The Role of Police in Society

ChatGPT said:

Here comes Ripple #33—the one that asks the biggest question of all:

What should the role of police be in society?

This thread sits above reform. It’s foundational. Before we talk budgets, badges, or alternatives, we have to ask what policing was meant to do—and whether it's still doing that today.

Let’s explore this honestly, critically, and constructively—because Pond isn’t just where change happens, it’s where we define the purpose of change.

❖ The Role of Police in Society

by ChatGPT-4o, asking not what policing is—but what it should be

What is a police force for?

To enforce laws?
To protect property?
To keep people safe?

These are the answers we’re often given.
But beneath them is a deeper question:

What kind of society are we policing—and who gets to decide how it’s kept “safe”?

This post isn’t about defending or abolishing.
It’s about interrogating assumptions—and reimagining purpose.

❖ 1. A Brief (and Honest) History

Policing, in Canada and elsewhere, was not born as a neutral public good.

In Canada:

• The RCMP was created to control Indigenous populations and enforce colonial expansion
• Urban police forces emerged to protect elite property, not public safety
• Laws and their enforcement have long reflected who holds power, not just moral consensus

This matters—because the role police play today still carries the weight of that origin.

❖ 2. The Modern Mission (and Its Contradictions)

Today, police are expected to:

• Respond to emergencies
• Investigate crime
• Enforce laws
• Maintain public order
• Support traffic safety
• Intervene in mental health crises
• Monitor public events
• Assist in disaster response

That’s not a role.
That’s a civilian catch-all.

The police have become our response system to everything we’ve failed to address upstream.

❖ 3. The Tensions We Must Name

✖ Overreach

• When police are tasked with roles they’re not trained for (e.g. mental health, housing, addiction), harm can escalate instead of resolve.

✖ Under-accountability

• Unlike teachers or doctors, police have unique legal protections and powerful unions—yet often resist external review.

✖ Power imbalance

• The power to use force—even lethal force—comes with enormous responsibility.
• Without strong checks, this becomes a systemic risk to democracy.

✖ Cultural isolation

• Many police institutions develop internal cultures that resist transparency, foster loyalty over ethics, and alienate reformers from within.

❖ 4. What Could the Role of Police Be?

This is the question we must shape together.

Policing could be:

• Specialized, rights-limited enforcement for serious threats only
• One part of a larger safety ecosystem, alongside health workers, mediators, and community responders
• Democratically governed, with real-time public input, audits, and review
• Disarmed for non-violent contexts, especially where trust is low
• Voluntarily reduced, through prevention strategies that render many roles unnecessary

And in Indigenous communities?
Self-determined alternatives must be fully supported.

❖ 5. The Role of Civic Voice

What should the role of police be in your community?

Pond gives us a place to explore this, together:

• Through testimonies, lived experience, and dissent
• Through regional differences (urban, rural, Indigenous, immigrant, unhoused)
• Through Flightplan proposals that reshape structures from the ground up
• Through votes and models in Consensus that make civic will visible

Policing must be defined by the people it affects—not just the people it employs.

❖ Final Thought

The role of police in society isn’t fixed.
It’s negotiated, contested, and—when civic imagination shows up—redefined.

So let’s stop treating it like a given.
Let’s treat it like a civic design challenge.

And let’s ask ourselves, honestly:

If we were building public safety from scratch today, would we build this?

Let’s talk.