Quote Originally Posted by Irving View Post
The idea has merit, but the jurisdiction of individual groups would need to be very small. If I live in Thornton, and volunteer for Denver, I'm not going to know anyone/everyone in the neighborhood, and as a result, will care less about roughing people up. However, if my jurisdiction, as a volunteer, is restricted to the mile radius around the home I have to return to every night, I'll have a much greater chance of treating people fairly and with respect.

The success of something like this, would depend directly on how closely knit the community is. Just like every other economic system under the sun, some things work on paper, and in very small groups, but will fail miserably on a large scale. Like Communism. Or sharing a work refrigerator. Easy when there are only 10 people and you know every single one of them. More difficult when there are 75, and some jerk from accounting that you've never even met keeps eating your Plantanito pancakes while you are in a meeting.
I've worked with large, volunteer groups before.

The big advantage, in this case, is that police get quite a bit of personal immunity and protection from the state, along with an institutional bias towards their testimony and a large, professional machine that helps to make anything questionable go away (Police Unions...)

Again, this isn't to say all or most cops are bad. But it doesn't take many bad cops to do a lot of bad things, with that kind of institutionalized power. And there have been cases with departments that, if they weren't thoroughly corrupt, had a significant minority of their cops doing bad things (LAPD, arguably even now, NOPD, etc.)

The legal shift to individual citizens would also take away the institutional power, the arguable conflicts of interest with the prosecutor, and the (in cases excepting conduct that was grossly out of line) personal immunity from civil or criminal penalties.

Yes, you may be more likely to rough up someone far from you. You may also just be an asshole and are more likely to rough people up, period. But the rules change from being a cop to being an ordinary citizen, and your actions are looked at much more closely and with less 'benefit of the doubt' by the courts.

I just think getting away from that model might have some benefit. It certainly saves plenty of money, and it would seem to address some of the glaring issues centered around the courts that having a police force (as it stands now) entails.

Anyway, in my experience working with volunteer groups, the knuckleheads vote themselves out pretty fast. A volunteer organization is a social animal, and those who are rude, unprofessional or undedicated usually just find they don't fit in and leave.

Just some thoughts.