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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   31568 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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Austin PD answers to Texas DPS, and the more typical political oversight on a local police department has been bypassed. To the extent that it’s anti democratic it’s a scene from Hungary, not Thailand- there’s very definitely a central government calling the shots, it just doesn’t happen to be the one which actually employs and commissions this police department.

Nevertheless you have to go far, far higher up to find a civilian above the APD than you would in other Texas cities. There aren’t tanks on the streets but the city council is cut out of the loop on arrest policies.

I don’t see even then why such a thing would be controversial. If you won’t arrest people committing crimes, it seems really strange to object that other people are.

To the extent that it’s anti democratic it’s a scene from Hungary

Or Canada -- relatively few cities here have their own police department; it's mostly managed either federally or provincially, but with the weird caveat that provinces and cities using the RCMP have to pay out of their own budget; same goes for cities that rely on the OPP (no, not that OPP) AFAIK.

I think the sticking point is more the arbitrary and selective nature of it. If Texas were to just abolish municipal police, hand all LE over to DPS and bill localities based on staffing and facilities levels, it might not be very popular but it wouldn't look like selectively overriding the customary autonomy of an opposition enclave.

Except that’s the normal way of doing business there and not a state of exception imposed due to either incompetence or state disagreement with their agenda, but yes, it’s definitely a precedented arrangement in the rest of the developed world.

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