Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. B. Franklin.
we could do all sorts of things to catch more criminals. We could strip search anyone who looks shady on the street. Hell, at this point I’m sure gramps would’ve greatly preferred a vigorous anal cavity search in broad daylight than the treatment he got. He’d probably give all his money to wind back the clock and just be subjected to that.
You can call the police. You can watch out. But you can’t detain someone just because a crime might occur and you have a bad feeling about someone. And definitely please don’t slam that person on the ground if they try to walk away when they’ve done nothing wrong and you have no cause to stop them.
Thank goodness for the dashcam.[/quote]
Yes, I totally get that — it’s a great quote that often pops into my head, especially when discussing the Patriot Act, the militarization of our police departments, etc.
But we do need to try prevent crimes before they occur, IMHO. What would you suggest we do? Or, as queried before, should we rely on police departments to simply take notes after the crimes have been committed?
If we don’t profile in some way, and that includes reporting “suspicious persons,” what do you think we should do?
If cops can’t detain people and question them, how do you think that would affect crime rates?
Like it or not, Three Strikes has reduced crime in almost every category. And many of those criminals who jet jail time for drugs are really there for bigger crimes, but the cops might not have been able to get them on those crimes because of technicalities, lack of evidence, luck, etc., so they take what they can get.
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As for the story about your wife’s carjacker, I don’t think that criminals are beat up because cops are trying to get revenge; it’s more about making sure they are apprehended. Cops really don’t like to let criminals get away, and I applaud them for this, as do most law-abiding citizens. Most criminals are not beaten up if they calmly surrender. If anyone is beaten up, it’s almost always because they try to resist and/or assault the officer(s). Big difference between that and revenge.
