What would we do with sociopaths?

[aziraphale]

If we want a world without police, how would we protect people from sociopaths? Much of crime comes from poverty, but sociopathy is found in all classes. Is there any solution to this?

[Spawn of Stalin]

No police doesn't mean no law, or no force to uphold that law. Under Communism the communities would be organised through necessity, and they could do just as good of a job if not better than the police.

Now I wait for some utopian dreamer to come in and say, "once class consciousness develops, sociopaths will be magically CURED of their illness and live with the rest of the proletariat in glorious egalite and harmony.

[this is an invasion]

I personally believe that a lot of mental disorders (or whatever the fuck you want to call them) arise from alienating conditions. I think this is evident in the high levels of depression (I have severe depression for the record) and also the way people begin to act after having been in prison for a long period of time. So while I don't think communism will magically cure fucking everything, I do think that the creation of a true human community will see the end of a lot of the fucked up shit we live with under capitalism.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Presumably people with non-violent mental disorders would be left alone, and people with violent mental disorders would be confined, for both their own safety and the safety of other people.

Of course treatment would be offered, as well. The mind is a tricky thing, though, and modern medicine still has difficulty treating it when there's something wrong with it.

[mikelepore]

The utopian dreams should be dropped. A society without police would be ruled by gangs and warlords.

[A.R.Amistad]

In the case of someone with a mental illness, who has what we call diminished capability, they would have to be interred in a mental asylum, and the forces who would do that would be just as comrade motionless described. It would be up to the community to deal with such issues according to proletarian law. Until class divisions have completely disolved, there will be prisons and a people's police force, structured in a democratic, not bureaucratic, way. But we cannot forget that societies who achieved a level of socialism have seen a great reduction in crime of all sorts. The Iroquois had almost no crime, certainly not petty crime such as theft. Crimes such as murder would be handled by the community as a whole, and social estrangement, not physical restraint, was used as a punishment and deterrent, and it worked fairly well. Also, criminals were able to sincerely atone for their crimes and regain respect in the community. That of course would be pretty far off in the socialist future, but it could work.

I also have a somewhat controversial critique of how prisons are used against violent persons. With the exception of the mentally ill and capably deficient, why do we lock up even murderers for life? I think most murders happen under individual circumstances in this society, yet everyone unduly treats all murderers as incapable of not committing murder. I see this as the false notion of essence preceding existence and its really hurting us. Why do we believe that someone who has killed only once will go on killing for the rest of their lives? You hear it said that "they're off the streets for good" yet how much of a threat were they more than anyone else? People make very bad choices sometimes, and they need to be held responsible. To call everyone who murders someone a "sociopath" is taking the responsibility off the individual. I am a firm believer in labor-prisons, where all prisoners are confined to a single cell and where no gang activity is permitted. None of these inhumane and inefficient "maximum security" prisons will do. Check out how prisons operated in 1830's America and you will find it to be surprisingly humane and efficient. Labor does discipline people, it gives them a purpose, and you'll find that that is what many social criminals lack. So I think your average murder situation should be allowed to work their way out of the prison system and not be given a life sentence. I don't see why the life-sentence is given out so easily and like candy. Life sentencing should strictly apply to the mentally ill, and they should be treated.

So going back to a society without prisons, social-shunning would work just as well as anything on a lay murderer. Think about the situations where someone shot another over a drug sale. Is he really a threat to all of society? He is really only a threat to those who he does certain things with, and if he is shunned by all of society, what can he do? I find that most people who kill do so with the thought that they were doing a good thing or what was best for their self-interest, not because they are bent on killing all that moves.

[this is an invasion]

The utopian dreams should be dropped. A society without police would be ruled by gangs and warlords.
I never understood self-described communists calling other communists utopian.

[Tifosi]

The police always tell people that they are here to protect and serve them. Now people expect them to do the work of finding sociopaths for them, although the police put out message's asking people to come forward not everybody will. People have become dependent on the police and think we need the police to have law and order.

This isn't the case, let's say that everybody is the police and citizens arrest really means something. A community run police force, not a centrally commanded one that the top guns can order about to do what they want. I think it would be far more affective as people would know they where a integral patter of the police and that there isn't somebody at the top with an agenda that may or may not listen to them. Also you wouldn't get all the shit of meeting targets. (is my grammar bad after a few drinks? :lol:)

I'm sure they did something like this during the Free Derry days, instead of the RUC walking the streets. Local people (not members of the IRA) would walk the streets looking out for looters and so on.


The utopian dreams should be dropped. A society without police would be ruled by gangs and warlords.

What type of police force are you on about? One like we have today or a community run police?

[Crusade]

The utopian dreams should be dropped. A society without police would be ruled by gangs and warlords.

Speaking as someone with hands on experience of how the police operate, there truly isn't a difference. You can have the police there as a collectively funded occupation, but they should not be given higher authority than the individual. I should be able to behave the very same way with a policemen that I'd do with a normal citizen. That means no arrests for "back-talk"(you can say whatever you want to a cop that you'd be able to say to anyone else), citizens can defend themselves against unprovoked hostility the same way they can a normal citizen, NO RESTRICTIONS ON GUN OWNERSHIP that the police themselves don't have to follow, and I demand complete transparency and no damn "internal investigations", investigations must come from an outside group with no direct ties to the police.

The only reason I'd support a police force(under the conditions I mentioned above or I won't support it), is because a position such as this requires specialization. And obviously people who work at some other job during the day won't be able to do standard police work. For example, if your daughter gets kidnapped you won't be able to take off work for weeks to look for her on your own. Also, not everyone can defend themselves and there needs to be some kind of "impartial" decider when conflict erupts. But under no circumstances would I EVER support a police force as it is in now in a socialist society. You can count me out if that's the case.

[AK]

The utopian dreams should be dropped. A society without police would be ruled by gangs and warlords.
Is communism really just some utopian pipe dream? I'm just hoping you're being sarcastic.

[Glenn Beck]

Grind them into a paste and make hamburgers.


I never understood self-described communists calling other communists utopian.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

Probably kill them/lock them up/exile.

Not very nice really.

I imagine the non violent sociopaths would just be told to fuck off out the commune and never return...I think thats a improvement from capitalist society, where the real clever sociopaths are busy becoming politicians or corporate leaders.

[StoneFrog]

With sociopaths it becomes less common with communities that are close, so more the community comes together the less mental illnesses like this will arise. Of course there still will be cases, mush less common though. From what i know about disorders such as this is that it is stemmed from an emotional experience such as abandonment and abuse from childhood. But with a close community it helps prevent feelings from getting out of hand.

Yes there are people who are basically born that way, the only thing i can see would work is treatment, and slow integration if possible. Each case has to be deal with in their self, there is no one solution for all.

[JacobVardy]

Utopian dreamer here.

I presume you mean a sociopath with a taste for killing? Sociopaths are (if they even exist - its a police term and not really used in psychology) quite rare, and its been theorised that the majority are not violent. There is going to be far less of them in a communist society, where there will be so much less alienation. With people working a lot less, there will be far more neighbours around to step in early.

However, all that said, there will obviously have to be some kind of forensics collective subsidised by the community. A team of people who can do DNA tests in rape cases, track down a car used in a hit and run accident, or get meaningful testimony out of an abused child. Whether you want to call this group of people "police" is up to you.

[Glenn Beck]

However, all that said, there will obviously have to be some kind of forensics collective subsidised by the community. A team of people who can do DNA tests in rape cases, track down a car used in a hit and run accident, or get meaningful testimony out of an abused child. Whether you want to call this group of people "police" is up to you.

po·lice

  /pəˈlis/ verb,-liced, -lic·ing.

–noun

1.Also called police force. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/police+force) an organized civil force for maintaining order, preventing and detecting crime, and enforcing the laws.

2.(used with a plural verbhttp://sp.dictionary.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.png) members of such a force: Several police are patrolling the neighborhood.

3.the regulation and control of a community, esp. for the maintenance of public order, safety, health, morals, etc.

4.the department of the government concerned with this, esp. with the maintenance of order.

5.any body of people officially maintained or employed to keep order, enforce regulations, etc.


So yes, a communist society would have police. Just like pre-capitalist societies had police that fulfilled the same functions but were structured differently and had a different relationship with the people of a society. What you call them doesn't matter, police, polizei, watchmen, guardia civil, vigiles, militsiya, carabinieri, constables, gendarmes, prefects. It doesn't matter, if the connotations of one name make you uncomfortable pick one you like better. They're all the same thing in different contexts.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I am not super knowledgable about this but my understanding is that the first modern police force was created by James II of England while Charles II was still king. It was largely in reaction to lower class unrest.

Many socialists would propose something like a citizen's militia. It would carry out necessary police work, but would be rooted in communities instead of over them.

[mikelepore]

All we know with certainty is that the proportion of crime that is generated by economic pressure, for example, someone faces the threat of becoming homeless and hungry and decides to commit a robbery, would not occur in a classless society. But as for that proportion of violent crime that has no direct connection to poverty, like the bully who enjoys assulting people, or the serial killer who enjoys chopping up people, we have no scientific basis to assert that the problem would disappear when we establish a classless society.

We have to assume that in a classless society such individuals would occasionally exist [i.e., crime], they will have to be apprehended [i.e., police], there will have to be a fact-finding process to determine whether the correct person has been apprehended [i.e., courtroom trial], the accused has to be advised not to say the wrong words that might unintentionally imply guilt [i.e., lawyers], and the person has to be placed behind a locked door and not permitted to leave [i.e., jail].

So much for our hope of eliminating all "authoritarian" and "coercive" institutions. Any classless society will need all of these cursed institutions, although presumbly it will need fewer of them than a class-ruled society requires, and they can be administered with improved procedures and principles. While fewer and improved, our need for them is still a fact.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I understand sociopathy to be an exploitative disorder, in which a person with it exploits people through violence and manipulation for their own means. For example, a person may exploit someone else through violence, in order to make financial gains. So surely in a revolution that aims to rid the world of exploitation, a sociopath would have no means of which to exploit another human-being--not on the same scale as in capitalist society anyway?

I guess I am assuming that the most destructive aspects of sociopathy are a product of a society that functions on class-exploitation; this class-exploitation and notions such as the "profit motive" create the environment in which sociopaths thrive and succeed (some of the richest CEOs are sociopaths). My view (perhaps utopian) is that sociopaths would have no means for exploiting in a society that is classless, that these exploitative cretins would wither away as the revolution progressed further into classlessness.

[Red Saxon]

The commune members would organize a militia to provide security.

I have no problem with the idea of a policing force, simply because there will always be people who try to harm others and those people must be protected.