Greg Ellifritz, whom we've met in these pages on several previous occasions, has written an article with that title in which he covers the current state of American policing and what that portends for the future. It isn't comfortable reading.
As I see it, there are four primary cultural drivers that will affect police work in the future.
1) Protests/Police Hate- It’s becoming ever harder to be a cop ... Now every use of force is a complaint and/or a lawsuit. Now every police shooting involves threats and protests at the officers’ houses and a doxxing of his entire family. Often these protests and threats are organized by uninvolved virtue signaling “community activists” who have no connection to the event and lack even a fundamental knowledge of the legal rules by which officers operate ... In most communities, the residents distrust the police. Administrators now bow to community pressure to suspend or fire every officer who gets involved in some politically distasteful event.
2) General government “defunding” due to pandemic economic decline/collapse. I think the economy will get far worse in the next couple years ... Government revenues are going to drop significantly. That affects police budgets. Then we have the active efforts to “defund” the police by cutting budgets even further. Both of these conditions will reduce police numbers, police salaries, and police equipment budgets. That will drive even more officers away from police careers.
3). Distrust for and politicization of all government entities. Public approval of almost all government functions is at an all time low. The generalized distrust of government and politicians will further erode the public’s support of the police and young applicants’ desire to become part of the system.
4). The rise in technology (especially surveillance and AI facial recognition technology). Within the next decade, we will see more surveillance cameras in public areas. Use of drones and “shot spotter” type systems will increase. Future criminals will not be caught by cops on patrol. They will be identified by a guy sitting at a desk running surveillance video through facial recognition software.
When I look at those four trends all occurring simultaneously, I can predict the generalized future of policing in America. Here’s what I prognosticate…
Fewer and fewer people will want to be cops. That will further lower hiring and training standards. Tax revenue losses and “defunding efforts” will drive salaries down and make working conditions more difficult. The only folks who will become cops in the future are those people who have no other career options.
As more and more low quality candidates are hired, public trust for the police will further erode. The police will become continually more corrupt and inept until they are almost useless.
The really good cops (and a lot of former soldiers) will move on to better paying private security positions. The rich will hire those security people as bodyguards and neighborhood patrols.
The middle class and poor well have to contend with the corrupt police system or take care of things themselves (either by vigilante or gang action.)
This is essentially how it works in many third world countries.
. . .
Most of you will be forced to take care of yourself and your family. Unless you are wealthy or politically connected, the cops won’t be coming to help you in the future. Your options are to improve individual skill levels to be able to personally handle violent actors, band up with friends or family to create a numerical advantage for vigilante action, or increase your economic status enough to live in a “protected” area.
I believe things are going to look very different in America 10 years from now. Most of those changes will be negative. I don’t see any way to stop it or alter the trends. Most of our country will look more like the developing world than the environment we currently enjoy. Be ready for when that occurs. It will happen far more rapidly than you might think.
There's more at the link.
I can't disagree with any of Mr. Ellifritz's prognostications. They're what I'm seeing myself, and what I've seen in many Third World nations over several decades. They're also part of why I've repeatedly warned my readers to get out of big "blue" American cities NOW, while they have the chance. These trends will make themselves felt most powerfully and most quickly in those cities. It's already happening. The further away you are from them, the less they'll affect you - and the better you'll be able to "take care of yourself and your family", as Mr. Ellifritz advises.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Peter
20 comments:
"Import the third world, become the third world"
Anon
Yup.
https://twitter.com/k9_reaper/status/1629707620792582146
As has also started happening in Australia, they'll start hiring foreigners as police. That's a sign that the government has lost all legitimacy.
They may be able to identify criminals remotely, but how will they actually apprehend them, and will remote efforts stand up as evidence in court?
and scott adams analysis of poll data plus his recommendations concur with the get out advice
Seems pretty simple to me. Stop allowing police to screw with people unless a right has been violated, a person has been injured, or property has been damaged.
I don't care if my neighbor does 10 over when driving down the street. But if he runs over a child, the police will get involved, and he should spend a long time behind bars instead of getting a "slap on the wrist" from the court system.
You left out #5:
Police officers in 50 states and seven U.S. territories being absolute jack-booted thugs, doing things that should get them put up against a wall and shot, and 98% of their co-workers and supervisors covering for them and defending them 24/7/365.
The harshest critics and most bloothisrsty investigations and divestments of bad cops and dirty cops should be by other cops. But that's true of less than 2% of them, 24/7/365.
The police in this country have been militarizing for decades, and flat-out salivating for an "Us vs. Them" paradigm.
Now they're getting exactly what they wished for, and suddenly, they realize they're outnumbered 99:1, and they're starting to figure out that it isn't so bitchin' cool of a plan.
Boo frickin' hoo.
Revoke all sovereign immunity for every one of them from beat cop to chief, and make criminal charges and trials mandatory for anything that would get any other civilian prosecuted. Let's start with filing a false police report as an officer being prosecuted as criminal fraud, and deprivation of civil rights under color of authority, with mandatory minimums of five years hard time, and see how that flies. If you can't do the job and be honest, we neither want nor need you in that job.
Otherwise, they made their bed, and now they get to lie in it, exactly as they should.
Being an awful cop should be felony prison time.
Being a crooked, awful cop should be a hanging offense.
When anonymous officers they start dropping their own worst examples off, trussed up like a turkey, with two broken arms and legs, two black eyes, a broken nose and jaw, and the damning evidence in a baggie around their neck, when their bloody, naked, and zip-tied bodies start getting dropped on the courthouse steps at 3 A.M., you'll know they're serious about not tolerating corruption and criminality in their own ranks.
And until they're harder on their own worst examples than they are on the public, their list of supporters will continue to shrink until no one wants the job, and everybody is on their own.
Failure to live up to high standards and expectations of ethical, honest, and circumspect conduct has consequences.
Sorry not sorry.
You knew the job was tough when you took it.
Meh. It’s all to get us to welcome being policed by ED209 and his friendly rechargeable BR dog, Spot. They are, after all, totally fair in their classified, Google-specified, policing objectives.
The Mike Bloombergs of the world can’t rely on Rudy G.’s police —thuggish though they may be— to carry out all orders without question. ED will do whatever he’s programmed to do, minus a glitch or two, where necessary. Urban pacification will be a breeze.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFvqDaFpXeM
Drop the Supersize Coke please, or there will be… …trouble.
I've said this before. Blue city people We Don't Want You. You turned your city or town into a hellhole and you'll do the same to mine. Peter obviously has lots of room in his town. Go to that area. Just don't stop at my area and settle if your bringing your beliefs with you. I moved to Austin in the 1980's with a population of almost 400K and Sematec and 3M came in bringing their workers and now it's a hellhole of almost a million people. They are so Woke! and so Proud of it. I moved 20 years ago to a nice little town with very little crime and not enough murders to be significant.
Police are largely responsible for #3 when applied to police. If they showed the integrity to stand up to the politicians who try to use them to enforce clearly unConstitutional acts and policies, the public (at least the law-abiding public) would think more highly of them.
But when the police try to enforce mask mandates, shut down churches, arrest peaceful protesters outside abortion clinics, try to monitor peoples' social media, object to being filmed while performing their jobs, fail to investigate crimes that might prove embarrassing to TPTB, ... the list could go on, then they discredit themselves. The Capitol Police and their performance on J6, and later groveling for pats on the head in front of the kangaroo committee, means that nobody on the right will ever trust them.
It isn't just in the US either. The Canadians' RCMP and others totally ruined their reputation among any reasonable people by the way they conducted themselves during Trudeau's "emergency" from the truckers' convoy. When you allow yourselves to be used for political purposes, you will lose much of the public's trust.
I have been wondering if I need to move my family away from Houston. I live outside the third ring, the Grand Parkway, over 30 miles away from downtown Houston. Surely that is far enough out. Surely.
@lynn: No, I'm afraid it isn't... I'd look at much further out than that, if possible. Houston is a high-crime, high-illegal-alien city. It's going to be one of the problem areas.
1. Move waaay out in the country. (Red state, natch.)
2. Get 30-40 close personal gun-nut friends to move with you.
3. Make friends with the Sheriff's Office. Make it known y'all are friendly, but SERIOUS.
4. Develop your local, State & County intel sources, to be aware of threats.
5. Dont be near major hwys. or rail-lines.
6. Enjoy the quiet. WHILE IT LASTS.
Since modern guns were invented, military competitiveness is available to the average person at a hobby price. Since guns, government dominance now has a narrow region of stability, like balancing in a pool holding a basketball down with your feet. Once the ball slips by and gets to the surface, it's much harder to climb on top of it and push it back down. After the organized criminal gangs who "tax" us have destroyed their own logistics enough they can no longer project power, the middle class will will be amazed to discover it is almost independently wealthy. The economy is being banned out of existence to prevent the widespread realization that producing the necessities of life is now a solved problem. Just wait when the space frontier opens. The IRS can't project power across "national borders", do you think it can steal all the way over on Mars?
I saw the subject line and immediately went to the comments to look for the expected diatribe from the fat nurse from California...always screaming revolution and ACAB while continuing to voluntarily live in the most rights-restrictive state in the Union.
I follow.your blog pretty closely Peter, but your reader's hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance can be overwhelming at times.
Interesting read... The other side of the hate/distrust of the Police is watching how quickly the Police revert to being jack booted thugs (and proudly posting online that they are) when push comes to shove. Canada, Australia and NYC as the covid silliness drug on. I suppose the plus side being that at least here in the US having cavalry run down a little old lady in a walker would draw a more... Interesting response from the likely crowd than the Canadians were able to make. Mind, I have a number of friends in LE, most waiting it out until they can retire from Illinois and escape themselves, but hearing them talk about the lack of support from the governments, the low quality at best (if any) for the recruits as only a fool would voluntarily join the Chicago PD these days... Seems a bad cycle to be in and a good reason to NOT be anywhere near that or any large, blue city...
1) Not fat.
2) Not screaming.
3) Advocating neither ACAB nor revolution.
(But calling out the likeliest destination based on current course and speed is not exactly a superpower.)
4) Stay tuned to Judge Benitez re: "rights-restrictive".
5) You clearly have a personal problem. There's an ointment for that.
https://i.imgur.com/dnvZpn3.png
6) I commented on the substance of the OP.
The person whose entire comments are solely ad hominem directed at other commenters is always the Obvious Troll.
7) When you report back to your chief or department supervisor, tell them that being a jackass online is as transparently unproductive with the public as being a jackass on patrol, officer.
@lynn- 300 might do, if it's 300 away from everywhere.
And these are the same people that you want to "get serious" about the "war on drugs" Aesop? Given the authority to execute drug users and sellers and other "worthless fleshbags"? These jackbooted thugs? Cognitive dissonance much?
It is happening already. I live in a conservative county and still the police have basically stopped investigating crimes like vehicle theft and minor property crimes. They will direct you to a website to file and issue you a police report for your Insurance.
My neighbor had his truck stolen from the airport long term parking, they had video of the thief leaving with it. He had a tracker on the vehicle and informed the police of its location and was told that there was nothing they could do. He retrieved it himself, and as far as the police were concerned that was the end of the matter.
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