Tag Archives: police

If competition is good for education, how about the police?

Police and community
We expect the police to be close to the population that they serve to create order and peace. Photo Credit: class M planet via Compfight cc

If competition would improve public education, would it also improve police services?

Certainly with issues of public policing continuing to rise throughout the U.S. from Ferguson, Missouri to Baltimore, Maryland, the question about how to improve policing is rising along with concerns.

But we have not heard much of anything about creating private competition for publicly-funded police departments as a way of improving them.

If, as school choice advocates maintain, competition is good and transformative for public services like education, why not for the police?
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Police Cannot Be An Occupying Army in a Democracy

Credit: Reuters
Credit: Reuters

It’s clear by now that the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, went way too far. How do we have local police dressing up in hardened riot gear and using military-style weapons as well as military-style vehicles? How is it considered wise to start with that response at the first sign of trouble?

It hasn’t always been that way. There are great examples of effective policing that allows for free speech and assembly and protects those rights.

Continue reading Police Cannot Be An Occupying Army in a Democracy