> administrators of state power capitalizing on their execution of it for fame
Aren't the administrators of state power the prosecutors? Police are more rank and file dealing with the issues. Then it gets kicked up to prosecutors and court system that indirectly drives police action. If crimes don't get prosecuted, police don't make arrests. That's why I pass by half a dozen people illegally selling weed or fake handbags on the streets every day.
For instance, police can have a different perspective more in line with reality. They'll arrest the same person multiple times, know his story and the story of the victims. By the time it goes through the legal system (essentially upper management) and through all the layers of bureaucracy, it morphs into something else entirely.
If body camera footage taught me anything is that overwhelming majority of the time I sympathize with the police. They're often very reasonable and act with restraint in a difficult situation. I see clips regularly where without a video the situation would appear very bad for police. This is so common, some commentators like John Oliver came out against police cameras because they're too sympathetic to police because I don't know, angles or something? Really broke the illusion that cops are mostly a group of bullies terrorizing neighborhoods and arresting people at random.
Sure bad cops exist, but I trust their incentives and instinct a lot more than the judicial process, the true "administrators of state power"
No, because the primary instruments of state power are arrest, detention, interrogation, etc. permanent jail (which requires a prosecutor, judge, lawyers) takes less importance than people think it does. By the time you get there, the police have already smashed all your stuff, taken away your job, ruined all your future background checks even if the court finds you innocent.
Why do you think police grab protestors, beat them up, declare they have nothing to charge them with and release them? That is the punishment for protesting. The punishment for protesting is not getting a jail sentence (usually), it's getting beaten up and released by cops. In America it's getting shot by cops and probably dying. In the UK it's getting picked up from your home after the protest and taken to the police station for questioning.
The police have an enormous amount of power in the system. They can unilaterally decide to let people get away with something illegal, or arrest people for doing something fully legal because they felt like it. And even if prosecutors drop the charges in the latter case, being arrested, processed, and jailed until that happens is very much a punishment and an act of state violence in and of itself. The bad cops you mention, do exist and continue to exist because the police have so much power in the system that bad ones can't be fired for inexcusable behavior or even doing crimes themselves (exceptions exist, but are rare). They are as much as administrator of state power as the judges and prosecutors. I would even argue they are more so because of the directness of their actions.
It’s an exceptionally bad idea (I agree) because the ones with a vested interest are controlling the narrative.
We can make this clear by simply inverting the roles. Imagine that criminals were making true crime podcasts about their own crimes. It means they could (and obviously would) play it for sympathy, downplaying their own actions and denouncing the actions of the state.
As it is, the police could for example be looking for someone for something legal that someone in power doesn’t like, like having an abortion, and lie through their teeth about the reason they are searching for them so the populace helps them and stands with the police even when they are wrong.
The could also, as another example, use it to search for legal immigrants and citizens with dark complexion while accusing them of crimes they did not commit.
If they wanted to do this honestly, they could instead have the facts of ongoing cases open to everyone publicly, so that journalists could verify and do their own reporting (not that I believe that in today’s world that wouldn’t backfire either).
Good in theory, but having police with axes to grind airing inaccurate information seems ripe for abuse.
From the article;
>Chadwick had been charged and pleaded not guilty, but not tried - yet the podcast made no use of the word "alleged" and called the millionaire a "murderer".
Makes sense, would be a huge conflict of interest. That's why most modern countries have separate independent investigative agencies whose purpose is to investigate the police. Sadly, some of the more police-horny countries tend to give these agencies faux power rather than something real, and in the worst ones, the police has qualified immunity anyway.
But it's absolutely true that the internet-based tribe called the "TCC" -- the true crime community -- is a hotbed of severe mental illness and moral depravity. It's a very young-skewing demographic, too. You can think of it as Fandom for killers. I monitor my son's internet activity in large part to ensure that he's not exposing himself to it, and I would view any exposure to the TCC as the reddest of red flags.
But the police are official represeatives of the government and it holds more weight when they say "they are guilty even if court said they are not" vs if a random private individual says it.
Although I can't fully articulate this my intuition says this is an exceptionally bad idea.
Something about the administrators of state power capitalizing on their execution of it for fame.
I'd probably want that banned?
This is just the next generation of 'copaganda', where the just make their own media direct to the public.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copaganda
> administrators of state power capitalizing on their execution of it for fame
Aren't the administrators of state power the prosecutors? Police are more rank and file dealing with the issues. Then it gets kicked up to prosecutors and court system that indirectly drives police action. If crimes don't get prosecuted, police don't make arrests. That's why I pass by half a dozen people illegally selling weed or fake handbags on the streets every day.
For instance, police can have a different perspective more in line with reality. They'll arrest the same person multiple times, know his story and the story of the victims. By the time it goes through the legal system (essentially upper management) and through all the layers of bureaucracy, it morphs into something else entirely.
If body camera footage taught me anything is that overwhelming majority of the time I sympathize with the police. They're often very reasonable and act with restraint in a difficult situation. I see clips regularly where without a video the situation would appear very bad for police. This is so common, some commentators like John Oliver came out against police cameras because they're too sympathetic to police because I don't know, angles or something? Really broke the illusion that cops are mostly a group of bullies terrorizing neighborhoods and arresting people at random.
Sure bad cops exist, but I trust their incentives and instinct a lot more than the judicial process, the true "administrators of state power"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP4_2soVZe0
No, because the primary instruments of state power are arrest, detention, interrogation, etc. permanent jail (which requires a prosecutor, judge, lawyers) takes less importance than people think it does. By the time you get there, the police have already smashed all your stuff, taken away your job, ruined all your future background checks even if the court finds you innocent.
Why do you think police grab protestors, beat them up, declare they have nothing to charge them with and release them? That is the punishment for protesting. The punishment for protesting is not getting a jail sentence (usually), it's getting beaten up and released by cops. In America it's getting shot by cops and probably dying. In the UK it's getting picked up from your home after the protest and taken to the police station for questioning.
The police have an enormous amount of power in the system. They can unilaterally decide to let people get away with something illegal, or arrest people for doing something fully legal because they felt like it. And even if prosecutors drop the charges in the latter case, being arrested, processed, and jailed until that happens is very much a punishment and an act of state violence in and of itself. The bad cops you mention, do exist and continue to exist because the police have so much power in the system that bad ones can't be fired for inexcusable behavior or even doing crimes themselves (exceptions exist, but are rare). They are as much as administrator of state power as the judges and prosecutors. I would even argue they are more so because of the directness of their actions.
It’s an exceptionally bad idea (I agree) because the ones with a vested interest are controlling the narrative.
We can make this clear by simply inverting the roles. Imagine that criminals were making true crime podcasts about their own crimes. It means they could (and obviously would) play it for sympathy, downplaying their own actions and denouncing the actions of the state.
As it is, the police could for example be looking for someone for something legal that someone in power doesn’t like, like having an abortion, and lie through their teeth about the reason they are searching for them so the populace helps them and stands with the police even when they are wrong.
https://letsaddresstexas.substack.com/p/texas-police-used-83...
The could also, as another example, use it to search for legal immigrants and citizens with dark complexion while accusing them of crimes they did not commit.
If they wanted to do this honestly, they could instead have the facts of ongoing cases open to everyone publicly, so that journalists could verify and do their own reporting (not that I believe that in today’s world that wouldn’t backfire either).
Good in theory, but having police with axes to grind airing inaccurate information seems ripe for abuse.
From the article;
>Chadwick had been charged and pleaded not guilty, but not tried - yet the podcast made no use of the word "alleged" and called the millionaire a "murderer".
Yeah, like that.
In several countries that would be illegal, but the police would never investigate themselves.
> the police would never investigate themselves
Makes sense, would be a huge conflict of interest. That's why most modern countries have separate independent investigative agencies whose purpose is to investigate the police. Sadly, some of the more police-horny countries tend to give these agencies faux power rather than something real, and in the worst ones, the police has qualified immunity anyway.
Defamation is a civil thing though, isn't it?
The abuse is far more likely to come from the audience than the police. The true crime fanbase tends to have mental health issues.
On the one hand, it's one of the most popular genres out there. 84% of the U.S. population age 13+ are "True Crime consumers":
> https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-true-crime-consumer-repor...
But it's absolutely true that the internet-based tribe called the "TCC" -- the true crime community -- is a hotbed of severe mental illness and moral depravity. It's a very young-skewing demographic, too. You can think of it as Fandom for killers. I monitor my son's internet activity in large part to ensure that he's not exposing himself to it, and I would view any exposure to the TCC as the reddest of red flags.
But the police are official represeatives of the government and it holds more weight when they say "they are guilty even if court said they are not" vs if a random private individual says it.
The police are the ones who can lock you in jail.
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