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Comments on What is the point of police?
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What is the point of police? Question
Philosophically, what role does police serve in society?
Today, virtually every society has a police force. So, it seems like there must be some compelling reason to have one, i.e. police must serve some unique and critical role in society.
But historically, police forces in the modern sense were rare. There were some similar organizations, but it was not common to have people whose full time job is to go around and arrest any and all law breakers, with special authority to use force where an ordinary person could not. So if police really does have some important role, it is strange that it was not recognized for so many millennia.
Is it possible to derive some philosophical reasoning explaining why police must exist in society, or is it only explainable from historical or political basis?
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