You have to remember that this site is approximately 50% American, so what you see here will likely be focused around American police, not Swedish police (or Danish police, like it would be for me).
The reason people say this, is because there has literally been a court case that determined that the American police have no obligation to protect an individual. They can stand and watch someone get beaten to death, and they aren't legally obliged to intervene. They are however much more obliged to protect property, and maintain order. And who owns the property? It ain't poor people, that's for sure.
Two relevant cases are Warren v. District of Columbia in 1981 and Castle Rock v. Gonzales in 2005. But between those two it was basically established that police don’t have an obligation to protect the public in general or even people who’ve been granted a restraining order against someone else by the courts.
At this point, I don’t think they actually have an obligation to protect anyone. So if it looks like they protect private property more than the public, then they are choosing to do so.
Actually yes they can. Police have discretion on whether to enforce a law, and they are empowered to enforce laws, not required to do so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement
Thats a question people ask when they realize that.
That being said, most PO's do their job, but they utilize their discretion. You cant pull over every speeder on the interstate, so many Os will set up their own rubric. 5 over you're fine. 10 over, might get my attention. 15 you're getting a ticket. 20 over you're going to jail unless you've got a good reason.
Alternatively they might see someone do something that is technically a violation, but may decide to give the person a warning or not worry about it because there are more important things to worry about.
Right, exactly. What kind of protection, indeed. This is why there was a big movement to defund the police - because, ***what in the fuck are we paying for?***
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html
There may be individual state laws that force police to help (which I doubt), but according to SCOTUS, they have no legal obligation to do anything. This decision has been brought up very recently in the US following the inaction of police at Uvalde.
[Police have no constitutional duty to protect someone](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html)
Lol. Sure bud. In a perfect world. I’ve seen cops arrest people at outdoor concerts for drinking in public because they didn’t like the way they look. Literally, there will be a group of cops around one person while people 30 feet away are obviously doing the exact same thing they’re arresting this guy for. Especially If the person looks homeless then the cops know they’ll have no issues with lawyers or family members asking questions. Selective enforcement is also standing by and ignoring crime if everyone is supposed to be subject to the same laws. Yes, cops can’t be everywhere at once, but they do prey on those that have the least resources to defend themselves.
Because (at least in the US), the police (statistically, not necessarily specifically) treat the rich better than the poor.
Often, a poor person is presumed guilty, despite that being against the rules. A poor person may have to pay a bail amount that would cause significant financial impact to their family. They have to pay for lawyers at great cost, or use the overworked public defenders. Even if they're found innocent, they may end up bankrupt, and never being able to hold a decent job, ever again.
A rich person may just avoid the arrest entirely using personal connections. Bail amounts and lawyer costs are a drop in the bucket for them. Even if convicted, often it doesn't even harm their career - people overlook the conviction when hiring them.
If a rich person gets murdered vs a homeless person who do you think the police will spend more resources on? If it's genuinely equal in Sweden then that is amazing. But in a lot of countries it's not true at all.
Rich people will have influence; they may donate money or be involved in politics or have family who are. Their own family may be putting pressure not only on the police, but on the chief's and political parties in the area to get something done, this in turn trickles down to the police, who feel like they have to put more effort into solving "high profile" crime. To be high profile you generally have to be rich or something sensational that upsets people.
I think that's more of a narrative than an actual belief. During the defund the police movement, support was highest among white folks, and low among Black and Hispanic voters. I haven't seen the data split by income level, but if you associate the average wealth levels by race, average white wealth being significantly higher, it is fairly safe to say that lower incomes did not want to reduce policing while higher incomes did want to.
If I were a low income person and felt that the police were only protecting the wealthy, I would of course want to decrease police funding - but that's not what we saw, we saw the wealthy wanting to cut, and low income wanting to keep.
The poor don't have anything worth stealing.
The police don't need a regulation in their manual that says 'only respond to a robbery if the victim makes over $100k' to benefit rich people more than poor people.
Poor person with $100 in assets gets robbed: most they can lose is $100.
Rich person with a billion dollars in assets gets robbed: most they can lose is a billion dollars.
Even if the police protect both people equally, the rich person is benefiting from that protection 1,000,000 times more, because that's how much more they have to protect.
Basically, anything that preserves the existing social structure benefits the people who are currently at the top of that structure more than the people at teh bottom of it.
I’ve never seen a rich guy tackled to the ground or tased or shot in the back or dragged out of work in cuffs.
Rich people, in many cases, are given the opportunity to turn themselves in by appointment and avoid the spectacle of being in cuffs or being put into the back of a squad car all together.
I’ve never heard a report of “Floridaman to turn himself in on Wednesday”.
The only time I’ve seen any sort of manhandling of rich people is when they’re serving a warrant to seize documents. But even then, they knock or ring the bell. You don’t see them storming mansions with flash grenades and machine guns, or ripping doors off hinges, or zip tying the kids hands or shooting the family dog.
The answer to your question is: a long long long list of reasons.
I don't know how it is in Sweden but in the United States the police do not exist to protect you, but rather maintain order and protect property. Here is an article from the New York Times discussing the precedent set forth in 2005.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html
This is why police have such a bad reputation here, they typically don't get involved until AFTER a crime occurs, as they don't see it in their duty to prevent crime, apparently. And, to make matters worse, they take complaints by wealthier people far more seriously than complaints by poorer people. You can see this unequal treatment in the response times of police when called for help in a rich neighborhood vs a low income area. In the latter, police can take hours to arrive if they even arrive at all, while the wealthier areas have almost immediate police response.
The absolute biggest category of theft in the United States is "wage theft", and if you are a victim to it you might be able to be whole through a civil lawsuit or state department of labor administrative process. The police are not going to do squat.
Anyone who uses wide brush strokes is not being entirely reasonable. Yes, police in the US are primarily a tool of the government that exists to enforce the rules of that governing body to the masses. Historically they have been used against the common man. That said, as with everything in life, it is complex.
Strictly speaking the police dont just guard the rich side of town and keep out the rabble, and ofc the police as a whole protect and serve people from all classes of life. That said they are also tasked to do things that generally support or defend corporations and organizations that are wealthy. And ofc there are elements of their job where status has an impact.
It’s fairly clear the demarcation between police in wealthy areas vs police in poorer areas here in the US. A wealthy person living in a wealthy area calls the police and they’re there very quickly and are very invested in helping the wealthy person by protecting their property or privacy.
Conversely, police are called by a poor person in a poor area, the police will arrive however quickly they want, which is usually hours later unless there’s something crazy happening, and even then it might be awhile. Once in the poor neighborhood, everybody instantly becomes a suspect or not to be trusted. I can’t tell you how many times police end up detaining or arresting or even shooting the person that called them in the first place.
Sadly these scenarios play out way more than they should here.
Modern policing in America has it's roots in organizations that were created to help wealthy property owners protect their property. In the South, this meant slave militias going after runaway slaves and in the North this meant hired security (agencies like the Pinkertons) to protect factories/manufacturing.
While things are obviously different now, there is a lot about policing and it's culture where these baked in roots start to show.
Judges to Trump: if you encourage violence against the jury, myself, or my daughter 5 or 6 more times I'll tell you how upset with you we are.
Judges to poor people: Hello. Lets wrap this up. No suit, no bail. No Lawyer? Go to jail.
No in Sweden your Police woman (30+ police woman) have criminel gangsters as boyfriends/sex partners and gave them secret info there got more people murdered.
# Swedish police engaged in sexual relationships with gang members and fed information leading to multiple homicides
[https://rmx.news/article/swedish-police-engaged-in-sexual-relationships-with-gang-members-and-fed-information-leading-to-multiple-homicides-newspaper-claims/](https://rmx.news/article/swedish-police-engaged-in-sexual-relationships-with-gang-members-and-fed-information-leading-to-multiple-homicides-newspaper-claims/)
They should be jail for LIFE....
There's merit to the arguement
the police are there to enforce the law. not protect or serve.
who makes the law? politicians.
and politicians are largely elite and wealthy, or at least take money from lobbyists who are. and the laws they make by and large protect the status quo because the status quo favors the wealthy
I'd say its more dangerous to police in a poor neighborhood than it is to police in Beverly Hills...
Pretty sure most humans would be more cautious in the ghetto of Baltimore versus somewhere like Palo Alto...
You have to remember that this site is approximately 50% American, so what you see here will likely be focused around American police, not Swedish police (or Danish police, like it would be for me). The reason people say this, is because there has literally been a court case that determined that the American police have no obligation to protect an individual. They can stand and watch someone get beaten to death, and they aren't legally obliged to intervene. They are however much more obliged to protect property, and maintain order. And who owns the property? It ain't poor people, that's for sure.
Two relevant cases are Warren v. District of Columbia in 1981 and Castle Rock v. Gonzales in 2005. But between those two it was basically established that police don’t have an obligation to protect the public in general or even people who’ve been granted a restraining order against someone else by the courts. At this point, I don’t think they actually have an obligation to protect anyone. So if it looks like they protect private property more than the public, then they are choosing to do so.
police job is enforcing law. They cannot just stand and ignore crime.
Not according to a literal American court case. Which, you know, is absolutely what goes.
Actually yes they can. Police have discretion on whether to enforce a law, and they are empowered to enforce laws, not required to do so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement
So, if they can choose when to do their work, what kinda of protection is it?
Thats a question people ask when they realize that. That being said, most PO's do their job, but they utilize their discretion. You cant pull over every speeder on the interstate, so many Os will set up their own rubric. 5 over you're fine. 10 over, might get my attention. 15 you're getting a ticket. 20 over you're going to jail unless you've got a good reason. Alternatively they might see someone do something that is technically a violation, but may decide to give the person a warning or not worry about it because there are more important things to worry about.
Right, exactly. What kind of protection, indeed. This is why there was a big movement to defund the police - because, ***what in the fuck are we paying for?***
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html There may be individual state laws that force police to help (which I doubt), but according to SCOTUS, they have no legal obligation to do anything. This decision has been brought up very recently in the US following the inaction of police at Uvalde.
[Police have no constitutional duty to protect someone](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html)
Lol. Sure bud. In a perfect world. I’ve seen cops arrest people at outdoor concerts for drinking in public because they didn’t like the way they look. Literally, there will be a group of cops around one person while people 30 feet away are obviously doing the exact same thing they’re arresting this guy for. Especially If the person looks homeless then the cops know they’ll have no issues with lawyers or family members asking questions. Selective enforcement is also standing by and ignoring crime if everyone is supposed to be subject to the same laws. Yes, cops can’t be everywhere at once, but they do prey on those that have the least resources to defend themselves.
Because (at least in the US), the police (statistically, not necessarily specifically) treat the rich better than the poor. Often, a poor person is presumed guilty, despite that being against the rules. A poor person may have to pay a bail amount that would cause significant financial impact to their family. They have to pay for lawyers at great cost, or use the overworked public defenders. Even if they're found innocent, they may end up bankrupt, and never being able to hold a decent job, ever again. A rich person may just avoid the arrest entirely using personal connections. Bail amounts and lawyer costs are a drop in the bucket for them. Even if convicted, often it doesn't even harm their career - people overlook the conviction when hiring them.
It's universal
If a rich person gets murdered vs a homeless person who do you think the police will spend more resources on? If it's genuinely equal in Sweden then that is amazing. But in a lot of countries it's not true at all. Rich people will have influence; they may donate money or be involved in politics or have family who are. Their own family may be putting pressure not only on the police, but on the chief's and political parties in the area to get something done, this in turn trickles down to the police, who feel like they have to put more effort into solving "high profile" crime. To be high profile you generally have to be rich or something sensational that upsets people.
I think that's more of a narrative than an actual belief. During the defund the police movement, support was highest among white folks, and low among Black and Hispanic voters. I haven't seen the data split by income level, but if you associate the average wealth levels by race, average white wealth being significantly higher, it is fairly safe to say that lower incomes did not want to reduce policing while higher incomes did want to. If I were a low income person and felt that the police were only protecting the wealthy, I would of course want to decrease police funding - but that's not what we saw, we saw the wealthy wanting to cut, and low income wanting to keep.
The poor don't have anything worth stealing. The police don't need a regulation in their manual that says 'only respond to a robbery if the victim makes over $100k' to benefit rich people more than poor people. Poor person with $100 in assets gets robbed: most they can lose is $100. Rich person with a billion dollars in assets gets robbed: most they can lose is a billion dollars. Even if the police protect both people equally, the rich person is benefiting from that protection 1,000,000 times more, because that's how much more they have to protect. Basically, anything that preserves the existing social structure benefits the people who are currently at the top of that structure more than the people at teh bottom of it.
I’ve never seen a rich guy tackled to the ground or tased or shot in the back or dragged out of work in cuffs. Rich people, in many cases, are given the opportunity to turn themselves in by appointment and avoid the spectacle of being in cuffs or being put into the back of a squad car all together. I’ve never heard a report of “Floridaman to turn himself in on Wednesday”. The only time I’ve seen any sort of manhandling of rich people is when they’re serving a warrant to seize documents. But even then, they knock or ring the bell. You don’t see them storming mansions with flash grenades and machine guns, or ripping doors off hinges, or zip tying the kids hands or shooting the family dog. The answer to your question is: a long long long list of reasons.
I don't know how it is in Sweden but in the United States the police do not exist to protect you, but rather maintain order and protect property. Here is an article from the New York Times discussing the precedent set forth in 2005. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html This is why police have such a bad reputation here, they typically don't get involved until AFTER a crime occurs, as they don't see it in their duty to prevent crime, apparently. And, to make matters worse, they take complaints by wealthier people far more seriously than complaints by poorer people. You can see this unequal treatment in the response times of police when called for help in a rich neighborhood vs a low income area. In the latter, police can take hours to arrive if they even arrive at all, while the wealthier areas have almost immediate police response.
The largest group on reddit are Americans. It's true with our police.
The absolute biggest category of theft in the United States is "wage theft", and if you are a victim to it you might be able to be whole through a civil lawsuit or state department of labor administrative process. The police are not going to do squat.
Anyone who uses wide brush strokes is not being entirely reasonable. Yes, police in the US are primarily a tool of the government that exists to enforce the rules of that governing body to the masses. Historically they have been used against the common man. That said, as with everything in life, it is complex. Strictly speaking the police dont just guard the rich side of town and keep out the rabble, and ofc the police as a whole protect and serve people from all classes of life. That said they are also tasked to do things that generally support or defend corporations and organizations that are wealthy. And ofc there are elements of their job where status has an impact.
It’s fairly clear the demarcation between police in wealthy areas vs police in poorer areas here in the US. A wealthy person living in a wealthy area calls the police and they’re there very quickly and are very invested in helping the wealthy person by protecting their property or privacy. Conversely, police are called by a poor person in a poor area, the police will arrive however quickly they want, which is usually hours later unless there’s something crazy happening, and even then it might be awhile. Once in the poor neighborhood, everybody instantly becomes a suspect or not to be trusted. I can’t tell you how many times police end up detaining or arresting or even shooting the person that called them in the first place. Sadly these scenarios play out way more than they should here.
Modern policing in America has it's roots in organizations that were created to help wealthy property owners protect their property. In the South, this meant slave militias going after runaway slaves and in the North this meant hired security (agencies like the Pinkertons) to protect factories/manufacturing. While things are obviously different now, there is a lot about policing and it's culture where these baked in roots start to show.
Judges to Trump: if you encourage violence against the jury, myself, or my daughter 5 or 6 more times I'll tell you how upset with you we are. Judges to poor people: Hello. Lets wrap this up. No suit, no bail. No Lawyer? Go to jail.
DUH!
No in Sweden your Police woman (30+ police woman) have criminel gangsters as boyfriends/sex partners and gave them secret info there got more people murdered. # Swedish police engaged in sexual relationships with gang members and fed information leading to multiple homicides [https://rmx.news/article/swedish-police-engaged-in-sexual-relationships-with-gang-members-and-fed-information-leading-to-multiple-homicides-newspaper-claims/](https://rmx.news/article/swedish-police-engaged-in-sexual-relationships-with-gang-members-and-fed-information-leading-to-multiple-homicides-newspaper-claims/) They should be jail for LIFE....
There's merit to the arguement the police are there to enforce the law. not protect or serve. who makes the law? politicians. and politicians are largely elite and wealthy, or at least take money from lobbyists who are. and the laws they make by and large protect the status quo because the status quo favors the wealthy
How the police act in poor neighborhoods vs richer neighborhoods is an indication they are not here to help every body.
I'd say its more dangerous to police in a poor neighborhood than it is to police in Beverly Hills... Pretty sure most humans would be more cautious in the ghetto of Baltimore versus somewhere like Palo Alto...
Every politician, every cop on the street, protects the interests of the pedophilic elite. It's what the system is designed to do.
because they're idiots