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Good Cop, Bad Cop
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
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Sure. The people who arrest criminals will always be cops no matter how you dress them up.
Cops are not just the enforcers you don't like. I suppose the most accurate definition would be a cop is a person with authority to arrest.
A safety authority that can't arrest is toothless and worthless.
Non-violent offenders don't generally need to be arrested though. A summons to court is enough. You discussed workplace safety for example, where I don't think direct arrests are needed. However, where they are, the judiciary could deploy deputies to bring offenders to their appearances. There is still no reason that an investigator must be a cop.
I don't understand this fetish for authoritarian arrests. Can you explain why they would be needed by a safety authority? Or why a traffic safety service would necessarily be police?
Before I explain myself, which I will, I'd first like to ask how you define police vs not police? Because honestly it just seems like you think law enforcement I like=not police
You've talked here about how police are the ones investigating workplace safety issues. Which doesn't really sound correct for the US, OSHA exists, but I don't live there. I do know for certain that police aren't involved in that process at all in Australia, it falls under WorkSafe. To me, that is an example of how investigative services can be provided by other bodies than the police. WorkSafe still has teeth, and could work directly with the judiciary when violations reach a criminal level. You could do things like funding/empowering the fire department to investigate all arson cases, not just provide some investigative services to the police.
The entire issue with policing is that it's one homogenous, corrupt organisation. Breaking it down, separating out its powers into other services or bodies, limits the possibility of corruption. Perhaps you've heard the term "we investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong"? If whatever direct crime response organisation you had, wasn't in charge of investigation, that would be much harder.
Same with traffic enforcement. If they aren't pulling you over and lying about "smelling marijuana" then less corruption is going to occur. Have their only job be traffic enforcement. Roadside drug and alcohol testing is important, people shouldn't drive under the influence, but having weed in your glovebox doesn't affect your ability to drive. I've actually joked to a number of friends that we should get a bunch of grandmas doing traffic enforcement. I think having an older woman tut and fuss at you like "come on now sweetheart, you know it's not nice to run through a red light, you might hurt yourself or others" and give you the look would honestly be pretty effective in my opinion. (This last part is mostly a joke by the way.)
You didn't answer the question I notice. Traffic enforcement, often called traffic cops, are absolutely cops.
Well, it sounded like I was, but they aren't. It's my wish for a serious enforcement agency to review safety instead of a joke of an organization.
Investigating arson is the job of the fire department. The fire warden is a fire cop.
Yes. Do you think police are only called police if they perform enforcement and investigation as one entity?
If they can pull you over, they're a cop. If they can arrest you, they're a cop. Taking a square and calling it a circle so you can sit there and say acab while advocating for cops still existing is what's questionable to me.
I tried to answer it with examples of what I think are, and are not, police. I'm interested in hearing what your alternatives are. I did find an article I read a while back that helped shape my opinions here, that I posted if you'd like to go have a read and continue this discussion there: https://threadiverse.link/lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/31917406
Well, one of the main reasons I'm more fixated on that is because the only point I'm really disagreeing with you on is what's considered police. That and that safety offices should have power to arrest. But basically, every single thing you've said are things I fully think are necessary changes.
Since I consider investigative services as mostly police and any arrests or response teams as 100% police no matter their names, and you seem to disagree with that viewpoint
I'm confused then, would a safety officer (like OSHA/WorkSafe) that can arrest not be police then?