12 pointsby robtherobber6 hours ago2 comments
  • sjducb6 hours ago
    There used to be county lines drug dealing outside my house.

    County lines drug dealing is where organised gangs in London send people out to deal drugs in small towns outside London. It’s obvious because of the race of the people involved.

    2 years ago the police did a massive crackdown and the county lines drug dealers disappeared. County lines drug dealers haven’t come back and now there is no obvious public drug dealing in my neighbourhood.

    The police do a difficult job and they are fantastic at it.

    https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/over-1-800-arrested-wit...

    • davidguetta5 hours ago
      yeah. the insane amount of organized anti-police and anti-prison propaganda such as "putting people in jail doesn't reduce crim" is ridiculous and a lots of studies are wildly instrumentalised.

      If you act strongly, crime reduces, this has been documented everywhere (new york in the 80s, salvador, colombia).

      Only in radical left minds the opposites lives free

      • unsnap_biceps2 hours ago
        I'm traditionally conservative and have many law enforcement in my extended family. Law enforcement is very required for society, but it's a blunt tool. There are classes of crime that will not be reduced no matter how many people you put in jail. Mental health and addiction issues (often they go hand in hand) really should be solved differently than just jail time.

        My small town has a swat team and two bear cats. They've never been used outside of training. They're very likely never going to be used outside of training. This is a ton of money that the police justified by "If we don't spend it, we lose it". That's not fiscally responsible and it's something as a conservative we do need to push back on and some of that involves defunding the police's overly excessive budgets and reducing taxes or at least reallocating it towards other social programs that will help beyond just locking people up.

        • sjducban hour ago
          Agreed that sounds like wasteful spending. When that SWAT team finally gets a callout they’re going to go hard and use excessive force.

          The US spends 135 billion on its police force so some wasteful spending is going to happen.

          Defund the police people would spend that money on something unrelated to law enforcement.

          I would spend it on something useful and law enforcement related like more training for officers.

    • robtherobber5 hours ago
      > It’s obvious because of the race of the people involved.

      I think I know what you're saying. You're saying that non-white people are trouble, aren't you? I mean, why wouldn't such a thing be considered a fact and why wouldn't it be obvious? You said it, so it became a fact and also it became obvious.

      • sjducb5 hours ago
        I know they’re drug dealers because they tried to sell me drugs.

        The English countryside is over 95% white. It’s obvious when organised violent gangs consisting entirely of people of color from London take over and start selling drugs.

        The police put a stop to it and we are all very grateful.

        • robtherobber4 hours ago
          You don't know they are drug dealers, because not all of them tried to sell you drugs, did they? That's a ridiculous statement. You know that some of them tried to do that. Even so, the fact that they were not white had little to do with it, so it was not obvious by any measure.

          > when organised violent gangs consisting entirely of people of color from London take over

          In what respect did they take over? And how can you tell that they were all selling drugs? Maybe some were there as tourists, maybe some were visiting family etc.

          You make some racist assumptions without evidence that I believe should be called out because you're hell-bent on proving something that may not actually be supported by evidence. You, my dear colleague, are fabulating.

          Not only that the National Police Chiefs' Council County Lines STRA (FY Apr 2024 to Mar 2025) reports that 63.6% of recorded individuals involved are White (with 22.9% Black, 11.6% Asian, 1.8% Other)[0], but "county lines" narrative is routinely racialised and can amplify stereotypes [1], like you appear to do with your comment.

          [0] https://www.npcc.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/pub...

          [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03063968231201325

          • sjducb4 hours ago
            I could see them operating from my home office window. There is a corner where two roads and a footpath cross. It’s a walkable neighbourhood so there is a lot of foot traffic. A daycare center is about 50 meters away.

            Every afternoon one of the men would be standing at the corner selling drugs. People would walk up to the man to buy the drugs. They worked a rotation but there were about 4 regular dealers at my crossroads.

            The first few times I walked past by myself they tried to sell me drugs. Then they knew I was not a customer and ignored me or greeted me politely.

            One of them was very chatty and I had to explain to my daughter that we don’t trust him even though he is friendly because he makes bad choices. County lines gangs are involved in human trafficking as well as drug dealing.

            Every dealer I saw on that corner was from an ethnic minority background. Usually county lines drug dealers live in London and commute out to where they sell their drugs. This is why the ethnicity of the gang does not match the local population.

            I sincerely hope that you never experience anything like this.

          • pipes2 hours ago
            What exactly makes you think they are "hell-bent on proving something that may not actually be supported by evidence.".

            The only thing they've done is observe that the drug dealers outside their house weren't white.

          • davidguetta2 hours ago
            You are an ideologist to come and nitpick someone about his actual life.

            People like you are the source of most modern problems

            • robtherobberan hour ago
              Go back to Kentucky, please. We're not nitpicking here, but having a rather civilised discussion on a public forum.
  • bediger40006 hours ago
    When conservatives were busy freaking out about the slogan "defund the police", I thought a little bit about that slogan. Every interaction I, a white middle class Midwestern, have had with police has been either to my detriment (traffic tickets mostly) or had zero good effects. I've had bicycles and even a car stolen. The first thing out of the cop's mouth was "you're never going to see that again". What benefit do police (as an institution) supply? Witnessing traffic accidents so insurance companies can decide who pays seems to be the big one.
    • pipes5 hours ago
      Here is an example of what happens when there are no police, Montreal police strike:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot

    • ge966 hours ago
      > What benefit do police (as an institution) supply

      This is one of those bad topics to talk about but to me it seems obvious. If there were no laws to prevent people from stealing, killing each other, you wouldn't have society. Yes you have bicycles/car stolen but I would think it would be a lot worse. I don't agree with that ACAB saying but I think people who haven't lived in a bad place say that. But I also am aware of racism/stereotyping it's funny you mention being white as yeah it's worse for not being white.

      • c225 hours ago
        >If there were no laws to prevent people from stealing, killing each other, you wouldn't have society.

        Laws are even less capable of preventing these things than police!

        What actually prevents these things is social homogenization, equality, and shared community goals and experiences.

        • robtherobber5 hours ago
          Indeed. Comes to mind an expression from one of my professors, "laws are to keep honest people honest, just like doors; should someone not care about those, they can easily break them - most of the time without consequences". Because most criminals are not caught or investigated.
    • davidguetta5 hours ago
      The price of your stolen bike is order of magnitude lower than the amount of time / money the police force would spend tracking it.

      It's supposed to be here for more serious matters.

      • unsnap_bicepsan hour ago
        There's a valid argument that allowing petty crime to fester encourages people to grow into more serious crimes. I live in a small town and the police do have the resources to investigate stolen bikes, and stolen bikes happen, but it's rare enough that people often don't lock up their bikes when they're in the town center.

        Granted, there's a rate of return issue here that the cities will struggle with, but for the small town forces, it's worth their time to keep petty crime down IMHO.

      • Ancapistani5 hours ago
        Great - then they should simply write him a check to reimburse him, right?
        • davidguetta5 hours ago
          nobody said "police will prevent all crime"

          in theory it's "some crime, starting with the most important"

      • bediger4000an hour ago
        It was still a crime, right? If price tag is what matters, then the cops are just there to serve and protect the oligarchs. Which has been my experience, which leads me to ask why I'm paying taxes to have a security force for the wealthy.
    • hagbard_c5 hours ago
      Remember the 'CHOP/CHAZ' [1] fiasco during the 'Summer of Love' in 2020 [2]? That is where you end up if there is no police. Instead of a Kumbayah around the campfire you get some warlord-like individual who proclaims himself Lord of the Domain and anyone who crosses him gets to find out why 'abolishing the police' was a bad idea.

      Does this mean that the police is always right? No, of course not, that is one of the many things wrong with the 'Die Partei hat immer recht' (German for The party is always right, part of the lyrics of the national anthem of the German 'Democratic' Republic [3]) philosophy. Nobody is always right and any power is there to be abused by those willing and able to do so. That's why there is oversight of those in power which - admittedly - isn't always as effective as it should be.

      [1] https://www.historylink.org/File/22870

      [2] https://reasonabletv.com/podcast/chop_s_deadly_legacy__5_yea...

      [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_IbCMOg9YA&t=18

      • c225 hours ago
        I lived in the 'CHOP' during this time period and encountered no warlords nor any friction in going about my day to day business. There were a couple nights when police used teargas outside my house and I had to close all my windows.