Preview of the cop-free utopia

The death of Jordan Neely is what happens when no police are around.

This is a point I was thinking about during the Kyle Rittenhouse controversy, and once again in the aftermath of Jordan Neely’s death on a New York subway:

The answers to the first questions are all variations on “it’s not my job to educate you,” “read a book,” and “shut up, white supremacist.” But I digress.

Of course, these two notorious incidents of vigilantism (or stepping in to restore order when law enforcement could or would not, depending on your point of view) are not exactly the same. Police were around when Kyle Rittenhouse decided to head into an active riot zone while heavily armed, and while I think his acquittal was legally correct, he and everybody else would have been much better served had the cops told him to GTFO and go home instead of encouraging him.

And as for police being trained to not kill people during arrest, well, I seem to recall an incident in Minneapolis in 2020 suggesting that the training doesn’t work particularly well. Another incident in Memphis earlier this year further suggests as such.

As Noah Smith wrote in an excellent Substack post after the Tyre Nichols killing, American policing is marked by a shocking lack of professionalism, considering how much power - legal power and firepower - is given to law enforcement officials.

Professionalize the police

And yet, contrary to what some fantasists on social media would have you believe, crime isn’t going to disappear if police were abolished. I mean, these people would just try to redefine “crime” out of existence unless it involves use of the wrong pronouns or wearing a prom dress associated with a minority culture, but those of us on Planet Earth still have to deal with people who pose a safety threat.

And if we don’t have trained, professional law enforcement officers who can do it, ordinary people will pick up the slack. Police may receive inadequate training, but that’s arguably better than no training at all.¹