After I wrote my review of Tactical Breach Wizards, I asked a bunch of my friends the question: “what do you think about the cops?” Here’s what they said:
“A system where you need almost no education, minimal training, and are then given a gun and told your Life Is On the Line and you’re a Hero is a bad system.”
—Ra’s al Ghul
“Man fuck the cops. But also damn we do need a police force. But literally every cop I’ve interacted with for more than 2 seconds has been a massive asshole.
[…] Its kind of a catch-22 right? Cause cops often only get 3 months of training until they’re licensed judge, jury, and executioner, but every time we increase their training budgets they spend that money to buy tanks and grenades instead.
[…] “Defund the police” was a disastrous slogan because underfunded police departments are actually the ones that kill the most people.”
—Killer Croc
“I’m pro-cop conceptually. I think police are necessary, but obviously the implementation is totally fraught. And there are serious issues with the actual cops we got, but I don’t know if “better training” is enough. […] I feel like society needs laws, which means it needs law enforcement.”
—Catwoman
“Cops are the arm of the state that’s most involved in perpetuating its existence in our day to day lives. It’s a pretty naked show of force in society. I think the crimes cops tend to intervene in order to prevent are bad for sure—murder sucks, theft sucks, etc.—but the cause to me is primarily economic needs not being met, and then a much smaller subset are caused by mental illness. The former can be addressed by the distribution of material wealth, the second by much stronger social support networks that would form as a result.
There are whole categories of other crimes that we prosecute that have no immediate victims but still fuck with the system i.e. white collar crime. They can have serious impacts on people’s lives today for sure, but wouldn’t in a world where your livelihood wasn’t tied to the money in your bank account. And there are other categories of crime like domestic violence, sexual abuse, etc. that some cops already don’t handle anyways, which I think stronger social bonds probably wouldn’t prevent completely, but would certainly go a ways towards diminishing.”
—The Joker
“It’s a mixed bag. I think it comes down to the idea that there should be more types of police. I like cops with clear purpose. I like day to day NYPD police that are in busy subways. The ones that are like college orientation counselors-esque guys. They stand around and are there to provide directions and a charger if you need. What those guys need are no guns and more neon in their fits.
I don’t like when they sit in cop cars in some neighborhoods just waiting around. Or are posted by subway turnstiles. Or are aggressive or in weird groups or stop you from sitting on stairs. I think basically I don’t like when their function is to enforce fake social rules or be aggressive. But I like when they’re there to be helpers or guides.
Idk. That answer is also unsatisfying. I think they’re necessary but that they shouldn’t be like the first line of defense to anything.”
—Mister Freeze
“They suck.”
[When asked to elaborate] “I’m not opposed to them conceptually. I’m not opposed to externally mediated enforcement. I think police have way too much power and not enough responsibility. Ideally there would be a very small set of circumstances that would involve anything violent, and there would be other positions/jobs that are more curated for society’s interpersonal issues. We shouldn’t use a hammer to fix all the problems that current-day police “fix” (thereby making them all look like nails).”
—Poison Ivy
I originally planned to tie these all together and formulate some kind of overarching response… but then I got laid off from my job, so I got a bit distracted. Still, there are some obvious common themes (which makes sense because these are all good friends of mine, so we’re in a bit of an ideological bubble). Everyone I asked agrees that the cops are Not Chill, but also almost everyone believes that we still need a police force of some kind. We need some method of “externally mediated enforcement”, to use Ivy’s terminology. I’d be curious to hear opinions from anyone who disagrees, though—lmk at potluckpresscorps@gmail.com.