wavelength1 wrote:
My sociology professor said that police exist to protect the rich from the poor, and the powerful from the powerless, and that even if the U.S. Constitution says we are innocent until proven guilty, that is not what the police assume.
Also, if you are obviously poor and driving a clunker or have an apparent disability, you are guilty. The police in a lot of towns will not even give you a chance to get an attorney before you are questioned to try to get a confession out of you even if they police KNOW you didn't commit the crime. To them, it is just a way to get everyone THEY consider to be "undesirable" in the prison system behind locked doors so the rich and powerful can keep running roughshod over everyone else until we have everyone but compliant sheep behind bars.
The police exist to maintain general order in society and I would not want to lose their presence. They do tend to categorize and label people on the spot by appearance and how they act and that's usually all they have to go by. This is why I tell people who can at all afford not to look like a bum not to look like a bum in public.
Police departments are bureaucracies and cops tend to go along to get along and as a whole have an us against them mentality. The well off do tend to get better service from the police than the not so well off because of money and status. Rich people are capable of making bigger waves if they are wronged. I can't see that ever changing under any circumstances.
Personally, I don't like the militarization of the police. I don't think most smaller cities and towns need to have a standing SWAT team.
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"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
- Thomas Jefferson