4 ms·

This was covered in popular culture most famously by The Wire, written by retired police beat reporter David Simon, it's called "juking the stats", each police

This was covered in popular culture most famously by The Wire, written by retired police beat reporter David Simon, it's called "juking the stats", each police district is judged by different crime stats, and promotions are based on those stats, so naturally everything evolves to optimized for better stats. Not only that, on the judicial side in America over the past 50 years, funding has not kept up with the increase in population so there is an extreme pressure on prosecutors to not go to trial, add to this the political nature of the office and American prosecutors are under pressure to keep up their 95% conviction rate, this is done by going hard after those least able to afford an adequate defense and "laddering", adding on every single conceivable charge so that defendants will plead guilty to a smaller number of charges in exchange for some charges being dropped and not inconvenience the state with an expensive trial by jury. This is covered pretty well by season 3 of the Serial podcast.

wahern 7y ago
A great, empirically based, comprehensive look at the devolution of criminal justice in the U.S. can be found in "The Collapse of American Criminal Justice" by the late criminal law scholar William Stuntz. TL;DR: The trend started nearly 200 years ago, though for various reasons it accelerated in the mid 20th century. Some reviews: "The book is eminently readable and merits careful attention because it accurately describes the twin problems that pervade American criminal justice today―its overall severity and its disparate treatment of African-Americans. The book contains a wealth of overlooked or forgotten historical data, perceptive commentary on the changes in our administration of criminal justice over the years, and suggestions for improvement… Virtually everything that Professor Stuntz has written is thought-provoking and constructive... Well worth reading." -- Justice John Paul Stevens, New York Review of Books "This volume is exceptionally rich, insightful, provocative, and well-written. It is bound to have great influence on academic thinking, and perhaps in time on the criminal justice system itself... Stuntz's book will repay much closer scrutiny than I can give it in a review… [An] important book." -- Richard A. Posner, New Republic
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Coincidentally, ~200 years ago is about when the modern concept of a police force originated. Make of that what you will.
- Aloha 7y ago
  This looks like an interesting note, I'll seek it out and read it.
aasasd 7y ago
> each police district is judged by different crime stats, and promotions are based on those stats, so naturally everything evolves to optimized for better stats I thought Russia was pretty far on the scale of messed up for having that system, but apparently it's up there with the freedomland. Judges here like the wording of ‘there's no reason to doubt the testimony of the officer’, but how can you not doubt it when the police has an interest in the outcome—by design, at that.

wahern 7y ago

A great, empirically based, comprehensive look at the devolution of criminal justice in the U.S. can be found in "The Collapse of American Criminal Justice" by the late criminal law scholar William Stuntz. TL;DR: The trend started nearly 200 years ago, though for various reasons it accelerated in the mid 20th century. Some reviews: "The book is eminently readable and merits careful attention because it accurately describes the twin problems that pervade American criminal justice today―its overall severity and its disparate treatment of African-Americans. The book contains a wealth of overlooked or forgotten historical data, perceptive commentary on the changes in our administration of criminal justice over the years, and suggestions for improvement… Virtually everything that Professor Stuntz has written is thought-provoking and constructive... Well worth reading." -- Justice John Paul Stevens, New York Review of Books "This volume is exceptionally rich, insightful, provocative, and well-written. It is bound to have great influence on academic thinking, and perhaps in time on the criminal justice system itself... Stuntz's book will repay much closer scrutiny than I can give it in a review… [An] important book." -- Richard A. Posner, New Republic

pmiller2 7y ago
Coincidentally, ~200 years ago is about when the modern concept of a police force originated. Make of that what you will.
Aloha 7y ago
This looks like an interesting note, I'll seek it out and read it.

aasasd 7y ago

> each police district is judged by different crime stats, and promotions are based on those stats, so naturally everything evolves to optimized for better stats I thought Russia was pretty far on the scale of messed up for having that system, but apparently it's up there with the freedomland. Judges here like the wording of ‘there's no reason to doubt the testimony of the officer’, but how can you not doubt it when the police has an interest in the outcome—by design, at that.