thanks for your detailed response and I'm not sure we will see eye-to-eye on this issue so please take this reply in the spirit of a quest for mutual understanding.
> The police's function is not limited to enforcement of norms, the police are used to impose the violence of the state even when there is no norm to enforce. You can easily come up with examples yourself. Same for intimidation, the state intimidates people in much broader ways than what is strictly necessary to enforce laws.
This is a fact of the existence of an enforcement mechanism and not something that can be administratively eliminated. Of course people who have the power to coerce others use it to benefit themselves when they are able to. The solution is to confront this reality, articulate norms that bound this enforcement ability, and document and punish enforcers who transgress those norms.
> The way to make the police not an inherently detrimental institution is to give the pure function of state violence [...] to another organism, and then the police would only exert violence as little as possible and purely in order to enforce norms.
No, they wouldn't. They would continue to use the coercive function to their own benefit when they were able to do so with a reasonable expectation of escaping punishment for such.
> The obvious solution is to put whoever fulfills the function of the social worker in control of someone who fulfills the function of enforcement or violence, depending on the type of situation (enforcement for a domestic violence call, social violence for, say, a suicide that might turn bad). As long as the other is fully subordinate to the person who fulfills the function of the social worker then the risk is minimized, and this is indeed what the people saying "defund the police" are asking for.
I'm not sure what you're asking for, but social workers already abuse their powers, including the power of directing the police to take children away from their parents in situations where it is unwarranted but of personal benefit.
> Also, while social workers are sometimes victims of violence, sending police first empirically leads to much, much more violence, on both sides.
its not always clear that the social worker is indicated and the police are not. sometimes a mentally ill person accuses others of violence and sometimes other people report a mentally ill person as a threatening individual. In fact, sometimes a mentally ill person actually threatens or commits acts of violence. In the first two scenarios its not clear that it would be wise to dispatch a social worker in lieu of police and in the third situation its unwise to dispatch a social worker without police. Finally the line between a criminal and a violent and mentally ill individual is not clearly defined and so its not clear that social workers can effectively respond to reports of (potentially) violent individuals.
For example, just the other day two police responded to a domestic violence call, one officer is now dead, the other was wounded. These situations cannot all be solved by social workers and when you are a dispatcher it is not clear which ones can be.
> you put them in a very structured, organized emplacement where there is an absolutely clear and unbreakable subordination of them to someone that does not exhibit such characteristics,
these individuals do not exhibit characteristics that allow them to be selected and segregated, such a process would be equally (if not more) prone to abuse as the current system of armed police enforcing laws, and finally its likely that there are no clear divides between 'sheep' and 'wolves' but more likely a gradient. such individuals self-select according to the options presented and they are unlikely to choose such and option, and finally its unlikely that an individual who does not share those characteristics to some extent would be able to command their obedience.
> the only institutions that fits that role are organizations like the National Guard, Military, and so on. The Police does not do so because there is no clear subordination of the enlisted/officer type, and what's more the penalties for overstepping the boundaries are incredibly light in comparison to those in the military.
this is false (there is in fact a clear chain of command in the police, to include separation between 'officer' ranks and 'enlisted' type ranks) and secondly you seem to be ignorant of the very same abuses of authority and violence perpetrated by members of the military.
> The other solution is to channel them into something where there is absolutely no power over other people and very limited opportunities for violence. Manual labour positions do this quite well.
I see. how do you expect to dissuade them from pursuing violence and larceny on their own time?
> Putting those people in the police is a bad idea at every level and much less preferable than both options above.
We do not put them in police. They seek out those roles because of the opportunity to engage in sanctioned violence and if that behavior is not channeled into a social good it will become a social evil, as it already does for individuals so inclined who are not able or willing to join the police or military.
> There is no such problem among enlisted members of the military.
You are misinformed. [0] [1] [2]
> Organized crime should not operate with the hegemony of violence.
I agree but to call enforcement of laws "organized crime" is to imply a political theory that is not currently shared by many members of the republic (regardless of my own feelings on the subject). Societies that fail to penalize acts of violence and larceny tend to succumb to violence and larceny on a society-wide scale.
> There is no need to do, those that enforce the law should not be those that generally express the violence of the state.
This is, or appears to be, a contradiction in terms and I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and asking you to explain how we are to enforce norms on people who do not subscribe to them without threatening violence.
> Their use of violence should be limited to the least amount possible at all to enforce norms.
Agreed.
> Again, the social function of violence is distinct from that of enforcing norms, even if sometimes norms must be enforced using violence, the general function fo state violence goes far beyond just that.
You are confusing the social function of violent enforcement with the abuse of that socially permitted ability by the individuals tasked with executing it.
[2] I'm not sure how many links it would take to make this point but there are more than enough readily available, please let me know if there is any doubt about members of the military committing violent crimes on and off duty.
> The police's function is not limited to enforcement of norms, the police are used to impose the violence of the state even when there is no norm to enforce. You can easily come up with examples yourself. Same for intimidation, the state intimidates people in much broader ways than what is strictly necessary to enforce laws.
This is a fact of the existence of an enforcement mechanism and not something that can be administratively eliminated. Of course people who have the power to coerce others use it to benefit themselves when they are able to. The solution is to confront this reality, articulate norms that bound this enforcement ability, and document and punish enforcers who transgress those norms.
> The way to make the police not an inherently detrimental institution is to give the pure function of state violence [...] to another organism, and then the police would only exert violence as little as possible and purely in order to enforce norms.
No, they wouldn't. They would continue to use the coercive function to their own benefit when they were able to do so with a reasonable expectation of escaping punishment for such.
> The obvious solution is to put whoever fulfills the function of the social worker in control of someone who fulfills the function of enforcement or violence, depending on the type of situation (enforcement for a domestic violence call, social violence for, say, a suicide that might turn bad). As long as the other is fully subordinate to the person who fulfills the function of the social worker then the risk is minimized, and this is indeed what the people saying "defund the police" are asking for.
I'm not sure what you're asking for, but social workers already abuse their powers, including the power of directing the police to take children away from their parents in situations where it is unwarranted but of personal benefit.
> Also, while social workers are sometimes victims of violence, sending police first empirically leads to much, much more violence, on both sides.
its not always clear that the social worker is indicated and the police are not. sometimes a mentally ill person accuses others of violence and sometimes other people report a mentally ill person as a threatening individual. In fact, sometimes a mentally ill person actually threatens or commits acts of violence. In the first two scenarios its not clear that it would be wise to dispatch a social worker in lieu of police and in the third situation its unwise to dispatch a social worker without police. Finally the line between a criminal and a violent and mentally ill individual is not clearly defined and so its not clear that social workers can effectively respond to reports of (potentially) violent individuals.
For example, just the other day two police responded to a domestic violence call, one officer is now dead, the other was wounded. These situations cannot all be solved by social workers and when you are a dispatcher it is not clear which ones can be.
> you put them in a very structured, organized emplacement where there is an absolutely clear and unbreakable subordination of them to someone that does not exhibit such characteristics,
these individuals do not exhibit characteristics that allow them to be selected and segregated, such a process would be equally (if not more) prone to abuse as the current system of armed police enforcing laws, and finally its likely that there are no clear divides between 'sheep' and 'wolves' but more likely a gradient. such individuals self-select according to the options presented and they are unlikely to choose such and option, and finally its unlikely that an individual who does not share those characteristics to some extent would be able to command their obedience.
> the only institutions that fits that role are organizations like the National Guard, Military, and so on. The Police does not do so because there is no clear subordination of the enlisted/officer type, and what's more the penalties for overstepping the boundaries are incredibly light in comparison to those in the military.
this is false (there is in fact a clear chain of command in the police, to include separation between 'officer' ranks and 'enlisted' type ranks) and secondly you seem to be ignorant of the very same abuses of authority and violence perpetrated by members of the military.
> The other solution is to channel them into something where there is absolutely no power over other people and very limited opportunities for violence. Manual labour positions do this quite well.
I see. how do you expect to dissuade them from pursuing violence and larceny on their own time?
> Putting those people in the police is a bad idea at every level and much less preferable than both options above.
We do not put them in police. They seek out those roles because of the opportunity to engage in sanctioned violence and if that behavior is not channeled into a social good it will become a social evil, as it already does for individuals so inclined who are not able or willing to join the police or military.
> There is no such problem among enlisted members of the military.
You are misinformed. [0] [1] [2]
> Organized crime should not operate with the hegemony of violence.
I agree but to call enforcement of laws "organized crime" is to imply a political theory that is not currently shared by many members of the republic (regardless of my own feelings on the subject). Societies that fail to penalize acts of violence and larceny tend to succumb to violence and larceny on a society-wide scale.
> There is no need to do, those that enforce the law should not be those that generally express the violence of the state.
This is, or appears to be, a contradiction in terms and I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and asking you to explain how we are to enforce norms on people who do not subscribe to them without threatening violence.
> Their use of violence should be limited to the least amount possible at all to enforce norms.
Agreed.
> Again, the social function of violence is distinct from that of enforcing norms, even if sometimes norms must be enforced using violence, the general function fo state violence goes far beyond just that.
You are confusing the social function of violent enforcement with the abuse of that socially permitted ability by the individuals tasked with executing it.
[0] https://nypost.com/2020/08/26/fort-hood-soldier-deaths-this-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Williams_(criminal)
[2] I'm not sure how many links it would take to make this point but there are more than enough readily available, please let me know if there is any doubt about members of the military committing violent crimes on and off duty.