Memories of the 28th Century

In recent years there has been discussion regarding the funding of police. Some people seem to want to eliminate police, while others want them retained. My opinion is a little different. I want the police to enforce the laws, and I think that more police will be necessary for that. As it is, the police enforce those laws that they feel like enforcing for people they feel like working for. I have complained to the police several times over the past several years, but neither arrest nor prosecution ensued. If a public prosecutor decides not to take a case to trial or if a judge throws a case out those are normal parts of the prosecution, but police are not judges, nor are they prosecutors. They police are supposed to enforce the law, and when someone says that a law has been broken, they are supposed to take action.

If one looks at statistics about crimes and so on by location, one thing that is being shown is where the police are the most active in doing their jobs. I recently saw figures that showed that NYC had a high crime rate, and the area where I live (Amherst, Massachusetts) had a low crime rate. But those numbers were for arrests and prosecutions, so the rate for where I live was low, because they do not arrest and prosecute criminals. This morning, I had an experience that shows the problem of a lack of enforcement very clearly.

The recent discussion of police funding seemed inane to me, until this morning. A few hours ago, I was trying to get some cash. Unfortunately, there was a guy lounging in the ATM enclosure. I suggested to him that he leave, and at that point he started threatening me in I called the police. So, I called the police, as a left the bank building, and he followed me continuing to utter threats. A dispatcher eventually answered and took my complaint, and I continued walking away. While I was talking to the dispatcher, the one who threatened me left, walked across the street, and down an ally. While I was on the phone, I assumed that I was making a report to the police about a crime against, threatening, and the call was recorded, so I didn’t need to talk with police any further. A while later, I got my cash, bought the bagel that I had been planning on, and while I was eating the bagel, the threatener threatened me again from the middle of the street, so I called the dispatcher again and reported where the threatener was, etc. Some police showed up shortly thereafter. They listened to me, and informed me that the criminal had accused me of kicking him, and I pointed out that was another criminal act (making a false report to the police), and I got a dirty look for that. It quickly became clear that the police had no intention of doing what they are paid to do, get criminals off the streets. After a few minutes, they left suggesting that I call if he threatened me again.

After thinking about the matter, I decided that the people who want to defund the police are right, but for the wrong reason. The police should be paid as much as they earn, nothing, but we should set up agencies that will do what the police should be doing now, getting criminals off the streets.

Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple. Most of the street criminals have mental problems of some sort, and those problems are not being treated, and they were not effectively treated as children so that there would not be problems when they became adults. There also is the problem that intelligence is decreasing (See my blog post Growth of Stupidity from earlier this year). There are many reasons for the growth in stupidity, but the medical industry is a large part, because they think that everyone should be kept alive. Excess population feeds the problem in many ways, but the easiest ways to see are that there aren’t enough good jobs for all of the people looking for a good income. In many areas, that leads to overcrowded housing and homelessness. So far, food production has kept up with population, but someday Malthus will be proven correct, unless the population bomb will be defused. Most species of animal will have mass die-offs, when their population density exceeds a reasonable level. I expect that to happen to humans at some point, and I think we are close to that point, and there are many diseases that could help the population to crash. One of the many good points of a population crash is that we will not need many police anymore. It is also possible that humans are already having a population crash, but our crash is soft, but the rate of increase of population is much lower than it was a few decades ago, and in some places, population has been decreasing.

I was opposed to defunding the police, but I think that would be the correct thing to do, if they are not doing their work. My experience has been that there is plenty of work for the police, if only they were willing to earn their pays. A related problem is that there are many laws on the books that should not be there, and that includes both regulatory laws and criminal laws, but the police are not the legislature, nor are they the judges or juries, and they certainly are not executioners.