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As I argued elsewhere here, I believe a stronger incentive would be to come after pay and pensions for police units whose officers have cost the municipality mi

As I argued elsewhere here, I believe a stronger incentive would be to come after pay and pensions for police units whose officers have cost the municipality millions in lawsuits. Instead of friends and coworkers trying to protect each other for abuses of power, they will instead take on the role of protecting their families' livelihood. You would be less likely to abuse your authority if your entire department and their retired friends are more incentivized to distance themselves from you than to cover you up.

ghufran_syed 11y ago
awesome idea, kind of similar to the idea that financial market firms were much more prudent when they were partnerships, whose top members had most of their self-worth tied up in that company. Once outside shareholders owned the stock, it made it much more sensible to make big bets, if you win you get a huge bonus, if not, they cant take away all the money you made in previous years.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  Glad you agree. I think there are plenty of good suggestions for police reform, but I can see how things like body cameras can descend into messy micromanagement (what's a minimum uptime? What are the penalties? What about mistakes?). Make bad behavior a huge disincentive and police departments will largely sort themselves out. If they are empowered to make their own decisions as to how to do so, they will be more willing to adapt. At the moment there is huge pushback from the public about police abuse, and cops are understandably frustrated by a public - that doesn't go into harm's way on a daily basis - trying to tell them how to do their jobs.
  - zepto 11y ago
    How will those big payouts happen without the evidence from body cams?
    - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
      They already do. Bystander cameras, CCTVs, even witness reports have done a great deal to secure absurd amounts of taxpayer money for police brutality lawsuits. I still think we should have body cameras, but the primary focus should be better policing, not camera compliance alone.
      - zepto 11y ago
        They do on extremely rare occasions, but it is clear that the level of misconduct is far higher than is ever prosecuted. On the subject of camera compliance - if an officer deliberately evades camera compliance, as a huge proportion do, we have clear evidence that that officer believes they do not have to follow policies and procedures in general. That is corruption.
heroprotagonist 11y ago
While this might provide incentive to comply, making individual occurrences more rare, I think it would also provide greater incentive to cover up abuse once it has already occurred.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  It depends on who gets punished. If nobody but crooked cops can be proven to have covered up a crime, then only they are punished. But like murder and possession of child pornography, knowledge of someone's criminal act legally complies the observer to turn that person in or they will be charged with conspiracy. You can cover up one or two crimes but not all of them. Eventually things get found out. You could help someone get away with something once, but if it's ever found out, you could potentially be charged with everything your buddy is up for, go to prison, and come out broke and jobless.
ChrisBland 11y ago
While your idea sounds great in theory, what I believe would happen would be a stronger blue wall of science. They wouldn't report anything and would side with their own as not doing so could risk their family livelihood. IMO, a better solution would be to require officers to pay their own liability insurance, similar to medical malpractice. Let an indep 3rd party set rates, then you can price out the worst officers and the payouts come from the 3rd party and not the tax payers. Then the officers would want the bodycams as they would protect them. Imagine if a doctor did something wrong and said, oh whops, i guess the patients chart disappeared. They would be uninsurable after that point, same with a cop.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  Wow, great idea. Probably even better than mine. The only problem I can point out is that over time budget increases (for they always increase) could be partially set aside to bury the insurance cost and effectively shield the department from the damage of higher premiums.

ghufran_syed 11y ago

awesome idea, kind of similar to the idea that financial market firms were much more prudent when they were partnerships, whose top members had most of their self-worth tied up in that company. Once outside shareholders owned the stock, it made it much more sensible to make big bets, if you win you get a huge bonus, if not, they cant take away all the money you made in previous years.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
Glad you agree. I think there are plenty of good suggestions for police reform, but I can see how things like body cameras can descend into messy micromanagement (what's a minimum uptime? What are the penalties? What about mistakes?). Make bad behavior a huge disincentive and police departments will largely sort themselves out. If they are empowered to make their own decisions as to how to do so, they will be more willing to adapt. At the moment there is huge pushback from the public about police abuse, and cops are understandably frustrated by a public - that doesn't go into harm's way on a daily basis - trying to tell them how to do their jobs.
- zepto 11y ago
  How will those big payouts happen without the evidence from body cams?
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    They already do. Bystander cameras, CCTVs, even witness reports have done a great deal to secure absurd amounts of taxpayer money for police brutality lawsuits. I still think we should have body cameras, but the primary focus should be better policing, not camera compliance alone.
    - zepto 11y ago
      They do on extremely rare occasions, but it is clear that the level of misconduct is far higher than is ever prosecuted. On the subject of camera compliance - if an officer deliberately evades camera compliance, as a huge proportion do, we have clear evidence that that officer believes they do not have to follow policies and procedures in general. That is corruption.

heroprotagonist 11y ago

While this might provide incentive to comply, making individual occurrences more rare, I think it would also provide greater incentive to cover up abuse once it has already occurred.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
It depends on who gets punished. If nobody but crooked cops can be proven to have covered up a crime, then only they are punished. But like murder and possession of child pornography, knowledge of someone's criminal act legally complies the observer to turn that person in or they will be charged with conspiracy. You can cover up one or two crimes but not all of them. Eventually things get found out. You could help someone get away with something once, but if it's ever found out, you could potentially be charged with everything your buddy is up for, go to prison, and come out broke and jobless.

ChrisBland 11y ago

While your idea sounds great in theory, what I believe would happen would be a stronger blue wall of science. They wouldn't report anything and would side with their own as not doing so could risk their family livelihood. IMO, a better solution would be to require officers to pay their own liability insurance, similar to medical malpractice. Let an indep 3rd party set rates, then you can price out the worst officers and the payouts come from the 3rd party and not the tax payers. Then the officers would want the bodycams as they would protect them. Imagine if a doctor did something wrong and said, oh whops, i guess the patients chart disappeared. They would be uninsurable after that point, same with a cop.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
Wow, great idea. Probably even better than mine. The only problem I can point out is that over time budget increases (for they always increase) could be partially set aside to bury the insurance cost and effectively shield the department from the damage of higher premiums.