The problem is that crowds are not known to be the coolest minds. When people talk about “community policing” they should acknowledge they have a position more akin to the NRA’s on guns: “we think it is really important to keep this power in the hands of the people and we think a few more dead are a price worth paying for it”. The idea that community policing won’t ever result in injustice, accidental panicked shootings or lynching is nonsense. There are issues with professionalisation, but people who think that you can just have the best of both worlds by achieving some kind of grand societal enlightenment are deluded (and I expect would actually end up at the head of the lynch mobs, because they usually are the ones who lack self awareness the most and can’t see how they could be wrong).
The problem is that crowds are not known to be the coolest minds. When people talk about “community policing” they should acknowledge they have a position more akin to the NRA’s on guns: “we think it is really important to keep this power in the hands of the people and we think a few more dead are a price worth paying for it”. The idea that community policing won’t ever result in injustice, accidental panicked shootings or lynching is nonsense. There are issues with professionalisation, but people who think that you can just have the best of both worlds by achieving some kind of grand societal enlightenment are deluded (and I expect would actually end up at the head of the lynch mobs, because they usually are the ones who lack self awareness the most and can’t see how they could be wrong).