With the amount of time police have to dedicate to expropriating wealth from the general populace in the form of traffic citations, civil forfeiture laws, and rounding up slave labor for Federal Prison Industries and Corrections Corporation of America it’s not surprising that the time they have set aside for helping people has dwindled to almost nothing. In fact the police have become so inept at protecting the people of Oakland, California that the people have finally decided to help one another directly:
OAKLAND (KPIX 5) – Oakland’s crime problems have gotten so bad that some people aren’t even bothering to call the cops anymore; instead, they’re trying to solve and prevent crimes themselves.
KPIX 5 cameras caught up with a half dozen neighbors in East Oakland’s Arcadia Park neighborhood Monday as they walked the streets on the lookout for crime. The vigilance has never seemed more necessary than now; 25 homes in the neighborhood have been burglarized over the last two months alone.
In a neighborhood that has started to feel like the wild west, people have even started posting “wanted” signs.
People often get suckered into believing that the state provides protection for those living within its borders. The police aren’t required to provide protection and, in many parts of the world, people have learned that the police are almost useless when it comes to providing protection. In such cases the people end up having to find alternative methods to ensure the safety of their community. I believe we’ll see communities creating their own methods of providing protection as more police departments demonstrate their ineffectiveness.