{"id":3371,"date":"2007-05-13T05:28:53","date_gmt":"2007-05-13T12:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/05\/13\/the-consequences-of-a-police-force\/"},"modified":"2007-05-13T05:28:53","modified_gmt":"2007-05-13T12:48:41","slug":"the-consequences-of-a-police-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3371","title":{"rendered":"The consequences of a police force"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been a lot of publicity over the last few years about rape by New Zealand police. Yesterday more allegations were made, which you can read in this<\/a> (rather badly formatted) post.<\/p>\n

Some of those allegations shouldn’t surprise anyone – police officers were able to rape prostitutes with impunity when prostitution was illegal. It wouldn’t surprise me if the larger allegations are true (and they’re consistent with comments<\/a> left at the end of this thread).<\/p>\n

One of the statements in the article has been confirmed. A pornographic video, which included bestiality, was shown at the police commissioner’s house (the police commissioner is the top police officer in NZ). This is minor compared with the other allegations. But, to me, it shows a pattern of contempt for women, willingness to ignore laws around non-consensual sex when fellow officers broke them, and putting male bonding above all else (this was all to raise money for the police rugby team).<\/p>\n

This raises the problem of what could possibly be done about a police force where police officers have regularly abused and exploited women.* If some police officers in the area regularly demanded sex from the local brothels, then it’s likely that other police officers in the area knew about it. No-one who stood by while that was going on should be in the police force any longer. Likewise, anyone who promoted Clint Rickards, knowing that a police report had found that he had abused his power, should not be in the police force. Who is left? Anyone who had stood up against violence and abuse wouldn’t have survived; anyone who didn’t should not have the power they do.<\/p>\n

For me this shows one of the fundamental problem with the police. Abuse, including rape, appears to be an inevitable result of the sort of power we give police. I know people have different analyses about how much good the police do (I come down on the side of ‘none’). But even if you believe that the police do improve society, do you really believe that what happened to Louise Nicholas, Judith Garrett and countless other women is an acceptable side effect of that good?<\/p>\n

* The police also have a history of racism, homophobia, and abusing their power left, right and centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There has been a lot of publicity over the last few years about rape by New Zealand police. Yesterday more allegations were made, which you can read in this (rather badly formatted) post. Some of those allegations shouldn’t surprise anyone … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,96,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}