Good Behavior w/o Police

[reteo]

It is a common argument that the police cannot be removed; after all, it is common knowledge that people who are no longer policed will perform activities that are antisocial and dangerous in general.  Examples often involve riots, where criminal activities are part of the landscape.

On its face, this is essentially a correct assumption... provided the police are removed in an instant. In many situations where an addiction has occurred, the immediate removal of the substance of addication result in withdrawal symptoms.  Such symptoms where police are concerned are vandalism, looting, murder, and general unrest.

The public takes the existence of police as a granted, and as a result, they only assume that what is illegal is wrong, even if they don't always believe the law is right. People are not used to having the personal responsibility to rule themselves; they have become completely dependent on having a central government telling them what is right and wrong, and many will follow the "ad populum" fallacy that if enough people (enough to win a vote) believe something is right, then it must be right. They no longer need to decide for themselves, and they lose the ability to police themselves. Once this valuable ability is lost, you end up with a population with no self-control; if the police were to go away immediately, there would be nothing to replace them.

Because of this, we need to see about bringing back the self-control in people through alternative means *before police can go away*; this will involve an alternative system that can coexist alongside the police system, allowing for a stronger market force to suppliment and, if required, replace police with a more robust and fair system than we have today without causing the chaos that removing police alone can cause.

To this end, I propose the creation of a system consisting of two forms of insurance.

The first, protection insurance, is a system that consists of multiple pieces.  These include the brokers, insurers, private security firms, private investigators, as well as the second form of insurance, which I will address shortly.

Anyone can purchase protection insurance.  Their premiums will depend on how often the client's line of work or personal life will require the use of protection, because claims will require the services of the above pieces.  The more claims made against the insurers, the more expensive the person's insurance premiums will become.  This would encourage the insured individuals to practice caution when dealing with questionable elements of society.

The claim process is simple: a person can install a security system with a call switch, or maintain camera security, or even keep some security guards present.  These would either be part of the insurance company's service, or come at an extra charge, depending on the insurer, and how much the insured wants to spend.  If there is a break-in, an attempted theft, or an attack, the security systems in place can make the immediate claim to the insurer, who will immediately dispatch security personnel to the client.  If the damage, theft, or attack was successful, the provider can further contact the private investigation services in order to retrieve the property in question, or determine the perpetrator in question.  Once the perpetrator is determined, the insurer can prosecute the perpetrator in arbitration.

The second form of insurance here is the keystone to behaviour.  This is Reputation Insurance.  Reputation insurance is simply a form of insurance that takes claims against their client, and, if the claims are sound, they will pay the damages on their client's behalf, increasing the premiums their client will need to pay as a result.  In addition, it is the reputation insurer who will be responsible for representing their client in arbitration.

Arbitration is the process in which a protection and opposing reputation provider will select a shared arbiter in which to make their claims and present their evidence.  The costs of arbitration are deferred until the verdict and penalty are announced, in which case, it will be the loser who pays the costs of the proceedings, and if the prosecution is successful, the defense's reputation insurer will pay all damages to the victim in question.

The above two systems both have access to private investigators who will perform all necessary research, and also serve as advocates on behalf of their respective clients.

The reasons that this is more effective than the police and court systems are 1: it by necessity limits bad behavior to victim-based crime, preventing any form of prohibition from becoming the dangerous policy that it is today, and 2: ensures that if a person is not properly represented by their insurer or advocate, they can move on to a different insurer out of protest without fear of reprisal.

[John Edward Mercier]

First, police are not protection, they for the most part investigate the crime after it occurs (traffic violations being of a different nature).
Second, the present protection services that use a call box... simply dial the local PD. Nice convienence, but hardly necessary.

The reputation insurance is ineffective as a stand alone... the reason, one would need to be caught to get a reputation. Could you pick a mass murder, thief, rapist, or child molester out of a crowd? If they have never been tagged by LE to be such?

What of the person who's reputation is damaged through slander or libel?
Its quite a complex issue... but I believe that policing can and should be minimized.

[reteo]

First, police are not protection, they for the most part investigate the crime after it occurs (traffic violations being of a different nature).
Second, the present protection services that use a call box... simply dial the local PD. Nice convienence, but hardly necessary.

To respond to the first, they are a deterrent among those who obey the law out of fear, rather than behave according to principle.

I don't really understand your second point, though, could you please clarify?

The reputation insurance is ineffective as a stand alone...

You're right; alone, the reputation insurance would be useless.  It is when reputation insurance is rated by protection insurers according to risk that it becomes valuable.  If a person wants to get the lowest-cost protection, they will deal only with people who are insured by low-risk (high-reputation) insured people.  The net result is a form of market shunning of those people who have policies with reputation insurers who are considered high-risk by the protection companies; it becomes more difficult and expensive to deal in a market where you are considered a higher risk.

the reason, one would need to be caught to get a reputation. Could you pick a mass murder, thief, rapist, or child molester out of a crowd? If they have never been tagged by LE to be such?

There is only one way that this differs from the current system of police: The police have no competition, and so have less incentive to constantly improve.  The security services and private investigators in the above system would be competing with one another, and as such, would constantly seek to improve their technology and methods to protect and seek out aggressors in order to gain the advantage against their competition.

What of the person who's reputation is damaged through slander or libel?
Its quite a complex issue... but I believe that policing can and should be minimized.

This is the reason why reputation insurers would also keep access to private investigators; they would research their clients' opposition to such slander.  If a slander claim has merit, a counterclaim can be made against the slanderer's reputation provider.  This would result in the mark being removed from the victim's reputation and placed in the original slanderer's reputation.

I hope this clarifies a few things.

[John Edward Mercier]

My second point dealt with services like First Alert.

And still no clarity...
Is it my understanding that your simply suggesting a privatization of investigative duties?
In my experience, prosecutors are highly competitive...

[reteo]

My second point dealt with services like First Alert.

Ah.  Not exactly a refutation of my point, though; the call-box does not need to call the police, but the protection service in question, which is the point I was making.

And still no clarity...
Is it my understanding that your simply suggesting a privatization of investigative duties?
In my experience, prosecutors are highly competitive...

What I am suggesting is a marketization of:
* Investigation (Private investigators)
* Conflict resolution (Private arbitrators and advocates selected by the respective insurers)
* Damage reconciliation (Reputation insurance)
* Protection (Protection insurance)
* Punishment of aggressive behavior (More expensive reputation policy, potential discontinuation of policy, and market-based shunning of those with high-risk or no reputation insurance)

Prosecutors may be highly-aggressive, but just try to find one when going up against the IRS, for example.  The current system is unbalanced, explicitly because of the monopoly power of certain services.  How do you legally charge a system that can create a law to circumvent you?

[Kat Kanning]

Cool, how do we sign up for your insurance?

[reteo]

Cool, how do we sign up for your insurance?

I wish I could answer that one; unfortunately, coming up with an idea is one thing, bringing it to life is another.  It would require financial backing to bring such a dual-system into being.

I would probably begin the work with protection insurance first; the necessary components already exist to create such a system with the right relationships.  Once a protection insurance system can be used for personal protection, then the reputation insurance system can be created for the purpose of encouraging the discount/surcharge model to work the market toward a non-centralized model for dealing with aggressive tendencies.

Once the system is in place, signing up is as simple as visiting your friendly insurance broker.

[Kat Kanning]

Oh.

[John Edward Mercier]

Prosecutors don't go after the IRS, the would be the job of a tax attorney.

[David]

No matter what you do, or what you advocate for, simplify, simplify, simplify.  I frequently come up with what I like to call 'good ideas' that will in reality never be accepted because they are too complicated.  Complications breed distrust and suspicion.  Particularly of anything new. 
My suggestion would be to compare this, to anything existing that might demonstrate that it can work or not.  Look for examples in places such as inner cities, where the hostility to police is so high, that even the swat doesn't want to go there, or places like Somalia, or the middle east, where there is either no effective gov't or a highly corrupt one.  People tend to do things over and over again, usually because they think it will work.   

[J’raxis 270145]

Much like the private defense companies some propose to replace police, this sounds like yet another scheme that would simply result in the replacement of one State with a another—one that eventually evolved out of these insurance companies.



Right now, the parts of our lives that are not controlled by the State are very often controlled by insurance companies.

Many of those onerous safety regulations businesses have to follow nowadays are a result of legislation. But many of them are a result of their liability insurance carrier's rules. No smoking on the premises—because the fire insurance would've cost more. No customer restrooms—because the restrooms are in the back and the liability insurance doesn't cover that part of the building. Ridiculously paranoid policies about "sexual harassment" and other "inappropriate" workplace behavior—because in the event of a lawsuit, it's the insurer who shells out for it.

How about car insurance? Violate a traffic law, and not only does the State fine us, but now the insurance company will raise our rates. Not only is the state trying to force us to follow their rules, but so are the insurance companies! Health insurance? No smoking—or our premiums will go up. No eating unhealthy foods—or our premiums will go up. No risky lifestyle—or our premiums will go up. Our doctors' recommendations on diet and exercise become orders—or our premiums will go up.

It's their money, so it's only reasonable they get to make rules for us to follow, right? And of course, it's voluntary—we weren't forced to buy insurance. Oh, but... "you have to have it." Just in case. Because the potential costs for not having it when we need it are so high.* And so on.

And don't think the insurance companies aren't gleefully gaming the system in order to ensure those costs are so high.



In your scenario, these "reputation insurance" providers (RIPs?), through the usual tricks of marketing and propaganda most corporations employ, would quickly engineer the beliefs of the people among whom they exist such that they are under the impression that one must buy reputation insurance; anyone who doesn't would have "no reputation"—and thus ought to be automatically considered untrustworthy. The RIPs would create a "reputation rating" system, rate each of their customers accordingly, and convince us all to believe that a person with "no reputation" is as untrustworthy as a person with a bad "reputation score."

So, of course, we would all sign up with an RIP, simply in order to get one of their damned numbers so people will trust us. And as a customer, there'd be all sorts of rules we'd have to follow: Perhaps they'd tell us we can't do business with no-rep or bad-rep people, period, preventing us from using our own judgment. Perhaps they'd prohibit us all from drinking alcohol, because we're more likely to engage in reckless or criminal behavior while drunk. Perhaps they'd even tell us what we can't say, or can't write about, in order to limit their risk of paying out for a defamation lawsuit.

And if we don't follow these rules, our RIPs will rip us a new one either by raising our rates or lowering our rep score.

R.I.P., our freedom.



Once the State is gone, any private entity that tries to engineer dependence, or place itself in a position where people believe that they "have to have it" needs to be resisted. Dependency is evil. Insurance is evil. Relying on someone else to provide us with defense, or "cover our ass" when we need it, is short-sighted, foolish, and a recipe for our own enslavement. Now, purveyors of such product certainly have a right to exist in a free market, but they ought be treated with the same suspicion and contempt that a loan shark or drug dealer receives. They should not be encouraged.

Because, once everyone is dependent on them... it's only a very short journey until they become the new State and us their new subjects.


* The rent-seeking behavior of many insurance companies—getting states to pass laws mandating certain forms of insurance under certain circumstances (drivers required to have car insurance, college students and Massachusetts subjects required to have health insurance, businesses required to have liability insurance, &c.)—certainly plays a major part of the clout insurance companies have over people, but it's not necessary. Even when insurance is 100% voluntary they still engage in these controlling behaviors.

[Tom Sawyer]

Now, purveyors of such product certainly have a right to exist in a free market, but they ought be treated with the same suspicion and contempt that a loan shark or drug dealer receives.

Why should I have contempt for the guy that provides a product I want?

[J’raxis 270145]

Now, purveyors of such product certainly have a right to exist in a free market, but they ought be treated with the same suspicion and contempt that a loan shark or drug dealer receives.

Why should I have contempt for the guy that provides a product I want?

The examples I used were of people engaging in businesses that are generally seedy and borderline fraudulent. Drug dealing would probably be a lot cleaner in a free society—most of the violence and other shadiness associated with it now is solely because it's marginalized by being outlawed—but I suspect usury and insurance will remain the same scams they are now.

[David]

You mentioned DROs.  To my knowledge such an organization has almost never been in existence.  Similar things have, though.  For example... in Iraq, and Palestine, the militias are the largest providers of charity.  To those who doubt the effectiveness of private militias, pay attention to the general effectiveness of the militias in Iraq as they frustrate the united states army.  While it is true that in the 'democratic' setup that is in place in both regions has resulted in the militia leaders being involved in gov't, if they were not propped up by outside aid the gov't would fall very quickly.  this has happened for 14 years in Somalia, where the clans would never let another rule over it.  The united nations has spent over 2 billion dollars trying to establish a gov't there. 

[J’raxis 270145]

You mentioned DROs.  To my knowledge such an organization has almost never been in existence.  Similar things have, though.  For example... in Iraq, and Palestine, the militias are the largest providers of charity.  To those who doubt the effectiveness of private militias, pay attention to the general effectiveness of the militias in Iraq as they frustrate the united states army.

How does their effectiveness at resisting the U.S. and Israeli occupations say anything about their future goals?

The two main players in Palestine at the moment—the corrupt remnants of the PLO, and the HAMAS—are vying for control of the territory and the people living there. They're certainly both intent on becoming the State as soon as they can.

The same is true for most of the factions in Iraq: The Sunni are fighting because they lost power when the U.S. invaded, and they want it back. The Shi`a factions that follow as-Sistani and as-Sadr, initially fighting against the U.S., have temporarily laid down their arms in order to participate in the political system the U.S. installed—they're certainly intent on becoming the State. And the small group of al-Qa`idah fighters in the country are religious fanatics who want to restore the Caliphate.

It's interesting that you bring up Arab politics in defense of the DROs, because this bit of PLO history is something I often use to demonstrate how quickly private resistance groups start trying to become the State.

While it is true that in the 'democratic' setup that is in place in both regions has resulted in the militia leaders being involved in gov't, if they were not propped up by outside aid the gov't would fall very quickly. 

Right—and what I was trying to say is these militia groups would become the next government.

this has happened for 14 years in Somalia, where the clans would never let another rule over it.  The united nations has spent over 2 billion dollars trying to establish a gov't there. 

The clan is the State. The leaders of these clans rule over their members through force, don't they?