Community Reserves
Of the People, By the People, and For the People.
Its hard to take seriously that the third part is possible, if the first two are not in affect.
To that end we believe it is critical that people have a place in maintaining their own communities and developing services which they are a part of, which receive official sanction.
The specialists should further their talents but laymen need to understand and partake in those very services they depend on so that they can attain some measure of empathy and understanding in what is trully involved, so that questioning and critique can be much improved and accurate, and solutions can be more quickly ascertained.
As important, is the measure of confidence we the people gain in being part of the solutions to our problems, rather than perpetually complaining or resigning ourselves to the idea that, "it's not my problem"....somebody else is supposed to deal with that.
Oversight of those who claim to operate on our behalf is vastly enhanced.
Civil participation becomes commonplace....in matters great and small.
An example:
Law Enforcement:
Within a community like Seattle, of some 600,000 people, there are about 1200-1400 police officers and around 1000 complimentary civilian support personnel.
If seattle could count on just 1 hour of the day for 10 percent of people to partake in community policing (trained, equipped, and duly authorized as officers) that would amount to 2500 additional police deputies on the street every hour of every day....
You can bet on the fact that there are not 1200 police officers on duty on any day in seattle.
But that is not the real power of the force multiplication.
The other 57,500 people trained and equipped could be called up in an emergency....lets say a serious crime such as a hostage crisis, mass panic, enviornmental disaster, or a terrorist attack.
Anywhere in the city at anytime of the day you could count on at least a couple of hundred people to show up, immediately.
120,000 pairs of eyes and ears trained over the passage of months...for simple tasks, and years for more complex ones....that would not only be aware of the early warning signs of improper or suspicious behaviour, but in the ways to deal with it..
How can any organized crime ever compete with that?
How can any terrorist organization compete with that?
That is just ONE american city.....
In practical terms, the process of training would be costly and time consuming, and people would have to be vetted for criminal behaviour, criminal association, health fitness, and competence on a regular basis....and those not measuring up could not be included.
So the final number of people eligable would likely be below 50 percent and the 10 percent might very well represent the high water mark of what is capable, in practice...for the whole reserve system, though that is still an extraordinary scale of civic participation that DIRECTLY benefits all of the people...
Over time those eligable and interested would rise in numbers as it became a norm.
This would result in much less crime.......after all if that guy sitting next to you in a restaurant and a couple of the other people might be a police reservists, why rob the joint...do you really want to go to jail or get shot and go to jail that badly.....why not just go a little further east...to bellevue where they don't take law enforcement so seriously...where there aren't a potential tens of thousands of people roaming the streets ready to sweep you up.
[....in some cities, where there are serious problems, this could be compulsory for living in the community...take New Orleans for example....all able minded/bodied men and women subject to training, and deployment for an HOUR per day to protect and serve their neighbors..]
The Seattle Summer Festival will train and deploy several hundred to thousand volunteers...for the purpose of policing the larger groupings and collections of festivities to come....... with cooperation from the City of Seattle these volunteers will be deputized and put through a tough-minded program of incremental training, so that the most clueless of cadets can become ace police officers in 2-3years...and pretty good ones in less than one.
The Seattle Commonwealth will take up the full scale training and equipping of the much larger group including people wanting to do all the other things other than policing..
The Reserves would not just train a person for one thing either, a person...depending on interests, talents, and time available to train (probably 1-2 hours weekdays, plus one Saturday or Sunday per week, for 30-40 weeks per year), could learn as many different skill-sets as they desire, easily switching from reservist ambulance technician, to reservist traffic coordinator, to reservist police interrogator or investigator......limitless possibilities...with some who are not fit for patrol still making contributions such as information investigation (clues online), some evidenciary study...fans of crime dramas, csi-type shows, and investigative shows need not be neglected even if they are out-of-shape couch-potatoes...everyone is useful in some way.
Then there is the benefit of when the reservists decides to move....all that talent and experience is transferable to a new community, and those without such training programs would then have people who have gone through them and have learned the ins and outs...ready to deploy...and to develop their own native programs.
Like a virus, the idea and its application spread...nationwide, and globally..
With regard to Immigration, which has become a political hot potatoe.....
It is said, with some measure of resignation that it is impossible to remove the 12 million or so Illegals in this country, and clearly that is not so, as your reading of this should clarify.
If the public desires to rid the united states, or any other nation of Illegals, then such community based reservists would be a massive force multiplier in discerning, detaining, and deporting those who have chosen to break our laws to suit their interests.
A complimentary tool:
The reintroduction of Banishment.
In earlier ages the practice of removing people from the scene permanently, who betrayed, abused, or in some way aggrieved the community, or the powers that be, was often considered as terrible a punishment if not worse than death.
In modern times this practice can be reinstated to compliment the reserve system in dealing with criminal and civil issues, especially where influence of behaviour away from the undesireable is sought and possible.
On the petty side we have drunkards...graffiti artists...litterbugs..noise makers...school truants..etc..
On the more serious you have petty thefts, burglaries, minor but persistant drug offenders, and those damaging public or private property.
And short of murder, rape, or grave bodily harm you have those with a violent and anti-authoritarian streaks that are a problem wherever they go, harrassing people, assaulting them, engaging in criminal enterprises and the like..
In each case it might be a different court representing local, regional, or national...each with its own scales...all the way to national with a banishment under pain of death...to the likes of known terrorist funding operators who may not be convicted of particular crimes to that effect but who have a verifiable record of such behavior....in this case the national civil courts could remove the person, even if it did not warrant a criminal conviction......the consitution does NOT guarantee you a right to live anywhere you want or to behave contrary to the standards of the community you reside in.
But it is in the local arena where such a law/system would have the greatest power to persuade...we need no longer spend 20-30-40 thousand dollars a year to house someone who is engaging in non-violent crimes and refuses to change their behaviour...they can simply be banished....and only if they return would they receive prison sentences...much as a person on probation for several years screws up and is sent away for that term.....those who re-enter a city they have been banished from would be automatically subject to arrest for TRESPASSING resulting in imprisonment in a hard-labor work camp...depending on the degree of banishment...for anywhere between 1 year-10 years...the labor camp system could function as a govenrment based shared-profit where some types of products would be created/maintained and the profits of which would go to offsetting the cost of imprisonment.
People incapable or unwilling to demonstrate self-restraint, after a couple of times would be subject to an automatic review process by a jury, as to whether their behaviour constitutes a justification for banishment, if the jury agrees...a judge or panel hold a hearing with the defendant having an opportunity to challange the claims....if this person fails to persuade, he/she would summarily be banished...driven outside city limits, with a warning regarding tresspassing penalties....
If you can't live within our rules and codes of civil conduct, then you can't live with us, period.
Then there is the Banishment-link, where cities link together to reciprocate banishment...
The reasoning is that a person may very well risk banishment in one city especially if they have little regard for it, but would likely balk at the thought of banishment from most of the destinations people associate with a desireable place to visit, if not live.
So if you are banned in Seattle....the same becomes the case for LA, NY, Tampa, Houston, Denver, etc....you will either not be able to visit those cities for several years, perhaps up to 20 years, or in the most serious cases, NEVER.
Those who would be inclined to at least visit would likely be detered.
And with the use of Reservists and Overwatch, the likelihood of not being detected would be quite small.
With these tools and systems people can be persuaded to treat the public sphere with greater respect and consideration for one another, understanding that if they foul up enough times, or even once, seriously..they're lifestyle options could be severly curbed for the foreseeable future.
