Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT strips 3836-3840 (24 to 28 September 2018)

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brasca:
As much as I think it’s a mistake for a good police officer to quit having rewatched The Wire lately I can understand.

MrNumbers:
Sad Irish RoboCop.

It's very hard for individuals to fix systems from within, because systems have within them the material conditions that caused the breakages in the first place. Permanent change involves changing either the entire incentive structure of the system, or the entire context of the society in which it operates.

Police are encouraged to put property above people, be classist and racist and dehumanize sections of society to make it easier to perform those job duties, see the entire population outside their organisation as either predators or victims - that's a big one I picked up talking to the ones in my family - and to have a higher level of institutional power and credibility than the general population, as well as the only part of society that is allowed to use violence as a tool.

So what does that mean?

It means there are plenty of people attracted to the force for the right reasons, and those powers are necessary for their role to function at all. State power needs to be enforced  with legitimized violence. But it also means you get a ton of "bad cops" because those previous incentives basically make you become that person, contextually.

And it means that a modern police force cannot exist without making the conditions with which "bad cops" are created and thrive.

You can't "weed out the bad cops" any more than you can have omelettes without eggs.

Personally I'd like to see much more investment in community policing efforts while keeping the detective forces and an empowered internal investigations system as a start.

BenRG:
The more I read this strip, the more I realise that the end objective of this arc was to remove Roko from the police but that Jeph was casting around for any reason that stands up to examination. I'm not sure that he managed to get that objective entirely. Instead you get one of those awkward strips that happen in many comics that deal with controversial issues that read like they've been copied and pasted from a campaign leaflet from an extreme-wing political group. I'm not saying that I could do better, only that this is how the strip feels to me.

As for my view of the police? My view is that they are needed and any scenario that removes them from the equation also needs to remove some very serious ingrained problems in human society and psychology to avoid an outcome of anarchy and disaster.

MrNumbers:

cybersmurf:
Oh no, Mistah J dropped a bomb!
Well, maybe it's just a cherry bomb.

It seems AIs get the more... enunciated character traits. "Going Commie on us"? It's a weird expression in this situation, but hey we saw O'Malley like... twice? before this arc. Maybe he is the AI embodiment of the cold war era.


The Roko Basilisk we know until yet? The somewhat optimistic (maybe the wrong word, since it's more like Rose tinted glasses) cop with a - to a degree - questionable record, and the bread lover.
Maybe JJ wants to introduce another independent AI regular to the strip, especially since Bubble is somewhat bound to Faye now.

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