THE POLICE PROBLEM
The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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You are over-reacting a little here. This book is not a great candidate for something actually sexy. The characters try something sexual and find it really doesn't suit them and they stop. The POV character has massive dysphoria around being touched directly down below and so it's hardly glammorizing sex acts. Rather the entire thing is framed as a complete disappointment.
A lot of the focus on "well not MY child" is being used to perpetuate this book ban nonsense in public libraries and other spaces where general collections are for all ages. Just as you struggled with the mental health issues around being a sexual assault victim at 14 and likely there wasn't a lot of materials on offer to help guide you trans kids most often start feeling body based dysphoria at the ages of 11-14. Those kids are left often with a fairly nebulous view of the future where they might not have access to healthy adults who can help understand what they are going through and give insight into what their lives might look like when they grow up. Their fears about ever being able to feel comfortable in their sexuallity is valid when they might be having severe reactions to their own sexual development.
What I find particularly interesting about all this is this book is essentially one where a person with fairly intense dysphoria depicts what a fully complete non-surgical transition looks like where a purely mental coping strategy is employed. I would have thought this book, in a discussion that regularly centers around prevention of surgical transition would highlight this character who finds ways to carry on outside of a medical model... But it doesn't. Because trans people's problems and solutions are always treated as taboo and perverse regardless. The answer we overwhelmingly get is just "Well, you are just supposed to be permanently unhappy. " which isn't exactly a beacon of hope.
Your kid might not need this book but I was desperate for something - anything like this when I was that age... I grew up in the 80's and 90's where I had no bloody clue what was happening to me and why everyone else seemed fine while I was having routine anxiety attacks about puberty that made me think I had heart problems and my issues would likely be solved for me by me dying before I ever grew up. Sex ed leaves a lot of pressing trans issues at a critical age unaddressed and while 11-14 may seem young it IS a crucial turning point in puberty which doesn't exactly go well for a lot of us. Basically by the window of time girls get their first period there's also young trans kids in complete crisis.