Reform Emergency Response.
I've been listening to people talk about reforming the police and they all have good ideas. Some want to simply defund the police – even eliminate them – One twitter friend says [same as me].
"We need REAL police reform:
- no outta town cops
- no guns unless SWAT
- no shooting suspects in the back
- no military assault gear
- no qualified immunity"
Call for Reform
#DefundThePolice https://t.co/o41qca5iqJ
What my friend was talking about, really, is the need for community policing by unarmed guardians. Police have two sets of powers; formal powers and informal powers. The formal powers they learn at police academies and relate to the duties and requirements that go with the privileges they have as law enforcement officers.
- Formal Powers:
- Investigate situations
- Enforce the law, arrest, detain, write citations.
- Use Deadly force.
- Formal Duties:
- Respect Facts.
- Respect Rights and the constitution.
- "Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law."
- Reasonable Behavior
Unfortunately, police also have informal powers and duties, some of which are antithetical to their formal powers.
- Informal Powers and Duties
- Keep Order
- Protect "the good people" from the "bad People" in communities
- Settle disputes between individuals that involve crime, psychological issues, property, family disputes, etc...
- Emergency response to medical and other emergencies.
The informal powers, are what trainers call sometimes "the law of the street." In most cases the Police have little ability or training to do them expertly. And most of the time the threat of deadly force escalates the problems and doesn't solve them. These are also issues of managing communities, which means they are issues of local government. Hence the need for well trained community guardians and local democracy. The problem is not just the presence of police who despise the people they are supposed to be "serving and protecting", sometimes lumping entire communities into the informal label "bad people" and employing deadly force and the power of the law almost with casual cruely. They are simply not equipped to be guardians of communities. The result is they act as if they were an occupying army at war with the neighborhoods they patrol. That is a result of poor constitution/design. The system needs systemic change. That doesn't boil down to simple slogans, but it does boil down to the application of basic principles.
Systemic Change
Thus reforming the police requires systemic change. Our systems are failing because componants (sub-systems, police departments, local government) are failing, dysfunctional and/or lacking.
- The patient is ill.
- If you want to cure the patient you need the correct diagnosis.
- The systemic change means more local democracy.
The Principles are there
The best way to ensure that these services are provided in the best and most modern way is to listen to all the founders (including the Federalists, Anti-Federalists and the dissidents from both groups of elites. Militia as concieved in 1776 was obsolete by 1876. The concept is still sound, but modern versions include VISTA, Peace Corps, etc... And since our system is credit monetized, volunteers need to be compensated or they'll either starve, or be limited to elites whose families control abundant resources.
Just Ignored
Some people may think the answer is to erase the efforts of our founding fathers, but that would be simplistic. The problem is that our country has intentionally violated the principles embodied in our founding documents.
Best Articulators are often the worst Practitioners
Some of the best articulators of these principles, were the worst violaters. Underlying So we are suffering, in part, due to institutions and concepts that reflect that failure. Fortunately, they themselves knew they were imperfect. When the preamble admits that the purpose of the constitution was to form a “more perfect Union” not to lay down a dogmatic and rigid rule that could never be corrected. The two worst examples of implicit bias, hypocricy, and double standards, were also two guys who articulated the principles violated: Jefferson and Wilson
Original Sins of Bigotry and Hypocrisy
The reality is our original sins are bigotry and hypocrisy. His complaint points to underlying problems.
Two expressions of that original sin are:
- Treating communities as Occupied Territory by organizing police as standing armies and as if they were an occupying force among a subject enemy.
- Suppressing Local Democracy
The reality is that his complaint boils down to one real problem. We have States and Federal government with elections and some representation. But centralization in a gigantic Federal Republic like ours isn't democratic unless democracy is also local. I'm not going to go into this subject in depth here, because I did so in previous posts.
- Diagnostic Posts:
- Zero Tolerance is a Failed Concept
- The Neighborhood, City Village and Town
- Democratic Principles under Assault
- When we Practiced Democratic Republicanism
- What's missing from the Constitution
- Some Solutions and principles behind them.
- What Electronic Democracy Means
- Local Democracy Necessary for Democratic Republics
- Implementing Democratic Subsidiarity
- There are more links to related articles at the end of the post
Police as Occupation and Standing Armies
This is the classical complaint that police are a forein force imposing arbitrary & corrupt order on an oppressed population. The history of policing is that they often represent a violation of what the authors of the Declaration of Independence were protesting when they listed complaints against the police powers assumed and usurped by British Redcoats sent into Boston Commons to keep order. That our own country created standing armies of police, especially in the South, to enforce slavery illustrates why they, legitimately, saw standing armies as a threat to their liberties.
- I go into detail on this subject in this post:
- Police As Occupying Standing Army
Pulling up the Rope
Unfortunately we humans tend to be flighty and herd creatures. Unfortunately people built tree forts to protect their own liberties and as soon as they build them pull up the ladders. The founders did that. During their idealistic phase they talked of universal suffrage and principles, once in power they often walked back all those nice proclamations. The history of race, gender and religious relations in this country reflects the hypocritical way that authorities applied their own universal concepts. We can remedy that.
The Need to restore the Principles of Universal Service
The founders saw the need for local forces composed of local volunteers. They called those forces militia. Their role included functions nowadays embodied in Police, Fire/Rescue, Emergency and Health Services and yes the National Guard. Private Militias are not what the founders envisioned, but Militias as an expression of democracy and public service would be a more appropriate modernization of the concept. The Militia were guardians of towns and communities. Professional police and fire departments were often enemies of, replacements for and hostile to volunteers.
Emergency Response = Professional Support Service
The first principle of a professional Service derives from the benefits of centralization. Centralization allows concentration on specialized disciplines. For example healthcare is a very generalized notion. A person trained professionally learns a specialized set of disciplines. Most people learn relatively inexpensive to teach general knowledge areas and then goes on to acquire increasingly specialized and sometimes expensive areas of knowledge and skills. A General Practitioner has to know a lot about a broad area of subjects. Someone specialized in heart surgery or brain surgery, is most effective treating heart conditions or brain diseases.
Role of Central Authorities
A centralized system can provide resources to serve a relatively small number of cases spread out over a large population or geographic area, by focusing resources on two areas:
- Highly Specialized Areas located centrally
- Generalists located where needed.
- Problem escalation when local persons are overwhelmed
- Backup and advice.
For example many school systems, large residences, ships, etc... employ generalists like nurse practitioners, for day to day first aid, health care, immunizations etc... They usually have a generalist doctor on call for situations beyond their knowledge. Doctors in turn usually have specialists on call to refer patients to, if the problem is specialized or otherwise beyond their abilities to handle. The same principles must be applied to managing communities and neighborhoods. Healthcare, community order and emergency services should be networked between centralized specialists and generalists who are close to the problem.
A Hierarchy of Centralization
Therefore, the notion of professionalism and reserves means that, professional people should be available to backup locals and professionally manage emergenies. Centralization should express a hierarchy of services, based on whether they need to be close to the people of communities or available more broadly.
Authority of Authoritative Expertise
Authority in this case means "the person who knows the subject put in charge of the area of expertise that that person has."
- Advice and Support goes up a chain of authoritative authority.
- Training, discipline and regulation of Personnel flow from general training for as broad a section of people as possible to specialized training for sufficient people to handle both regular order and potential emergencies.
- First a local responsability and response.
- Backed up by higher orders of governmental association.
Generalists, Specialists and Volunteers
Volunteers are always needed to provide first response (before police and fire units can show) and to assist the police. The reserve idea tells us that large numbers of people should be trained and qualified to respond to such emergencies. Additionally large numbers of people should be trained up for emergency needed specialties, but also trained into something more general that they can do on a day to day basis. Such people would be inactive reserves on Federal, State, County and local deployment availability lists. Further, training manuals/it, and telehealth, should always be available for quick study so that people trained in general subjects and perform more complex subjects in an emergency.
Democratic Subsidiarity
Almost every problem not escalated to a hospital, field hospital, or general courts, starts out local. Therefore locals should have basic rights so that two way communication is expedited and more efficient. Organizations do better when they practice the basic processes of local democracy and use republican principles in organizing themselves. Basic representatative Local government should be a basic right of all local neighborhoods and workplaces. Not for the sake of some abstract notion of what should be, but because organizations function better long term, are more productive and sustainable, if the people involved with them not only feel part of those organizations and neighborhoods, but have a voice in their function.
Volunteerism = democratic Subsidiarity
Democracy and leadership both involve people stepping up. The best person to lead should lead, and the rest assist and help him/her become successful. Emergency response only is rapid and effective if trained and responsible people are available right away. Problems cascade rapidly in some cases unless dealt with immediately. Communities that feel left out of society tend to rebel and assert democracy in less than democratic form. Gangs are an example. But so is the KKK. A well regulated Healthcare system would also have a democratic base, where local decisions are made locally.
I talk about that more in my two articles on subsdiarity
Conclusion: Core Concepts, Derivative Concepts
Police are currently not trained or equipped for all the things we put them to do. At best they have rudimentary training in First Aid or Mental Health. But usually they specialize in restoring order, or other disciplines. They were designed to enforce order on unruly populations in a gross disregard for democratic principles by our forefathers.
Antithetical to Constitution
The concept of police may be loosely derived from roles carried out by militia at one time, but they also embody concepts and principles antithetical to the concepts that drove the militia clauses of the constitution or the notion of volunteerism. Minutemen were also tailors and watchmakers, bakers and cooks. Militia as conceived in 1776 was obsolete in most of the country, by 1876. Not that the concept was obsolete, but in practice authorities ignored it. It was strictly held tightly to armed military service in time of war and the derivative functions, police, fire, rescue, healthcare, were spun off into bureaucratic organizations distant from the people. Most towns and cities no longer needed militia to drill weekly with muskets, but they issued side arms or billy clubs to police instead. Volunteerism was met with Volunteer and professional fire departments, police departments, national guard troops, ever jockeying for resources. All these were originally based on a unifying concept of universal service and central directed training and discipline. But people needed to know how to stop a flood, put out a fire, not shoot the British. In much of the country militia vanished or became private armies of pretend soldiers.
Militia as the Bulwark of Democracy
Even so in the Civil War Militia were called into Federal Service during the war and after the war units of black militia, who had fought to free themselves protected black communities in the South. The derivative concepts still included the need for volunteer warriors to protect the country, but those morphed into National Guard Unit, and specialized units evolved into police, fire, health service, etc...
Militia and Police as tools of Fascism
Thus so called "modern policing" [over 120 years old] violates these basic principles of republican goverment. We did away with militia of the whole in favor of volunteer & professional fire departments & ambulance departments. Volunteer police departments no. Instead policing represented a means to keep subject populations [slaves, immigrants, etc... in line].
Thus the reforms I'm talking about, in the hands of wannabe dictators and tyrants, can always be abused. Democratic and Republican forms are the way to mitigate the risk of that. But that involves educating people in the principles involved and not letting the "warrior spirit" (a Fascist idea) make guardians of communities act like guardians of one community against its neighbor.
Reform Emergency Response
To fix the police we need to return to first principles. Policing is a community function. Police have two roles, one is to keep local order & the peace. The other is to respond to emergency situations, sometimes involving enforcing law, restoring order, tracking down law breakers, etc... Things that a local guardian or constabulary may or may not be able to handle.
Emergency Management, Centralization and Subsidiarity – Summary:
Police therefore are part of Emergency Management. That means they are part of the modern system that evolved out of the role that militia played in the Democratic Republican Schema. From Anglo Saxon Days to Indigineous America, to Colonial America, emergencies were:
Democratic Subsidiarity
The principle behind local responsibility is called democratic subsidiarity. There are both tactical and strategic reasons why locals should respond to emergencies. They know the terrain, they are close to the problem and likely the best to direct a response.
Centralization, Federated Response
At the same time, centralized authority may have knowledge generalized from experiences locals may not have had. A town may never have experienced an earthquake, another measels, or similar.
Sometimes a fire might be larger than one town, so you get help from multiple other locations. Centralized police, health orgs and similar are part of the federal principle. We are stronger united than separate.
Federation versus Monarchism
The key is to balance local needs and resources and for central authorities to play a supporting role. Unfortunately centralization shifts resources from local persons and needs to centralized locations. This leads to people usurping powers and resources. The terms for this are caudilloism, economic & political royalism. I call it privateering, but when it happens police serve centralized paymasters and no longer their community.
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