is in this case.

So far, all I've seen is a refutation that American cops are the only ones that are corrupt bullies with a hard-on for power. While there are a lot of places where police cross the line, and America isn't the only hotspot for such things, it is still a pretty big problem. And I really haven't seen anyone say otherwise.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ACT50/007/2002/en/a8cbc007-d7c4-11dd-b4cd-01eb52042454/act500072002en.html

The country which has carried out more documented executions of child offenders than any other since 1990 is the USA.

In 1988 and 1989 the US Supreme Court ruled that the execution of people who were under 16 at the time of the crime was contrary to the US Constitution but that the execution of people aged 16 or 17 at the time of the crime was not.(31)

Fifteen US states were holding a total of 82 child offenders on death row as of August 2002. Eighteen executions of child offenders have been carried out in six states since 1990. One of those executed was 16 at the time of the offence; the others were all 17. Eleven of the executions were in Texas, the state which has carried out the largest total number of executions of prisoners since the resumption of executions in the USA in 1977 -- 281 up to 17 September 2002.

The background of most of the child offenders executed since 1990 was one of serious emotional or material deprivation. Many were regular users of drugs or alcohol with lower than average intelligence. Some had organic brain damage. Some had poor or inexperienced legal counsel. Highly relevant information was withheld at their trials due to incompetence or inexperience on the part of their lawyers.

The united states can, will and has handed out death sentences to fucking children and you guys are complaining about police speeding and taking bribes?

But we're with good company: iran, saudi arabia, yemen, and nigeria.

Quast said:

The united states can, will and has handed out death sentences to fucking children and you guys are complaining about police speeding and taking bribes?

Hmmm...16 years old isn't exactly wet behind the ears these days. Kids younger than that pull guns on my friends all the time where we live in the rough part of town. If you knew what these "children" had done, you might sing a different tune. I doubt that they hand out death sentences to kids for jaywalking; in other words, the crime these young people committed must have been so heinous that despite their age they were deemed so irreparably violent and terrible that they should be removed from the planet so that they cannot ever repeat what they did.

If someone close to you is ever the victim of deadly violence(God forbid that ever happens), the death penalty will start to look more appealing.

And the link is from Amnesty International, a bleeding heart website with an agenda, so I'm not exactly gonna take what they say as gold. From Wikipedia:

The United States Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for offenders under the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), and for all juveniles in Roper v. Simmons (2005). In addition, in 2002, the United States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the execution of individuals with mental retardation, in Atkins v. Virginia.

Having the death penalty at all is just stupid. Any system with the infrastructure for killing criminals has the infrastructure for killing innocent people and will eventually end up doing it.

Precisely. The only justification of the death penalty with even the slightest bit of legitimacy is the economic. There's no point in feeding and housing a person who will never again be able to contribute to the economy. But then, the best way to offset that cost is to stop jailing so many people. Doesn't even mean the legalization of marijuana or anything. Just stop jailing people for so many non-violent crimes.

Membrain said:

But then, the best way to offset that cost is to stop jailing so many people. Doesn't even mean the legalization of marijuana or anything. Just stop jailing people for so many non-violent crimes.

Since the privatization of prisons, I doubt that will ever happen.

Membrain said:
This sort of shit is prevalent wherever you go. Any time you give people the option of becoming authority figures, you're going to get a ton of bullies.

It's not the same everywhere. Some factors like authoritarian tendencies, prolonged disorder or a past of dictatorial periods all promote bullies in the security forces. The visibility of police corruption also varies. In some countries, cops get away with abusing certain sections of society due to support by the media or social indifference, while in other places with a deteriorated social structure their brutality is more obvious in general.

As for the US, without judging where it'd appear on any list, its security forces can be judged against its boast as "the Land the of Free" and a leading country that's supposedly an example to the world.

Precisely. The only justification of the death penalty with even the slightest bit of legitimacy is the economic.

It's cheap only in places with little respect for human rights, as death penalty cases tend to be very expensive because great care is taken to try to guarantee the condemnation is legit.

There's no point in feeding and housing a person who will never again be able to contribute to the economy.

They seem to "contribute" in different ways. As Technician noted, many places are privatizing prison services, where detainments may mean profit due to services involved. In other cases, prison guards and cops use imprisoned people to commit crimes for them. This is basically another form of "human trafficking." That's one of the issues being debated where I live, where the prisons in our biggest province are overpopulated. Whether these people contribute to society eventually also depends on the kind of detainment they get, so it's not a given that they are a waste.

But then, the best way to offset that cost is to stop jailing so many people. Doesn't even mean the legalization of marijuana or anything. Just stop jailing people for so many non-violent crimes.

One issue here is preventive jailings. In highly visible cases that appear in the media and involve people who have had influence, this is usually not a problem, but when thousands of "nobodies" get dumped in jail "just in case they run away during court proceedings," you risk generating criminals and people with little future out of people that are potentially innocent or who haven't done much.

Hellbent said:

One of these days I should flash a cop down and see if I can convince him that he should write himself up a ticket.

I never did that, but I did tail a cop going 75 through a 40 zone. It was late at night on a long stretch of road without many intersections. I figured he set a noble example to follow, and I was going to tell him that if he turned around to bother me about it, but eventually he just sped away even faster.

I've honked at police cars that didnt use turn signals before. Nothing happened though. I've never seen police cars disobey traffic laws such as blowing through red lights or other negligent garbage. I've never seen any accidents involving a police car that wasn't the fault of the other.