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Someone in the article makes the same argument as you are making here: ‘To the extent the public wants that to be public record, I can understand that,” said R

Someone in the article makes the same argument as you are making here: ‘To the extent the public wants that to be public record, I can understand that,” said Rains, who is leading a legal fight to block the release of officer disciplinary records under the new law. “Why don’t we make that known for everybody?” Rains said of convictions, pointing out there’s no broad disclosure for lawyers, doctors, teachers and other trusted professionals.’ The key difference is that none of the other ‘trusted professionals’ have arbitrary leeway to detain you under suspicion on the street. The dynamic between police and the populace is not even remotely equivalent to any of these other types of professions and to equate them is an outright false equivalency.

mirimir 8y ago
Well, I believe that all criminal arrests, trials,convictions and sentences are public records in the US. So in theory, given lists of police officers -- and lawyers, judges, doctors, teachers, or whatever -- you could create such databases. In practice, it'd be a pain. Because you'd probably need to request records from, and perhaps visit, individual courts. What's different here is that these are personnel files. Do we want all personnel files to be public records? For lawyers, doctors, teachers, or whatever? For lawyers and judges, that'll never happen. Would you want your personnel files, from everywhere you ever worked, to be public?
- kelnos 8y ago
  The difference, again, is that police are not only public servants, but also have been entrusted with a position of extreme authority (and in-the-moment life-and-death decision-making) over everyone else, which is fairly unique to their profession. We have hired them to uphold and enforce the law. If they break the law themselves, especially if they do so while abusing their trusted position as police officers, they cannot be trusted with that job. From there the question becomes: do we trust the hiring process for police to blacklist former cops who have abused their position? Based on the article, we should not, because it mentions several officers who still have jobs despite their misdeeds. Given that, the public not only has the right to see this data, but should absolutely demand continuous public access to this data, as the existing system is clearly not trustworthy, and requires public oversight. And yes, feel free to consider the same policy for lawyers, doctors, teachers, or whatever. Maybe we should require personnel records for some other professions to be public, maybe not. But it seems clear to me that for police officers, this data needs to be public.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    By that argument, it's judges that we ought to be worrying about.
    - kelnos 8y ago
      Yes, but in a different way. A cop can shoot you on sight and in many cases get away with it, even if it wasn't justified. They have immediate life-or-death authority over people. Judges can make a bad or corrupt ruling, but, at least until you get to SCOTUS, you always have the ability to appeal. And there's no immediacy; an incorrect decision by a judge will never leave you dead a matter of seconds later.
- cascom 8y ago
  Isn’t this actually just a list of public servants who have publicly been convicted of crimes? This is not their “personnel file”
  - mirimir 8y ago
    It's not all "public servants", just police. And sure, it's not entire personnel files, but it's a sensitive part of personnel files. So hey, I'm not normally so friendly toward police. Back in the day, one of my favorite songs was MDC's "Let's Kill All The Cops".[0,1] But I've mellowed. As I've gotten older, and less of a pain in the ass, I've found police to more than not be helpful. One state cop even helped me to change a flat tire. Maybe I reminded him of my dad. Mostly, though, I feel strongly that we all deserve privacy. And I don't think that public shaming is a good approach for dealing with such low-level "public servants" as police. Seriously, a bad cop will maybe fuck over maybe 100 people per year. But a bad judge could fuck over maybe 1000 per year. And what about bad state attorney generals, governors, presidents or Supreme Court judges? That's where to focus, I think, on better public access. When considering the tradeoff between privacy and public accountability, the key factors are power and authority. The potential to do damage to the public interest. 0) https://genius.com/Mdc-lets-kill-all-the-cops-lyrics https://genius.com/Mdc-lets-kill-all-the-cops-lyrics 1) MDC = "Magnus Dominus Corpus", "Millions of Damn Christians", "Millions of Dead Children", "Millions of Dead Cops", "Missile-Destroyed Civilization", "Multi-Death Corporations", etc [alphabetical order]

mirimir 8y ago

Well, I believe that all criminal arrests, trials,convictions and sentences are public records in the US. So in theory, given lists of police officers -- and lawyers, judges, doctors, teachers, or whatever -- you could create such databases. In practice, it'd be a pain. Because you'd probably need to request records from, and perhaps visit, individual courts. What's different here is that these are personnel files. Do we want all personnel files to be public records? For lawyers, doctors, teachers, or whatever? For lawyers and judges, that'll never happen. Would you want your personnel files, from everywhere you ever worked, to be public?

kelnos 8y ago
The difference, again, is that police are not only public servants, but also have been entrusted with a position of extreme authority (and in-the-moment life-and-death decision-making) over everyone else, which is fairly unique to their profession. We have hired them to uphold and enforce the law. If they break the law themselves, especially if they do so while abusing their trusted position as police officers, they cannot be trusted with that job. From there the question becomes: do we trust the hiring process for police to blacklist former cops who have abused their position? Based on the article, we should not, because it mentions several officers who still have jobs despite their misdeeds. Given that, the public not only has the right to see this data, but should absolutely demand continuous public access to this data, as the existing system is clearly not trustworthy, and requires public oversight. And yes, feel free to consider the same policy for lawyers, doctors, teachers, or whatever. Maybe we should require personnel records for some other professions to be public, maybe not. But it seems clear to me that for police officers, this data needs to be public.
- mirimir 8y ago
  By that argument, it's judges that we ought to be worrying about.
  - kelnos 8y ago
    Yes, but in a different way. A cop can shoot you on sight and in many cases get away with it, even if it wasn't justified. They have immediate life-or-death authority over people. Judges can make a bad or corrupt ruling, but, at least until you get to SCOTUS, you always have the ability to appeal. And there's no immediacy; an incorrect decision by a judge will never leave you dead a matter of seconds later.
cascom 8y ago
Isn’t this actually just a list of public servants who have publicly been convicted of crimes? This is not their “personnel file”
- mirimir 8y ago
  It's not all "public servants", just police. And sure, it's not entire personnel files, but it's a sensitive part of personnel files. So hey, I'm not normally so friendly toward police. Back in the day, one of my favorite songs was MDC's "Let's Kill All The Cops".[0,1] But I've mellowed. As I've gotten older, and less of a pain in the ass, I've found police to more than not be helpful. One state cop even helped me to change a flat tire. Maybe I reminded him of my dad. Mostly, though, I feel strongly that we all deserve privacy. And I don't think that public shaming is a good approach for dealing with such low-level "public servants" as police. Seriously, a bad cop will maybe fuck over maybe 100 people per year. But a bad judge could fuck over maybe 1000 per year. And what about bad state attorney generals, governors, presidents or Supreme Court judges? That's where to focus, I think, on better public access. When considering the tradeoff between privacy and public accountability, the key factors are power and authority. The potential to do damage to the public interest. 0) https://genius.com/Mdc-lets-kill-all-the-cops-lyrics https://genius.com/Mdc-lets-kill-all-the-cops-lyrics 1) MDC = "Magnus Dominus Corpus", "Millions of Damn Christians", "Millions of Dead Children", "Millions of Dead Cops", "Missile-Destroyed Civilization", "Multi-Death Corporations", etc [alphabetical order]