Law Enforcement and Guns12 min read

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Militarization of the Police (NewsOne Now)
Militarization of the Police (NewsOne Now)

Introduction

A. No Justice in America

We do NOT have a justice system. We have a legal system. There are plenty of laws, but no justice to be found. The United States has 5% of the world’s population but yet we have 25% of the world’s prisoners. We have proportionally more people imprisoned than China or even Russia during the height of the revolution. Something is very, very wrong here and that has to change.

#BlackLivesMatter #ReformNotPrayers #GunReformNow
#DemilitarizeThePolice #JusticeNotPunishment
#DefundThePolice
#MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds #BiopsychosocialModel

B. Inequality

If you have not read the first 2 books of my required reading then now is a good time to read them:

… because what you will find is that reducing inequality is the most powerful thing we can do to reduce crime and suffering, as well as to increase social trust and general societal peace.

The idea here will be to fund social programs such as housing, food, work, minimum wage, education, healthcare, etc… If we increase funding there that then it will result in a large reduction in crime and therefore greatly reduce the need for local law enforcement. The more money you spend on the people the less you have to spend on policing. This is the core principle for the Defund the Police Movement.

<insert post to read: Defund the Police Movement?>

Check out my Economic Policies (and the rest of my policies) for the core policies on how to reduce inequality. Reducing inequality will be more powerful than anything found on this page to improve law enforcement and reduce crime globally. This page is really dealing with the greater symptoms of inequality within the criminal justice system itself.

I. Law Enforcement

A. Requirements

  1. Get rid of IQ limit for law enforcement
  2. Minority officers should be over represented in law enforcement because they are a minority.
  3. Mandatory body cams. It shall be a felony to turn off the camera and should be grounds for immediate firing, and officer testimony is considered inadmissible in court.
  4. It should be a crime to cover your badge number.
  5. You cannot be an officer if you have a history of abuse, violence, or hard drug use, or racism or white nationalism. Such persons such be immediately fired and result in a national blacklisting for all jobs that require a person to care for, monitor, or protect others such as schools, security, nursing homes, etc… which can be held within a national database.
  6. Social media account postings and memberships must be checked for racism or white supremacist affiliations.
  7. Random drug testing
  8. They must be tested for psychological stability and have required empathy levels. Continued therapy will be required.
  9. Officers must actually know the laws they are enforcing to a much greater extent than they do now, otherwise they are doing whatever they want.

B. Training

  1. They need to realize who it is that they are hired to serve. Local law enforcement is NOT an extension of the federal government, state government, or immigration services. They exist to serve and protect their local communities. Local law enforcement needs to be returned to our communities.
  2. At least 4 years of schooling required + a year of training and apprenticeship.
  3. National Certification Exam
  4. State Licensing renewed every 2 years
  5. Carry Liability Insurance (just like doctors)
  6. Mandatory continuing education every 2 years
  7. Complete demilitarization of police equipment. They have NO need for military equipment.
  8. Ending the training that results in the dehumanizing of the people that they are here to protect and serve. Stop sending them for dehumanizing and militant terrorist training in Israel.
  9. Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) for all officers
  10. Mindfulness meditation training and exercises, yoga
  11. Have training in nonviolent conflict resolution.
  12. Be educated in the interdependent factors in social and criminal issues along with methods of solving and preventing the problems.(biopsychosocial factors)
  13. Know the organizations that can help a person deal with various issues such as homelessness, abuse, hunger, addiction, and so on so their issues can be solved. Even have specific specialized liaisons which handle those specific issues. See the Defund the Police Movement for more on this.
  14. Martial training to be able to disable attackers with as little harm as possible, including group attack/defense training – joint locks, take downs, use of shields, belts, etc…

C. External Oversight and Investigation

1. Public Oversight

Their needs to be a community organization that works as a liaison between the public and law enforcement which can help to:

  • mediate disputes
  • gather information
  • act on the collective community’s behalf
  • monitor local law enforcement

… and then hold them responsible for protecting and serving and NOT abusing, murdering, and tyrannizing. See the Defund the Police Movement for more on this.

2. Independent Investigatory Organizations

Investigations within Law Enforcement should always be done from an external organization, so they do not end up just protecting their own. There is no justice if law enforcement cannot be held accountable and are not held to a higher standard.

All deaths on the job should be immediately investigated by the external agency. Their scrutiny and punishment should be more harsh than for civilians for this is potentially a massive abuse of power, and they should be held to a higher standard because they have the training.

II. Criminal Justice

A. General Reform

  1. End the 3 strikes rule and mandatory minimum sentences.
  2. End the death penalty. It is cruel and inhumane, and is actually torture. Innocent people are killed through this. It also does not reduce crime. It is also a violation of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”.
  3. End solitary confinement
  4. White Nationalism needs be declared as a form of domestic terrorism and needs to be prosecuted and pursued as such.
  5. A national database of violence must be maintained and updated by ALL law enforcement agencies for every round fired, every time a gun is unholstered, and for every person hurt in the line of duty.
  6. End embargo on CDC gun violence research.
  7. Reduce the power of police unions which stand in the way of meaningful reform.
  8. All law enforcement should be held to a higher standard and a more scrutiny because they have the training and the duty.
  9. End laws which close or sequester files for law enforcement officers.
  10. End Qualified Immunity.
  11. End No-Knock Raids
  12. All interrogations must be 100% recorded and retained.
  13. Officers cannot lie during an interrogation.
  14. Some have suggested that lawsuits against officers be funded through police pensions which would greatly change their attitude towards violence against people. Precincts that have civil rights or other violations could also lose federal funding.

B. Domestic Slavery

  1. End prison privatization. All current private prisons should be taken over by the government or shutdown. There can be no freedom if there is profit to be made in making people prisoners and slaves.
  2. End the school-to-prison pipeline. Anyone who has participated shall be tried for Crimes Against Humanity.
  3. End prison slave labor by amending the 13th Amendment.

C. Fines and Profit

  1. Fines as Profit Centers – Local law enforcement should NOT be seen as profit centers to power local government which ends up creating harassment of locals and the creation of ticket quotas, none of which help increase trust by the community and increases attacks those who are impoverished which only makes their situation worse.
  2. Proportional Fines – Fines all throughout the government should be proportional to income that way the rich and corporations will not be effectively immune to punishment while the poor are not imprisoned as a debtors prison. (Finland does this; Municipal Violations (John Oliver)
  3. Civil Forfeiture – needs to be ended or greatly reformed for it violates the principle of innocent until proven guilty. People have their property taken from them for a very long time even when they have done nothing wrong and they have no recourse. Some department even take the things they stole from innocent people for themselves or to fund or equip their department. (Washington Post 2015, Last Week Tonight 2014)

D. Equity in Representation

  1. All lawyers should be public servants so that the rich cannot bury a citizen or a small business under a lawsuit that they have no hope of combating because they cannot afford a multi-million dollar legal team, which is a favorite tactic for the rich and the corporations (the 1%) against the rest of us (the 99%). The field needs to be leveled and the people need a place at the table. Without equal access to quality representation there is NO justice.
  2. It needs to be legal for citizens to record all law enforcement.
  3. In every community there needs to be a citizen led organization to monitor law enforcement and to help people work with them.

E. The War on Drugs

  • End the War on Drugs
  • End the RAVE act
  • Legalize all drugs
  • Setup safe injection sites with rehab counselors and therapists on staff.

F. Remediation and NOT Punishment

All harm that humanity inflicts upon the world is a cry for connection.

James O’Neill

1. General

  1. Prisoners still need to be treated like human beings and not caged animals (i.e. the Nordic prison model). If you treat them like caged animals then that is what you shall end up with. Check out the prolific work of James Gilligan who coined the term structural violence, and who talks about social shame and humiliation as the leading driver for violence from school shootings, gang violence, and so on.
  2. Concentrating on Restorative Justice.
  3. The Criminal Justice system needs to focus on solving the problems that created the crime as well as remediation, rehabilitation, and counseling (treated as biospychosocial issues), and not punishment for punishment’s sake. Punishment for punishment’s sake does not solve the problem and only creates more resentment, bitterness, and rage.

2. Strengthening Connections

1. General Education
  1. Allow prisoners access to many education and training paths to increase their potential once leaving which greatly reduces recidivism rates including such things as college courses, degrees, and various apprenticeships.
  2. Reduce sentences based on how many books they read, how much education they achieve, or how much yoga they do. (India and a few other countries are doing this
2. Connecting to the Self

Have classes and training which strengthen their connections to their selves such as

  1. mindfulness, meditation
  2. yoga, physical fitness
  3. diet and nutrition, cooking
  4. philosophy, ethics
3. Connecting to Humanity
  1. Give prisoners access to a Human Library and even require that they check out specific ones related to their crime to increase their connections to Humanity and so they understand the ramifications of what they have done.
  2. Have exercises, games, and classes which strengthen their connections to Humanity
    1. art, music
    2. comparative anthropology, comparative religion
    3. languages and history
4. Connecting to the Natural World
  1. Animals such as dogs, cats, horses, etc should be integrated into the process to help reconnecting people to the natural world. Perhaps this is a good place for shelter animals to go to.
  2. Have a organic farm on premises that they can work at as well as classes on ecology and agronomy, etc.

III. Human Trafficking

  1. Human trafficking (slavery and sex trafficking) is a major problem to attack world wide must be considered a Crime Against Humanity.
  2. Major international task forces world-wide need to attack this issue globally.
  3. Any businesses participate will automatically have charges filed against someone, and receive massive fines and taxes levied.
  4. This is one of the only crimes I would consider for the Death Penalty.

IV. Guns/Violence

A. Basic Regulation

1. Gun Research and Lobbying

  1. End the NRA which is powerful lobbying group for the military industrial complex and has nothing to do with the right of the people.

2. Background Checks and Registry

  1. Close gun show and personal sales loophole nationwide.
  2. All guns should be sold through an authorized licensed dealer that can comply with laws such as background checks, registry, etc – no person to person sales.
  3. Mandatory nationwide universal background checks for ALL sales which should include finger printing, psychological background checks, interviews, etc – no guns for abusers, violent criminals, etc.
  4. Minimum 1 month waiting period – can go longer – takes as long as it takes for background checks, interviews, etc – safety first.
  5. Mandatory nationwide registry for all guns, gun parts and ammo (public and private).

3. Enact an Aggressive Gun Ownership Program

Require owners to have:

  1. gun owner license
  2. gun insurance
  3. gun safes
  4. Yearly inventory and inspections of guns, ammo, and gun safes
  5. Yearly gun safety training
  6. Check out the Japanese model (World Economic Forum)

4. Honor No Guns on Premises

  1. Homes and Businesses have the right to be safe and free and can deny guns on their premises. Your rights end where someone else’s begins.

B. Purchase of Ammo or Gun Parts

  1. Must follow all laws as above just like purchasing a full gun
  2. registration of ammunition purchases

C. 3D Printing of Guns

3D printing of guns should be outlawed or greatly regulated and tracked:

  1. owners/creators must follow normal gun regulations as above
  2. registration of schematics in a national database
  3. traceable ID numbers per part and per gun
  4. watermarks on gun part so it can be know what design it was printed from to make it more traceable
  5. allowed only for those with specific licenses

D. Limitations

  1. Assault rifle ban with a buyback program
  2. Gun ban for:
    1. domestic abusers, addicts, those with violent records, and those with mental illness.
    2. I should not have to say this, but also for those who are blind or with significant visual impairment.
  3. Conceal carry permits only for those:
    1. with combat experience or continuous advanced tactical training
    2. who can prove a need, but will require continuous training to improve and increase skills which will be paid by the government due it being a safety issue for the permit holder and the public; they will also be given paid for time off to do so.
    3. who want a conceal carry but do not have a clear and present need, then they will need to go through a lot of military like training drills so that they will not be a danger to the public – months and months of continuous combat training like a soldier would in order to prepare them for small arms combat in an urban situation and then they can be licensed, but will still required continuing training to maintain license.