[Name changed to Civil Defenders from Citizen Defenders in original article 2 law enforcement groups that check & balance each other ]
The Civil Defenders (CD) are a police watchdog organization and also a self-organizing militia for threats against the country.
Mission statement #1 for police watchdog aspect: To gather 3rd party evidence on police operations mostly via video recording, and to protect life (police lives and criminal lives).
Mission statement #2 for militia aspect: In the event of an armed threat to the country, Civil Defenders (CD) will self-organize into teams and the teams can voluntarily choose to accept missions put out by the CD Council.
The Civil Defender program is now VOLUNTARY to join (the previous idea had it mandatory). All volunteers will be sent to a law enforcement school (paid for by govt program) so that they have a good understanding of the workings of police operations and also warfare tactics for militia operations (the school will be pass/fail). CDs can later go on to join the police, but anyone who has previously worked as police cannot become a CD (This is because police behavior becomes instinctual, and is difficult to change).
Members of the CD Council shall be elected into their positions, but before they can be active, they must undergo CD training. CD Council members decide on what should be in CD training, and they will be in charge of organizing CD response to a national threat in cooperation with Congress. They will also be the review council for actions of any CD and will decide if a CD needs to be suspended or terminated from their position or even charged with breaking a law. The CD Council will never issue any direct orders to any Civil Defender, anything an individual CD participates in will always be voluntary. The individual CD will have no hierarchy above them telling them what to do and will essentially be a free-agent (except for the Council’s ability to fire them).
Most of what CDs will do is become aware of an active “call-for-help” to Police dispatch and, either an app, or possibly dispatch itself will ask for a CD to respond to the scene. They can accept by an app or via radio to dispatch and they will get their equipment and travel to the scene (The closest CD to the scene is who should be sent to it). Once on scene they will achieve mission statement #1. The police are not allowed to give the CD any orders unless the CD starts breaking laws. The CD can voluntarily choose to assist the police if there is a safety threat.
CDs will be paid for time spent on the “call” as an incentive to keep responding to what are often boring scenes. I have not decided if the CD Council should be unpaid volunteers or receive the LL recommended minimum wage. Either way, costs must be kept down to ensure the program lasts. A CD’s equipment will be issued to them, and if they are terminated from their position, the equipment must be returned.
I think it is best to have the CD training as completely voluntary for now. But I am still open to having the training be required in certain instances. There could be some school programs in LL that want to require all their students to complete this training. Parents could demand that their child complete the training. The CD training might be broken up into phases, like phase 1: laws, phase 2: police operations, phase 3: militia response. So maybe some parents want their kid to go thru the laws phase just to learn all of LL laws and that’s all. Or maybe people want to be a CD police watchdog so they do phases 1 and 2, and then are qualified to go on police “calls”.