Poor men have more to fear when the laws go down than the rich, for they are less able to protect themselves without law. You had all better shiver when you see a policeman rioting rather than putting down a riot, for he may well come after you next, or stand aside when someone else does.

The work of the philosophical policeman," replied the man in blue, "is at once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective. The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime. We were only just in time to prevent the assassination at Hartlepool, and that was entirely due to the fact that our Mr. Wilks (a smart young fellow) thoroughly understood a triolet.

I tell you as well as myself: what we see with our own eyes is nothing other than a cloud concealing what we should perceive with our inner sight, while what we listen to with our ears is merely a ringing sound disturbing what we should understand with our hearts. When we see a man being taken to prion by a police officer let us not hasten to assume he is a wrong-doer. When we see a corpse, and a man standing beside it with bloodstained hands, let us not conclude that this is a victim and his assassin. When we hear one man singing and another lamenting, let us ascertain which one of the two is truly happy.

The real enemy" is the totality of physical and mental constraints by which capital, or class society, or statism, or the society of the spectacle expropriates everyday life, the time of our lives. The real enemy is not an object apart from life. It is the organization of life by powers detached from it and turned against it. The apparatus, not its personnel, is the real enemy. But it is by and through the apparatchiks and everyone else participating in the system that domination and deception are made manifest. The totality is the organization of all against each and each against all. It includes all the policemen, all the social workers, all the office workers, all the nuns, all the op-ed columnists, all the drug kingpins from Medellin to Upjohn, all the syndicalists and all the situationists.

Further, an excess of legislation defeats its own ends. It makes the whole population criminals, and turns them all into police and police spies. The moral health of such a people is ruined for ever; only revolution can save it.

"tanith: have you called the police?

Whenever I get that sad, depressed feeling, I go out and kill a policeman.

My relationship with my father had been on the proverbial fritz since the time I was fifteen and called the police to report him for child molesting. He had never molested me, but I wanted to have a party that weekend and needed him out of the house.

You're an investigator - can't nobody find stuff out like a woman. Y'all put the police to shame, make the little investigative tricks they show on CSI and Law & Order: SVU look like counting lessons on Sesame Street.

THINGS YOU NEVER HEAR: 'Please stop sucking my dick or I'll call the police.

An invitation to a wedding invokes more trouble than a summons to a police court.

Experience has taught me never to trust a policeman. Just when you think one's all right he turns legit.

Racial profiling punishes innocent individuals for the past actions of those who look and sound like them. It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It has no place in our national discourse and no place in our nation's police departments.

I'm in prison. But my heart and mind is free. Gangsta haters on the streets are doing more time than me. They need 30 police escorts with them every time they walk down the street.

As recent as the year 2000 we won elections by saying we shouldn't be the policemen of the world and that we should not be nation building. And its time we got those values back into this country.

I think the success of democracy is not really police security it's the presence of a broad middle class. The stronger the middle class of a people is the less you have to worry about one group coming in and exploiting the democratic process for its own ends.

Unless we abandon elements which resemble a police state we can't meet the demands of being a modern society.

Police in China can do whatever they want after 81 days in arbitrary detention you clearly realise that they don't have to obey their own laws. In a society like this there is no negotiation no discussion except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want - not only you your whole family and all people like you.

Society questions the police and their methods and the police say Do you want the criminals off the street or not?

After a shooting spree they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.

I have had stalkers over the years. The police deal with it but it is very scary. One man kept turning up where we filmed 'Countdown in Leeds ' which was scary. It was sad as he'd been sectioned and thought I was talking to him through the TV.

Religion is run by thought police. 'Obey. Listen. This is what you do. Don't ask questions. Go die for your country.' The spirituality says 'Okay you can die for your country but know what you're doing while you're doing it.'

And across Afghanistan every single day Afghan soldiers Afghan police and ISAF troops are serving shoulder-to-shoulder in some very difficult situations. And our engagement with them our shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with them our conduct of operations with them every single day defines the real relationship.

I realize I will always be the poster child for police brutality but I can try to use that as a positive force for healing and restraint.