9 ms·

They need to double the pay for cops and remove their protections like qualified immunity and the right to fire if they feel threatened. This is the only way we

They need to double the pay for cops and remove their protections like qualified immunity and the right to fire if they feel threatened. This is the only way we get higher quality cops in the system, we incentivize better people to join with money. Maybe once we have a critical mass of great cops we will need less cops overall. All of these extra costs associated with overtime etc because of these riots and looting are a direct result of employing shitty cops and completely avoidable. The costs should be taken directly from the pension funds of cops as far as I’m concerned, cities should not bear the costs of overtime because of riots caused by cops killing people. If we had a critical mass of good cops, we likely would need less overtime overall because the relationship would be better between law enforcement and citizens, especially minorities.

mydongle 6y ago
I feel like the privilege to carry a gun and be allowed to use it should be an earned one as well. Police need to remember they serve us, and by taking the job, they have vowed to put their lives on the line for people. We have no need for cowards who fear for their life and just shoot every possible threat.
- ultrarunner 6y ago
  Who determines when the right is earned? Civilian review boards have been resisted consistently and internal reviews are heavily biased (as evidenced by such things as rehiring officers who resigned amidst arguably criminal infractions).
  - mydongle 6y ago
    Such details are to be determined over discussion from experts yes. I think that cops should undergo on the job training and experience how to handle people, learning to exhaust every non-violent option they have before escalating if needed. There should be at least one or two cops who do have the privilege to carry be around when they are on duty/training, in case of emergency. Basically I think it would be good if we could separate cops into two classes, armed and unarmed. And to earn the privilege to carry a gun, they need to prove themselves to prioritize deescalation first and foremost. They need to live up to the badge, actually working to serve and protect, not be a coward who needs to pull out a gun to handle an unarmed civilian.
    - ultrarunner 6y ago
      Training currently seems to actively preclude deescalation. This makes me skeptical that anyone currently within the organizations could adequately discern who else within their organization deserves the privilege to be armed. https://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2016/09/11/Weirton-fired-officer-who-did-not-fire-at-man-with-gun/stories/201609090080 https://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2016/09/11/Weirton...
      - mydongle 6y ago
        You're right to be skeptical, as I am. In any case, since we can't change people, the best we can do is change laws and create systems that disincentivize bad behavior. Starting by taking away Qualified Immunity seems to be a good move.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  That's the problem. Police don't serve us. "To protect and serve" is literally just a marketing slogan for the LAPD [0]. Police have no duty to protect the public, according to the Supreme Court [1]. Moreover, the origin of police forces in the US was not to protect the public, but to protect the social order and serve private property interests: > More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to "disorder." What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. [2] -- [0]: http://www.lapdonline.org/history_of_the_lapd/content_basic_view/1128 http://www.lapdonline.org/history_of_the_lapd/content_basic_... [1]: https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you-federal-court-affirms-yet-again https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-y... [2]: https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united-states-part-1 https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united...
  - mydongle 6y ago
    Is this something that we can't change? If police have no duty to protect the public, we should make it be. Why do we pay for police with our taxes if they aren't obligated to protect anyone?
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      Any aspect of the law can be changed by some means. Those means range (non-exhaustively) from simply passing a new law or repealing an old one, to a constitutional amendment, to violent revolution. For the average citizen, those means are roughly the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box.
- giardini 6y ago
  In Britain perhaps, but I'm in the USA where anyone is (generally) allowed to carry a gun, especially police. Arguing that police should earn the right to carry a gun (especially when that right is so firmly established) in the USA would be a fool's errand.
  - mydongle 6y ago
    I have the right to carry a gun as an individual. I do not have the right to carry a gun while working at my job. You aren't even allowed to have a knife or any other kind of weapon sometimes on the job. Carrying a gun as a police officer is a privilege because of all the power and authority that comes with it.
ta17711771 6y ago
Troopers in certain states already make over 80-100k USD, how much money should it take to hire a decent human being?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  They make above average salaries for their education level, their jobs are less dangerous and physically demanding than logging and refinery work, and they do not have to move outside of their communities. Law enforcement is already a sweet gig.
  - ultrarunner 6y ago
    It comes with additional benefits, as well. Both the official ones, and informal benefits like the ability for oneself and one’s family to get out of traffic tickets. Growing up in a small town I watched one friend (whose father was a cop) get out of tickets regularly in his muscle car. In Arizona, now, members of the ‘police family’ can purchase KOA-789 license plate frames [0] to be afforded the same privilege at scale. [0] https://azplea.com/plea-news/the-plea-store-is-open-for-business/ https://azplea.com/plea-news/the-plea-store-is-open-for-busi...
    - edoceo 6y ago
      Almost like the LEM plates in WA
    - JauntyHatAngle 6y ago
      Not the USA, but I had a friend who worked in government but for the police as a developer. To get into the building everyone was issued a police branded lanyard with their ID on it. He kept getting freebies and discounts on his after work shopping trips and he didn't realise why until he caught his reflection in his mirror and realised his police lanyard was showing, people thought he was a cop! He also on more than one occassion got pulled over for breath tests and/or speeding only to get flagged on when they saw his lanyard. He reckons he would have looked like a sergeant(? Can't remember exactly) due to his suit and the car he had and the cops wouldn't have wanted to piss off a superior.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Maybe raising pay might lower other corruption as well. Georgia (the country) had a police notorious for demanding bribes like other former-USSR nations, but one of the ways their police force was drastically cleaned up and made similar to developed European countries was by boosting basic pay.
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
Here's a police recruitment ad (admittedly from more than a decade ago) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_rKA6ROAVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_rKA6ROAVk (Newport Beach Police Department recruiting video, from 2008) And the problem is just the salary and QI? I don't think so.
- jacobush 6y ago
  Bo-ya! I'm getting pumped to shoot and choke! Stop resisting! "We are a family of officers"
greedo 6y ago
I would love to require LEOs to have a 4 year degree, and then attend an accredited police academy. Doctors spend far more time so that they can save lives, and it's only appropriate that police officers who are given the government sanctioned ability to take lives have higher education and training than the current piss poor standards.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
greedo 6y ago
My neighbor is a Sargent in the local PD. Town of 300K. He made $140K last year ($40K of it OT). I think the notion that police are underpaid is not accurate, at least here.
- newacct583 6y ago
  There's a lot of spread, but yeah: in general police work pays much better than jobs with similar qualifications. They're also almost universally union jobs with excellent job security and public benefits.
  - giardini 6y ago
    It isn't the union that makes the cost of police high, its that they're a select group: physically fit(when they're hired!) yet no criminal or antisocial record(surprisingly rare), and fairly intelligent. Add the expensive training that goes into policing and you get what you pay for.
    - greedo 6y ago
      None of what you said is factually accurate. We don't pay enlistees in the armed services high salaries, and they're usually physically fit. No criminal record? Depends on the department since each sets its own standards. Expensive training? Many departments have academy training that's 8 weeks. If a department uses a longer 6 month training cycle, the average tuition cost is around $7K.
- remote_phone 6y ago
  My point is we should pay cops very high salaries, $300k+ to attract those that might go into other professions.
  - corrys 6y ago
    You seem to equate high salary with compassion. What is this notion based on?
corrys 6y ago
What are "higher quality cops"? People with more developed morals and ethics? Money does not necessarily attract more compassionate or kind people. There are plenty of other high paying industries where that's not the case (e.g. banks, real estate).
- marcusverus 6y ago
  I think the idea is that low pay actively excludes many high-achiever types who are capable of making much more money in the private sector--without gambling their lives. You cannot recruit the best and brightest unless you can pay a competitive salary. Paying more doesn't guarantee 'higher quality' but it sure helps.
  - corrys 6y ago
    That is a very unusual speculation. Do lower paid people have less compassion? Do high school teachers have worse understanding and appreciation of ethics and morality than bankers?
firethief 6y ago
Meanwhile in reality, some districts disqualify any applicant that can pass an IQ test: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
- dang 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23370056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23370056
cwhiz 6y ago
Cops are already paid extremely well.
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  By what metric? https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Police-Officer-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Po...
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    Those numbers are significantly above median and don't include benefits or overtime.
    - DangitBobby 6y ago
      Actually, 0% of them are even at median [1][2]. Here's the first few for comparison: State,PDSalary,Median,Difference Alabama,"42,383.00","49,396.00","-7,013.00" Alaska,"48,418.00","68,400.00","-19,982.00" Arizona,"44,987.00","62,311.00","-17,324.00" Arkansas,"42,668.00","49,778.00","-7,110.00" California,"47,600.00","70,001.00","-22,401.00" Colorado,"45,488.00","72,620.00","-27,132.00" Connecticut,"48,738.00","73,011.00","-24,273.00" Delaware,"45,549.00","65,002.00","-19,453.00" Florida,"40,904.00","54,401.00","-13,497.00" Georgia,"43,399.00","56,000.00","-12,601.00" You can find the rest here: https://pastebin.com/wYcLzt6g https://pastebin.com/wYcLzt6g [1] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Police-Officer-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Po... [2] https://dqydj.com/average-income-by-state-median-top-percentiles/ https://dqydj.com/average-income-by-state-median-top-percent...
  - corrys 6y ago
    Interesting... It does look like cops's salaries are below average in most states: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Average-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Av...
    - 6y ago
corrys 6y ago
The duality of good/bad cops is absolutely a distraction. It would be great to have a society with only good people. No bad people. Is that a solution? Is that even an option? There will always be cops who break the law. Let's start with that. The next question is: what, as a society, do we do with that. Allow cops to commit crimes without repercussions? Well, then we get riots (with good reason). Police unions, attorneys, judges who protect criminal cops - these are the institutions and the people who make the unhealthy situation (aka "bad cops") much worse.
ashtonkem 6y ago
The Nikansen center had a nifty idea: constitutional small claims court. If an officer violates your rights, there is a process to make them pay. Not the state, not their department, the officer who wronged you.
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  Just, Devil's Advocate, but would that encourage rogue police to not leave the victim alive? My understanding was that part of the reason many people get angry when they discover the right to privacy ends when you die, is because it is difficult, (maybe even non-sensical?), to file constitutional claims on behalf of someone who is deceased. (Are there any attorneys on HN familiar with, for instance, the rights to privacy of the deceased? I'm pretty sure they don't have any.) I think it's best just to file a civil suit rather than trying to set up a system that the Supremes could very well deem unconstitutional. What might work is for municipalities to write into police labor agreements that XX% share of any civil judgement precipitated by your actions will be borne by you alone. You're still jointly and separately liable, but the municipality would be able to go after the officer in a separate action. Something along those lines would accomplish the same thing without bringing constitutional questions into it.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Such a constitutional claims court would certainly be amenable to wrongful death lawsuits by the family, since no more QI is an obvious prerequisite, although one would obviously prefer to see a criminal prosecution in such cases. American cops already seem to murder with impunity, it’s hard to see how more accountability could possibly make them worse.
asjw 6y ago
Policemen salaries are already very, very good. Meanwhile fast food employees on minimum wage get fired for much, much, much, much less. I think the problem lays elsewhere.
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  Do you consider "below median in all 50 states" to be "very, very good"? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374398
  - chinesempire 6y ago
    I do, also the median is highly skewed in US Those salaries are also in line with the average salary. Which is very very good in US, compared to the rest of the World. For comparison, in Italy a policeman earns on average 60% of the lowest salary you posted. it is supposed to be a working class job, with good men doing it, not a "professional highly paid killer's job". p.s.: 50% of Americans earn less, 30% earn much less, than that. So yeah, it's good, especially for being one of the worst police force in the western World. Victims of police shootings in US 2019: 1.004 Victims of police shootings in Europe 2019: 60 (including Switzerland, that's never been EU - zero kills - and UK which is not in EU anymore - 3 kills -). But let's round it to one hundred, still an order of magnitude less, in the face of a comparable population size. If I was the US government I would expect a better job from them, before paying them more. p.p.s. To be even more precise: Total Line of Duty Deaths 2019: 147 Including 24 9/11 related cancer, 22 automobile crashes and 19 heart attacks. Only 48 died because of a gunfire, so for every cop who died in a gunfire, they killed 21 people. It looks scary to me, I don't know what do you think about it. I consider the police in my country (Italy) to be quite brutal, but we had only 5 officers killed in 2019 and 3 people shot dead by the police.
bcrosby95 6y ago
San Jose: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-jose&q=police&y=2019 https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-jos... Doubling the total compensation there would mean about 50% of those people would be making 500k+/year. I don't think they're as underpaid as you think they are. Most of those people on that list already make more than me as a non-FAANG Software Engineer in the region.
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  Average salary of police in Minneapolis appears to be about $60k. I don't know why you're just picking the highest salaries to talk about. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/police-officer-salary/minneapolis-mn https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/police-offi...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
malnourish 6y ago
Officers who commit crimes should be tried and held for significantly higher penalties -- multiples in my opinion. I am opposed to punitive justice vis-a-vis restorative and rehabilitative but this is the system we are in. A police officer who steals or murders is offending the community on multiple fronts.

mydongle 6y ago

I feel like the privilege to carry a gun and be allowed to use it should be an earned one as well. Police need to remember they serve us, and by taking the job, they have vowed to put their lives on the line for people. We have no need for cowards who fear for their life and just shoot every possible threat.

ultrarunner 6y ago
Who determines when the right is earned? Civilian review boards have been resisted consistently and internal reviews are heavily biased (as evidenced by such things as rehiring officers who resigned amidst arguably criminal infractions).
- mydongle 6y ago
  Such details are to be determined over discussion from experts yes. I think that cops should undergo on the job training and experience how to handle people, learning to exhaust every non-violent option they have before escalating if needed. There should be at least one or two cops who do have the privilege to carry be around when they are on duty/training, in case of emergency. Basically I think it would be good if we could separate cops into two classes, armed and unarmed. And to earn the privilege to carry a gun, they need to prove themselves to prioritize deescalation first and foremost. They need to live up to the badge, actually working to serve and protect, not be a coward who needs to pull out a gun to handle an unarmed civilian.
  - ultrarunner 6y ago
    Training currently seems to actively preclude deescalation. This makes me skeptical that anyone currently within the organizations could adequately discern who else within their organization deserves the privilege to be armed. https://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2016/09/11/Weirton-fired-officer-who-did-not-fire-at-man-with-gun/stories/201609090080 https://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2016/09/11/Weirton...
    - mydongle 6y ago
      You're right to be skeptical, as I am. In any case, since we can't change people, the best we can do is change laws and create systems that disincentivize bad behavior. Starting by taking away Qualified Immunity seems to be a good move.
pmiller2 6y ago
That's the problem. Police don't serve us. "To protect and serve" is literally just a marketing slogan for the LAPD [0]. Police have no duty to protect the public, according to the Supreme Court [1]. Moreover, the origin of police forces in the US was not to protect the public, but to protect the social order and serve private property interests: > More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to "disorder." What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. [2] -- [0]: http://www.lapdonline.org/history_of_the_lapd/content_basic_view/1128 http://www.lapdonline.org/history_of_the_lapd/content_basic_... [1]: https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you-federal-court-affirms-yet-again https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-y... [2]: https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united-states-part-1 https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united...
- mydongle 6y ago
  Is this something that we can't change? If police have no duty to protect the public, we should make it be. Why do we pay for police with our taxes if they aren't obligated to protect anyone?
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    Any aspect of the law can be changed by some means. Those means range (non-exhaustively) from simply passing a new law or repealing an old one, to a constitutional amendment, to violent revolution. For the average citizen, those means are roughly the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box.
giardini 6y ago
In Britain perhaps, but I'm in the USA where anyone is (generally) allowed to carry a gun, especially police. Arguing that police should earn the right to carry a gun (especially when that right is so firmly established) in the USA would be a fool's errand.
- mydongle 6y ago
  I have the right to carry a gun as an individual. I do not have the right to carry a gun while working at my job. You aren't even allowed to have a knife or any other kind of weapon sometimes on the job. Carrying a gun as a police officer is a privilege because of all the power and authority that comes with it.

ta17711771 6y ago

Troopers in certain states already make over 80-100k USD, how much money should it take to hire a decent human being?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CameronNemo 6y ago
They make above average salaries for their education level, their jobs are less dangerous and physically demanding than logging and refinery work, and they do not have to move outside of their communities. Law enforcement is already a sweet gig.
- ultrarunner 6y ago
  It comes with additional benefits, as well. Both the official ones, and informal benefits like the ability for oneself and one’s family to get out of traffic tickets. Growing up in a small town I watched one friend (whose father was a cop) get out of tickets regularly in his muscle car. In Arizona, now, members of the ‘police family’ can purchase KOA-789 license plate frames [0] to be afforded the same privilege at scale. [0] https://azplea.com/plea-news/the-plea-store-is-open-for-business/ https://azplea.com/plea-news/the-plea-store-is-open-for-busi...
  - edoceo 6y ago
    Almost like the LEM plates in WA
  - JauntyHatAngle 6y ago
    Not the USA, but I had a friend who worked in government but for the police as a developer. To get into the building everyone was issued a police branded lanyard with their ID on it. He kept getting freebies and discounts on his after work shopping trips and he didn't realise why until he caught his reflection in his mirror and realised his police lanyard was showing, people thought he was a cop! He also on more than one occassion got pulled over for breath tests and/or speeding only to get flagged on when they saw his lanyard. He reckons he would have looked like a sergeant(? Can't remember exactly) due to his suit and the car he had and the cops wouldn't have wanted to piss off a superior.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

Maybe raising pay might lower other corruption as well. Georgia (the country) had a police notorious for demanding bribes like other former-USSR nations, but one of the ways their police force was drastically cleaned up and made similar to developed European countries was by boosting basic pay.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

Here's a police recruitment ad (admittedly from more than a decade ago) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_rKA6ROAVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_rKA6ROAVk (Newport Beach Police Department recruiting video, from 2008) And the problem is just the salary and QI? I don't think so.

jacobush 6y ago
Bo-ya! I'm getting pumped to shoot and choke! Stop resisting! "We are a family of officers"

greedo 6y ago

I would love to require LEOs to have a 4 year degree, and then attend an accredited police academy. Doctors spend far more time so that they can save lives, and it's only appropriate that police officers who are given the government sanctioned ability to take lives have higher education and training than the current piss poor standards.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

greedo 6y ago

My neighbor is a Sargent in the local PD. Town of 300K. He made $140K last year ($40K of it OT). I think the notion that police are underpaid is not accurate, at least here.

newacct583 6y ago
There's a lot of spread, but yeah: in general police work pays much better than jobs with similar qualifications. They're also almost universally union jobs with excellent job security and public benefits.
- giardini 6y ago
  It isn't the union that makes the cost of police high, its that they're a select group: physically fit(when they're hired!) yet no criminal or antisocial record(surprisingly rare), and fairly intelligent. Add the expensive training that goes into policing and you get what you pay for.
  - greedo 6y ago
    None of what you said is factually accurate. We don't pay enlistees in the armed services high salaries, and they're usually physically fit. No criminal record? Depends on the department since each sets its own standards. Expensive training? Many departments have academy training that's 8 weeks. If a department uses a longer 6 month training cycle, the average tuition cost is around $7K.
remote_phone 6y ago
My point is we should pay cops very high salaries, $300k+ to attract those that might go into other professions.
- corrys 6y ago
  You seem to equate high salary with compassion. What is this notion based on?

corrys 6y ago

What are "higher quality cops"? People with more developed morals and ethics? Money does not necessarily attract more compassionate or kind people. There are plenty of other high paying industries where that's not the case (e.g. banks, real estate).

marcusverus 6y ago
I think the idea is that low pay actively excludes many high-achiever types who are capable of making much more money in the private sector--without gambling their lives. You cannot recruit the best and brightest unless you can pay a competitive salary. Paying more doesn't guarantee 'higher quality' but it sure helps.
- corrys 6y ago
  That is a very unusual speculation. Do lower paid people have less compassion? Do high school teachers have worse understanding and appreciation of ethics and morality than bankers?

firethief 6y ago

Meanwhile in reality, some districts disqualify any applicant that can pass an IQ test: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...

dang 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23370056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23370056

cwhiz 6y ago

Cops are already paid extremely well.

DangitBobby 6y ago
By what metric? https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Police-Officer-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Po...
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Those numbers are significantly above median and don't include benefits or overtime.
  - DangitBobby 6y ago
    Actually, 0% of them are even at median [1][2]. Here's the first few for comparison: State,PDSalary,Median,Difference Alabama,"42,383.00","49,396.00","-7,013.00" Alaska,"48,418.00","68,400.00","-19,982.00" Arizona,"44,987.00","62,311.00","-17,324.00" Arkansas,"42,668.00","49,778.00","-7,110.00" California,"47,600.00","70,001.00","-22,401.00" Colorado,"45,488.00","72,620.00","-27,132.00" Connecticut,"48,738.00","73,011.00","-24,273.00" Delaware,"45,549.00","65,002.00","-19,453.00" Florida,"40,904.00","54,401.00","-13,497.00" Georgia,"43,399.00","56,000.00","-12,601.00" You can find the rest here: https://pastebin.com/wYcLzt6g https://pastebin.com/wYcLzt6g [1] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Police-Officer-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Po... [2] https://dqydj.com/average-income-by-state-median-top-percentiles/ https://dqydj.com/average-income-by-state-median-top-percent...
- corrys 6y ago
  Interesting... It does look like cops's salaries are below average in most states: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Average-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Av...
  - 6y ago

corrys 6y ago

The duality of good/bad cops is absolutely a distraction. It would be great to have a society with only good people. No bad people. Is that a solution? Is that even an option? There will always be cops who break the law. Let's start with that. The next question is: what, as a society, do we do with that. Allow cops to commit crimes without repercussions? Well, then we get riots (with good reason). Police unions, attorneys, judges who protect criminal cops - these are the institutions and the people who make the unhealthy situation (aka "bad cops") much worse.

ashtonkem 6y ago

The Nikansen center had a nifty idea: constitutional small claims court. If an officer violates your rights, there is a process to make them pay. Not the state, not their department, the officer who wronged you.

bilbo0s 6y ago
Just, Devil's Advocate, but would that encourage rogue police to not leave the victim alive? My understanding was that part of the reason many people get angry when they discover the right to privacy ends when you die, is because it is difficult, (maybe even non-sensical?), to file constitutional claims on behalf of someone who is deceased. (Are there any attorneys on HN familiar with, for instance, the rights to privacy of the deceased? I'm pretty sure they don't have any.) I think it's best just to file a civil suit rather than trying to set up a system that the Supremes could very well deem unconstitutional. What might work is for municipalities to write into police labor agreements that XX% share of any civil judgement precipitated by your actions will be borne by you alone. You're still jointly and separately liable, but the municipality would be able to go after the officer in a separate action. Something along those lines would accomplish the same thing without bringing constitutional questions into it.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Such a constitutional claims court would certainly be amenable to wrongful death lawsuits by the family, since no more QI is an obvious prerequisite, although one would obviously prefer to see a criminal prosecution in such cases. American cops already seem to murder with impunity, it’s hard to see how more accountability could possibly make them worse.

asjw 6y ago

Policemen salaries are already very, very good. Meanwhile fast food employees on minimum wage get fired for much, much, much, much less. I think the problem lays elsewhere.

DangitBobby 6y ago
Do you consider "below median in all 50 states" to be "very, very good"? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374398
- chinesempire 6y ago
  I do, also the median is highly skewed in US Those salaries are also in line with the average salary. Which is very very good in US, compared to the rest of the World. For comparison, in Italy a policeman earns on average 60% of the lowest salary you posted. it is supposed to be a working class job, with good men doing it, not a "professional highly paid killer's job". p.s.: 50% of Americans earn less, 30% earn much less, than that. So yeah, it's good, especially for being one of the worst police force in the western World. Victims of police shootings in US 2019: 1.004 Victims of police shootings in Europe 2019: 60 (including Switzerland, that's never been EU - zero kills - and UK which is not in EU anymore - 3 kills -). But let's round it to one hundred, still an order of magnitude less, in the face of a comparable population size. If I was the US government I would expect a better job from them, before paying them more. p.p.s. To be even more precise: Total Line of Duty Deaths 2019: 147 Including 24 9/11 related cancer, 22 automobile crashes and 19 heart attacks. Only 48 died because of a gunfire, so for every cop who died in a gunfire, they killed 21 people. It looks scary to me, I don't know what do you think about it. I consider the police in my country (Italy) to be quite brutal, but we had only 5 officers killed in 2019 and 3 people shot dead by the police.

bcrosby95 6y ago

San Jose: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-jose&q=police&y=2019 https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-jos... Doubling the total compensation there would mean about 50% of those people would be making 500k+/year. I don't think they're as underpaid as you think they are. Most of those people on that list already make more than me as a non-FAANG Software Engineer in the region.

DangitBobby 6y ago
Average salary of police in Minneapolis appears to be about $60k. I don't know why you're just picking the highest salaries to talk about. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/police-officer-salary/minneapolis-mn https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/police-offi...
- deleted 6y ago
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malnourish 6y ago

Officers who commit crimes should be tried and held for significantly higher penalties -- multiples in my opinion. I am opposed to punitive justice vis-a-vis restorative and rehabilitative but this is the system we are in. A police officer who steals or murders is offending the community on multiple fronts.