Senator Cory Booker was on CNN yesterday, saying big changes are coming down the pike regarding police reform:
Booker: 'Meaningful progress' but no deal yet on police reform (cnn.com)
Like any good politician, he had little to offer regarding specifics, leaving it up to viewers to come up with likely scenarios and outcomes.
Here's where I think things are headed (at least in places with Senator Bookers in charge): under the guise of maximum accountability, the police will essentially be neutered to the point of irrelevance. Yes they will still exist, but only as empty bureaucracies and civil service providers of employment. It will be similar to what happened in South Africa, post apartheid, where the police were intentionally ham-strung after decades of being instruments of political oppression.
I was in South Africa a few years ago, imbedded with SAPS DPCI units (aka "The Hawks") in Durban and Cape Town. The officers all said the same things: we are understaffed and overwhelmed... The level of violence is unreal... The criminal element is highly organized and equipped.... The political powers do not support law enforcement... We are all trying to emigrate to New Zealand or Canada to give our families a better life...
On the streets, every home and business was rimmed with razor wire or electrical fencing. There were few police vehicles and police officers in public but many private armed response vehicles out and about (private security are the first responders to violent situations. If your house were getting robbed, you'd call your armed response company, they'd rush over and shoot it out with the bad guys, then you'd get a bill in the mail. Provided, of course, you weren't killed at some point during the encounter). In Cape Town, the streets emptied as soon as nightfall began and the hordes of zombies emerged to search for flesh to eat. I saw firsthand the violence in the Cape Flats, where gangsterism is the way of life in a city with 2,500 murders a year, where 13 and 14 year olds shoot neighborhood kids in the head, their initiation into a bloody abyss where life has little, if any, value...
The pastoral countryside offers little shelter from the mayhem. Common scenario: farmer and his family get killed during a midnight raid on a remote farm or ranch. Bodies are removed and squatters move in. It's their place now, as the police and government do nothing.
Perhaps some of you saw the recent CIT (cash in transit) robbery attempt video. That driver was lucky... since that happened a few weeks ago, several drivers have been killed.
Heists Of Cash In Transit Vehicles Almost Daily In South Africa (jalopnik.com)
There's little sense of shared values or community justice. It's a country on perpetual edge.
I asked one of the officers what it was like to witness the daily carnage. "We're de-sensitized to it", he said. "We just step over the bodies."
This weekend I was watching my local news, broadcast from my nearby violent city (at least for American standards, with 300+ murders a year). A sixteen year old girl was killed in crossfire during a gas station shootout between the Seven Mile Bloods and the Hustle Boyz. A candlelight vigil was being held, but there was no anger or outrage, only tears of resignation....
South Africa is America, year 2030. The violence of widespread gangsterism will be 100X our current levels but that's only a problem if you're not fully de-sensitized to it. Soon enough, the numbness will begin to take effect...
Booker: 'Meaningful progress' but no deal yet on police reform (cnn.com)
Like any good politician, he had little to offer regarding specifics, leaving it up to viewers to come up with likely scenarios and outcomes.
Here's where I think things are headed (at least in places with Senator Bookers in charge): under the guise of maximum accountability, the police will essentially be neutered to the point of irrelevance. Yes they will still exist, but only as empty bureaucracies and civil service providers of employment. It will be similar to what happened in South Africa, post apartheid, where the police were intentionally ham-strung after decades of being instruments of political oppression.
I was in South Africa a few years ago, imbedded with SAPS DPCI units (aka "The Hawks") in Durban and Cape Town. The officers all said the same things: we are understaffed and overwhelmed... The level of violence is unreal... The criminal element is highly organized and equipped.... The political powers do not support law enforcement... We are all trying to emigrate to New Zealand or Canada to give our families a better life...
On the streets, every home and business was rimmed with razor wire or electrical fencing. There were few police vehicles and police officers in public but many private armed response vehicles out and about (private security are the first responders to violent situations. If your house were getting robbed, you'd call your armed response company, they'd rush over and shoot it out with the bad guys, then you'd get a bill in the mail. Provided, of course, you weren't killed at some point during the encounter). In Cape Town, the streets emptied as soon as nightfall began and the hordes of zombies emerged to search for flesh to eat. I saw firsthand the violence in the Cape Flats, where gangsterism is the way of life in a city with 2,500 murders a year, where 13 and 14 year olds shoot neighborhood kids in the head, their initiation into a bloody abyss where life has little, if any, value...
The pastoral countryside offers little shelter from the mayhem. Common scenario: farmer and his family get killed during a midnight raid on a remote farm or ranch. Bodies are removed and squatters move in. It's their place now, as the police and government do nothing.
Perhaps some of you saw the recent CIT (cash in transit) robbery attempt video. That driver was lucky... since that happened a few weeks ago, several drivers have been killed.
Heists Of Cash In Transit Vehicles Almost Daily In South Africa (jalopnik.com)
There's little sense of shared values or community justice. It's a country on perpetual edge.
I asked one of the officers what it was like to witness the daily carnage. "We're de-sensitized to it", he said. "We just step over the bodies."
This weekend I was watching my local news, broadcast from my nearby violent city (at least for American standards, with 300+ murders a year). A sixteen year old girl was killed in crossfire during a gas station shootout between the Seven Mile Bloods and the Hustle Boyz. A candlelight vigil was being held, but there was no anger or outrage, only tears of resignation....
South Africa is America, year 2030. The violence of widespread gangsterism will be 100X our current levels but that's only a problem if you're not fully de-sensitized to it. Soon enough, the numbness will begin to take effect...
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