Friday, June 5, 2020

Seven Reasons Why Police Are Disliked — Randall Collins


I think he misses some significant points, especially police militarization. A lot of people view this explicit as the rise of fascism, and other likely do so implicitly, that is, they may not make the connection specifically but they feel something is badly amiss when domestic security forces begin to resemble military troops.

The Sociological Eye — Writings By The Sociologist Randall Collins
Randall Collins | Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor of Sociology, Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania

3 comments:

Peter Pan said...

In the third world, it doesn't matter if the police are militarized. When they are corrupt, they will kill you.

Ryan Harris said...

The odd thing is by most measures even on an absolute level, not adjusting for population growth and relative violent crime, the police are much less violent than in the past and much less likely to kill anyone of any race. Actually shocking to see these statistics and how few unarmed people got killed by police given how strange people act toward policemen less than 50 people out of 330 million and billions of interactions annually. Tom has been expressing concern for militarization of police for a decade or more but I don't see much evidence in data that it has caused police to become more violent or population to accept creeping fascism. If you go to a place like Mexico the police act as hit men and executioners --That certainly does not appear in US data. If anything, extreme leftists like BLM, Progressive Democrats/MMT Fans, and SJWs are getting more militant and using asymmetric warfare tactics that will require more actual military deployments rather than simply cool soldier costumes on ordinary policemen.

S400 said...

1. given how strange people act toward policemen

2. If anything, extreme leftists like BLM,

3. Progressive Democrats/MMT Fans, and SJWs are getting more militant and using asymmetric warfare tactics

You claim a lot again. So back it up. Or are you using different measures for what’s required from others than of you?