a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by dublinben
dublinben  ·  1929 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: New details on Palantir, the commerical spying tool for law enforcement

    police are an important part of keeping a society civil. Prisons (or some incarceration system) are needed for dangerous folks like serial killers.

If you're interested in challenging those beliefs further, I'd recommend a couple excellent books.

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America by Kristian Williams





user-inactivated  ·  1929 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If I can piggy back off this comment, both the books Locking Up Our Own and Punishment Without Crime are also very insightful, if also very sombering, reads.

elizabeth  ·  1929 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'll add it to the list! I mostly put that in because I do believe some kind of moderating authority is useful in society. Consequences for shitty actions are useful. People will take advantage of each other if there are benefits for be gained. And plain unmoral people exist too. Heck, I'm hoping to volunteer as a type of conflict resolution entity at Burning Man next week. So it's not like I reject the idea of cops in principle. But the way the system is set up now and the way it's trending is worrisome to me.