ICE is Not Law Enforcement

So why, you ask, am I writing about what is probably the most obvious thing to all sane people. The answer is: to put a reasoned argument on the record.

Law enforcement investigates crimes and apprehends suspected criminals and puts cases before prosecutors that decide whether there is sufficient evidence to put them before the courts. Law enforcement also enforces arrest warrants issued by the courts.

Law enforcement arrests specific individuals where there are reasonable grounds to believe they committed a crime or where a court order has been issued.

The courts decide whether suspects should be detained during trial and whether they are guilty what the punishment should be. Judges also issue arrest warrants for suspects or convicted criminals at large. This is what we call due process.

Law enforcement wears badges with  identification numbers so that they can be held accountable. 

Law enforcement officers, the police, are constrained by the rule of law and must obey the law and must not mistreat suspects or prisoners. In the case of police misconduct there are provisions for consequences and due process procedures that must be followed. We may not always agree with the findings of said due process but it exists.

Law enforcement does not round up groups of people based on their appearance or the colour of their skin, or the language they are speaking, or the fact they are participating in legal protests or because they swear at them.. Law enforcement does not routinely engage in masked thuggery or murder people without consequences. Law enforcement does not detain in concentration camps and even deport. people without due process or court orders (or in some cases in contravention of court orders). Law enforcement are not told by their superiors that the law does not apply to them. Law enforcement are not encouraged by their superiors to mistreat people and break the law. Law enforcement are not told they may do what they please and that they will suffer no consequences because the highest offices in the land have their backs.

ICE is no more law enforcement than the Gestapo or the SS, the KGB or the Stasi, ICE is NOT law enforcement and should not be treated as such by actual law enforcement agencies. They are not their brothers but are the criminals they are paid to pursue and bring to justice.

Thoughts on the police

This post does not claim to have all the answers, or any answers, nor to be a comprehensive, or any kind of analysis, but is simply some thoughts on a subject that our society has finally been forced to deal with.

One's attitude to the police is clearly shaped by the reality one lives in. Unfortunately for too many people that reality is that the police are people who at worst kill them or their family members and at best treat them unfairly and discriminate against them. To others the police are people they depend on to protect them and in some cases to protect their privileged status in society.

Some will say this is an issue that we have imported from a racist United States. We know that to be untrue. Even those that say that know it to be untrue and the best they can argue is that it is relatively worse in the United States. Not being as bad as America is hardly a standard we should want to be judged by in Canada, particularly when strong arguments can be made that this is not true anyway, we just all wish it was.

Many will argue that abolishing or defunding the police are simply ideas that are too radical.

Indeed for untold decades suggestions for community building and crime prevention as an alternative to policing and incarceration have been met with support in principle without funding being provided, while police budgets have increased exponentially with little restraint. Indeed there seemed to have be an unspoken argument that we will find money for crime prevention when we no longer need it for the police because crime has disappeared.

We could of course reduce the need for the police by orders of magnitude if we stopped criminalizing what is a public health issue – drug use and abuse. We have done that for years with alcohol and tobacco use and cannabis just recently. There is no rational reason why all non-medical use of drugs should not been treated in the same way as a public health issue.

The funds are available to provide proper drug rehabilitation programs, sitting there in police budgets being wasted on treating a health matter as a criminal one. We could also use that money to provide mental health workers to deal with mental health crisis so the individuals receive treatment rather than being killed by police.

I dare say we have a huge amount of room to defund the police and put that money to better use.

We could put traffic enforcement in a separate organization with a greater emphasis on road safety rather than collecting fines,

What we have left within the police for traditional policing, crime investigation and law enforcement would still require major reforms. Reforms of the extent that could justifiably be argued would be best done by abolishing the police as they now exist and starting all over.