Are the police really necessary?

Question

It seems to me all they do is hand out speeding tickets. I hate them

Number cruncher, your thoughts on me are all wrong. What I'm talking about is a cop driving through a known drug area, and not taking any kind of action, because it's to dangerous.

Mad dog hate to tell you, I've never had a speeding ticket.

Answer 1

The day every policeman walks out on their job is the day I commit suicide.

If you hate them why don't you move to some country where there is no legal action and see what that's like?

Answer 2

From that answer, I think anybody can deduce you've got a problem with speed limits. If there is as much crime as we have in this country with police in every community and every state, can you imagine how much more there would be if there were none? Laws are a requirement in an ordered society (like ours) to keep the peace and cut down on civil unrest. There will always be those who think the laws apply to everyone else but them. It's those people that require the laws to be applied, regardless, and it's the police who do that job!

Speed limits are set for the safety of the general public, not just the driver of a car speeding down a local roadway or trying to break the Land Speed Record on an interstate.

Answer 3

Many people hate, or claim to hate the police. They do, in fact, hand out speeding tickets, arrest drunk drivers and even occassionally nab a reall, really bad person and help to get them off the streets. It is a job that many do not thank them for and that is sad. Speeding tickets would not be handed out if people did not exceed speed limits. The limits are posted for safety purposes, not to give some policeman an excuse to pull people over. If we are going to have laws and want them enforced, we need police. A society could police itself, but that wopuld make everyone a police person wouldn't it?

Answer 4

Of course they are. I retired after 32 years as a Police Officer. Of the 32 years, 6 of them were in uniform, at which time traffic tickets were part of my duty. For the rest of my time on the job,I did not even carry a ticket book.
The average Citizen does not realize there is much more to Police duties than handing out traffic tickets.

Answer 5

There's no effective Police force in Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, or most of the former Yugoslavia.
Those areas are amongst the most dangerous places in the world.
There is a thin blue line of professional police officers which deters the less wholesome members of society from crawling in your window while you sleep and slitting your throat.

Answer 6

The policing function is necessary. What isn't necessary is its restriction to an elite cadre of "professionals" who drain the tax revenues for their pay but who are never around when they are needed.

That restriction of the police function makes it much easier for criminals to evade detection, to evade apprehension if detected, and to evade punishment if apprehended. Not only that, the restriction makes policing very expensive to the rest of society.

Imagine if everyone were entitled to be police. You'd have millions of police officers who would gladly fight the forces of evil FOR FREE. There'd be no easy victims for the criminals to attack. There'd be no reason for the innocent to fear legal punishment for using force in self-defense.

Whenever a band of bandits showed up in a town, they'd immediately be fighting it out with the ENTIRE TOWN. The town would usually win.

Special training, you say? Learning to read is special training, too, but it is nonetheless a skill that most people can acquire. Most people could, if they chose, learn how to be citizen policemen with skills at least approximately commensurate with those of professional police officers: physical fitness, mental alertness, good judgment, marksmanship... nothing I can't do.

And, as a bonus, when everyone is a police officer, there is little danger that an elite police agency might become a corrupt, above-the-law, tyrannical oppressor -- something which appears to be happening wherever elite police agencies exist. Research: Vicki Weaver, Gordon Kahl.

Answer 7

I don't hate them for giving me a speeding ticket, or for any other reason for that matter. Without them, our lives would be in constant danger. Everything about our lives for that matter.

Answer 8

Some people think speeding is a nothing offence and over reacted by giving speeding tickets out. Ever had to go to someone and tell them that their loved one is dead because of an accident caused by speed?....................I have.
Just think about things.Your in your own little world!!!

Answer 9

No, of course not. Do away with them.

But who you gonna call when someone rips off your ride, huh?

And dude? You know those speed limits? Those limits are chosen by the voters in your locality. The police are only enforcing what the voters have decided would be the law.

Answer 10

OK. I'm Clarance, your gaudian angel, and you wish has been granted: the police don't exist. Thugs are robbing houses and stores by the minute, terrorists have blown up every possible large standing structure, and crime, drug use, and political curroption are through the roof. Don't you wanna go back to the world with police now?

Merry Christmas to all Police Ofifiers working to protect morons like this.

Answer 11

you must live in a really nice place if all the cops around you do is hand out tickets. where i live they are constantly putting their lives on the line battling drug dealers and murderers.
So for those of us who actually live in the real world, cops are needed.