Comments | andrewducker: Interesting Links for 13-04-2017

andrewducker

Interesting Links for 13-04-2017

Apr 13, 2017 12:00

Five tips for extending lithium-ion battery life (tags: batteries advice ) Corporate Bullshit Generator (tags: funny business language ) Startup says it can make compressed-air energy-storage scheme dirt cheap (tags: batteries electricity ) Zoroastrianism - the obscure religion that shaped the West (tags: religion history ) Jude Law cast as ( Read more... )

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Alabama Senate votes to allow church to form police dep cartesiandaemon April 13 2017, 13:23:06 UTC

WTF? I feel like I'm missing background here.

Is it usual for institutions other than towns to have their own police? I just assumed not, but I know there are some things like that.

Is there some reason this is allowed by the first amendment? It sounds like a trick question on the separation of church and state, "can a church set up its own official police department?" Um, no?

RE: Alabama Senate votes to allow church to form police dep andrewducker April 13 2017, 13:24:07 UTC

That was my understanding too. I can see this going all the way up...

RE: Alabama Senate votes to allow church to form police dep cartesiandaemon April 13 2017, 15:53:35 UTC

I feel like, it can't be that obvious or it wouldn't have got this far. But maybe they do just blatantly break the first amendment because they want to. (They do in other situations, albeit more often ones that have always been that way.)

Or maybe they know it will be struck down but want to sound pro-mega-church?

RE: Alabama Senate votes to allow church to form police dep skington April 13 2017, 16:20:03 UTC

More importantly, it seems to me that there are two reasons for having multiple police forces: (1) because they need expertise that the normal police don't have, and (2) because they'll do things the normal police won't.

Financial police are a good example of the first one: there are crimes that people in the City do that most police wouldn't necessarily even think were crimes. But, with respect to even a large mega-church, I doubt that anyone is seriously planning on e.g. transubstantiation fraud.

Which leaves number two: they want people to get away with things that ordinary police would consider illegal, and/or arrest people for things that the ordinary police would consider perfectly reasonable behaviour.

kalimac April 14 2017, 00:27:37 UTC

In the US, we normally have police at the levels of: city/town (the ones normally called "police"), county (usually called "sheriffs"), state (most prominently the Highway Patrol, or "state troopers" as they're known in some states), and federal (most notably the detectives at the Federal Bureau of Investigation).

Other institutions at city/town level with particular security needs sometimes have their own police forces. Large college campuses normally do. (The famous pepper spray incident a couple years back was one of those.) Major airports do. (I believe the cops who dragged the guy off the United plane were those.) It's much rarer for other institutions like churches to have them, but it's not unknown. Other organizations needing security normally get by with security guards.

RE: Alabama Senate votes to allow church to form police dep lilchiva April 14 2017, 01:34:48 UTC

Is it usual for institutions other than towns to have their own police?Yes. It's not common. As, someone else said, universities and schools do all the time. It depends on the size of the force needed, the size of the population in the local area, and a whole bunch of other stuff. You don't, really, just up and get a police department. You have to show you need it. But, something like this isn't at all uncommon in many southern states ( ... )

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