06-30-05
This week the Supreme Court issued a ruling at the end of it's sessions for the season that just reiterates that the police in the US are good for little else but investigating crime that has already happened.
The police are not there to help or protect or serve. They are not there to prevent crime. They are not there to stop a thing. The overused phrases "crime prevention" and "law enforcement" are ridiculous misnomers.
Don't misconstrue this Op Ed as this is no lament. The fact that the police are not there to prevent crime is the way it should be. For prevention assumes foreknowledge and we all know that foreknowledge is problematic at best and oppressive "thought police" action at worst.
The Case
On June 22, 1999, a man estranged from his wife murdered his three daughters. When the police came upon him in the manhunt, Simon Gonzales engaged in a shoot out with them and was himself killed.
Gonzales had a restraining order against him that prevented him from seeing his girls except for one weekly visit and it was on one of those visits that he murdered his daughters. This restraining order also stipulated that the wife be made aware of Gonzales' whereabouts and/or destination when with the children. Gonzales picked up the girls without his ex-wife's knowledge and without telling her where he was going.
Jessica Gonzales, aggrieved Mother, sued the city of Castle Rock, Colorado, claiming that the police had a duty to monitor her estranged Husband's fulfillment of the rules of the restraining order. Also citing previous problems with her ex breaking the restraining order that she made the police aware of.
The Decision
In a 7 to 2 decision, the court denied Jessica's accusation that the Castle Rock Police did not protect her and her daughters.
The opinion stated in part that the "Due Process Clause's procedural component does not protect everything that might be described as a government 'benefit.'"
This means that citizens have no right to be protected from violence perpetrated by another citizen according to Castle Rock attorney Tom Rice.
"A benefit is not a protected entitlement if officials have discretion to grant or deny it," the opinion went on to say.
In other words, the police cannot stop anything that "might" happen. They can only go after those who have already committed crimes. Police cannot "prevent" anything. That is why their terminology of "crime prevention" and "law enforcement" are farcical uses of the words. "Preventing" or "enforcing" means that the police would be able to stop crime before said crime occurs and this would truly be an abrogation of the freedoms and liberty we enjoy in the USA.
In a report filed by the Douglas County, Colorado "News-Press", Castle Rock Detective Scott Claton really brought the point home when he said that the police could not possibly keep tabs on every person a restraining order has been taken out against.
"How in reality could any department do that? ... Without infringing on the constitutional rights of individuals, you can't really become more watch-doggish."
He went on to say, "By our very freedoms, we've allowed for the real possibilities of crimes taking place".
How very right he is.
And this isn't the only case in which the Supreme Court has ruled that the police are not a preventative force or one that can, should or is allowed to "enforce" any laws. From search laws to nullification of curfew laws, the highest court in the land has repeatedly absolved government from materially stopping crime.
No, the police are strictly an investigative unit, an arm of the courts used to track down those who have committed crimes, apprehend them and house them while awaiting trial. That is it. No more. Any "crime prevention" is incidental or just a happy coincidence.
So, now we get to my point. Since the police are not there to prevent anything why do we even need so many local police forces?
The main reason we used to need city/town/village police forces is from a day long past. In the days when travel was long and difficult, when cities were not very interconnected and were often isolated, local police was a must have. But now that is not the case for most of the country.
Most small police forces are badly trained, indifferently staffed and way over priced. They are just plain not necessary.
And speaking of over priced, they really are simply a huge waste of a town's money. Better that we should disband city police forces and enlarge the country sheriff's departments that every county already has. That would be a much more efficient usage of the money and a better way to assure consistency and training of our police forces.
After all, if the police are not there to protect us at all, why do we need so many of them eating up our local government's budgets? We simply do not need every tiny city with its own police force. It is just a ridiculous expenditure. A gigantic boondoggle that should be stopped forthwith. And in this time of budget shortfalls everywhere we could certainly use the cash.
Imagine the pension money we could save? And if the money now used for equipment, buildings and automobiles was not spent there we could build several new schools in every district.
Since it would not alter the state of safety for a single citizen according to the Supreme Court, why not save some money and dump our local, useless police forces now?
By Warner Todd Huston
Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL WTH
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