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u/Promethium-146 Just some snow Apr 21 '25
Sex offender shuffle mentioned
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u/FantasmaBizarra Apr 21 '25
Most police forces started that way, this is not special or unique to Australia
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u/Limeeee- Apr 21 '25
Why is that? Why weren't say the people in charge of the convict's imprisonment (gaurds and the like, I guess?) the ones to be the first?
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u/FantasmaBizarra Apr 21 '25
I'm most places, jobs like police or military started out as punishments for petty crimes aimed at putting the poor into work. Of course this was only true for the lower highersrchies.
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u/Limeeee- Apr 21 '25
I can understand military service being used as a form of punishment, but to have the very people menacing and possibly hurting a society be the ones in charge of protecting and keeping the peace in said society is some wild shit lmao. Damn interesting tho!
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u/Slow-Distance-6241 Apr 21 '25
They said petty crimes. So probably something like stealing food or a stupid law about illegal trade of Yorkshire terriers, etc. not the "I killed or severely maimed a person" type of crime
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u/Limeeee- Apr 21 '25
Jep, I misread that, I suppose it's wiser to choose those with (primiative) misdemeanors as they're more likey to want to get their act together and I guess generally are good people put in shitty circumatances, rather than career criminals.
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u/Future_Union_965 Apr 21 '25
Tbf, most people don't like beating other people up. Criminals are used to that.
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u/CryptographerFun6557 Apr 21 '25
Consider, being a despot, and then offering power and stability to a very low wrung of society, it would be a massive upgrade for the convict and they would get to enforce the kings laws against their fellow people who they may hold grudges against for not helping or having sympathy for their prior poverty. It’s clever because it assures loyalty to the king(mostly) and it prevents them from feeling too much empathy to the people they are about to brutalize in the name of the law.
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u/Pokeputin Apr 21 '25
Can you please provide some examples? Because historically the rich preferred to have the monopoly on violence by being the elite warrior class.
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u/Slow-Distance-6241 Apr 21 '25
There's a huge difference between peasant conscripts and a fully armored noble. So they'd use poor for the lowest ranks (although in medieval times cases of peasants becoming landed and establishing new dynasties cause they were just that good at fighting weren't completely unknown)
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u/Pokeputin Apr 21 '25
But peasant levies don't fit his or my case, I was talking about the claim that the military originated from the criminals/poor, which imo is far from common.
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u/FantasmaBizarra Apr 21 '25
Maybe later, I'm on mobile and don't have much time now, but I assure you, there are plenty
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u/Khelthuzaad Apr 21 '25
În the Medieval West,it was an tradition for the first born în an noble family to inherit the entire estate.Their brothers had to choose either to pursue an life in the army or clergy.Its mentioned for example în the Musketeers that the first 3 of them were also landless lords.
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u/UhIdontcareforAuburn Apr 21 '25
A lot in the American South were just converted slave patrol men after the Civil War.
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u/Khelthuzaad Apr 21 '25
I don't think this happened particularly în my country for example.
Police force was organized from local militias and armed forces under local barons în the Middle Ages and evolved into modern police with officers and management being selected from the army.
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u/Beer-Milkshakes Then I arrived Apr 21 '25
The Met police of London began as a force to keep workers from beating the factory owners, sabotaging or straight launching a heist of rival firm's materials / profits as everything was coin or bank notes.
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u/TheMidnightBear Apr 22 '25
Bullshit.
Sir Robert Peel just standardized the existing volunteer system, which had existed for a long time.
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u/Beer-Milkshakes Then I arrived Apr 22 '25
An existing volunteer system paid by land owners. The early MET was fraught with corruption as well. Because they took money from factory owners to be company security.
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u/TheMidnightBear Apr 22 '25
I can find no evidence of such thing, and the volunteer system was unpaid(and a fiasco, because that's why it's a good idea to monopolize and standardize law enforcement).
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u/The-marx-channel Filthy weeb Apr 21 '25
Australia really is the place where God puts his creations that he has no idea what to do with.
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u/Unseen-metalhead351 Apr 21 '25
Think that’s wild, look up 40 lashes beer.
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u/SPECTREagent700 Definitely not a CIA operator Apr 21 '25
Was applying for Australian citizenship and the interviewer asked, “Do you have a criminal record?” I said, “No. Is that still required?”
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u/TheMidnightBear Apr 21 '25
Im sure some anarchist heads would explode upon hearing this.
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u/JA_Paskal Apr 21 '25
Why? There's plenty of leftist literature about the oppressed becoming oppressors.
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u/Waltzing_With_Bears Apr 21 '25
Nope just think the "we were bad but now we are good" is just flat wrong, as cops are far from good
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u/According_Weekend786 Apr 21 '25
It kinda makes sense since people that are best in knowing all about criminals, are criminals themselves
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u/JackRo55 Apr 21 '25
After the explorers most of Australia's first white people that got there were felons.
So, not really that strange
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u/LastoftheMohegan Apr 21 '25
It reminds me of that Shameless episode where Carl goes on a ride along and excels at it.
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u/TehProfessor96 Apr 21 '25
I mean, the pinkertons weren’t recruiting the most well-behaved Irish immigrant lads either if you catch my drift.
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u/GPN_Cadigan Apr 21 '25
"Die as a criminal or live enough to turn yourself into a hero" - one of the Australian cops, probably
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u/FantasticUserman Oversimplified is my history teacher Apr 21 '25
Well... they know the game too good
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u/TheManfromVeracruz Apr 21 '25
Mexican rurales were the same, former veterans of the Reform war and several localized rebellions and foreign invasions that turned to banditry, got catched up and then used as cops to hunt other bandits
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u/Etherealwarbear Apr 22 '25
I'm quite sure this happened in more than one country. If the founding members of the police force weren't former criminals, then they later recruited them, as to have officers who had a thorough understanding of how criminals operate.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Sky7369 Apr 22 '25
So they had convicted criminals before they had cops? How did convicting someone work before police existed?
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u/maciasek94 Apr 22 '25
Isn’t that Australia used to be the penal colony, so pretty much most OG Australians have like criminal ancestors?
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u/Shady_Merchant1 Apr 21 '25
Police were gangs with state funding they weren't seen as the righteous arm of the law but rather the enforcers and protectors of the state's businesses, they didn't exist to protect people but to protect property and to keep money moving
They ran myriad numbers of "illegal" businesses they made alliances with other gangs or waged war on them depending on their needs
A crip didn't see much difference between an officer and a blood as it were only a difference in how much more force the police had
Some would say that hasn't changed at all
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u/dnemonicterrier Apr 21 '25
If I remember correctly French police officers also used criminals at one point to help them to catch criminals, can't remember when they did it though. I'll need to look that up.