8 ms·

The Camden thing is going around a lot but to me it seems like they did a reorg and actually ended up hiring more police. https://www.tapinto.net/towns/camden/

The Camden thing is going around a lot but to me it seems like they did a reorg and actually ended up hiring more police. https://www.tapinto.net/towns/camden/sections/law-and-justice/articles/camden-sees-crime-drop-over-past-decade https://www.tapinto.net/towns/camden/sections/law-and-justic...

morgante 6y ago
Realistically, that's what will come from "abolishing" the police. That's not necessarily a bad thing! A big problem with existing departments is decades of corruption, poor leadership, and entrenched policies. Tearing the department down and rebuilding it from scratch—even if you end up with a similar size as before—gives you the opportunity to remove the excesses/abuse. You can also do things like hiring more specialized positions and firing all the bad officers (because if the department is gone, the union can't protect them).
- ethbro 6y ago
  > poor leadership, and entrenched policies This is underappreciated. It's hard to seriously change organizations in less than a decade when employees have long tenures. Opinions and behaviors are only truly malleable at the beginning of careers, and later change is fighting against the inertia of old timers' "Let me tell you how it's done." Which isn't only negative. Esprit de corps is what holds together people doing tough jobs for long careers. But if you want to say "No more of that. Now we're doing this" then a rebuild isn't a bad idea.
- akudha 6y ago
  How would they go about doing this in practice? Are they going to fire the entire police force, and recruit new people from scratch? If that is the case, can the current cops apply? How would they make sure bad cops from the current force don't get recruited again? A simple first step would be to maintain a national level open registry of fired cops and bad behavior reports. At minimum, if a cop gets fired, then he can't go to the next county and get a job
  - piva00 6y ago
    > A simple first step would be to maintain a national level open registry of fired cops and bad behavior reports. At minimum, if a cop gets fired, then he can't go to the next county and get a job This is the kind of baby steps solution that is completely not the answer even if it's part of a solution for one of the problems. This is systemic and with strong opposing forces (current police officers and their unions, as one example), you can't believe that a database of bad cops would be enough if they aren't even being fired for the abuses being committed right now, if there is already a system of protecting bad police officers why do you believe that they simply wouldn't fire or prosecute even less abuses to avoid a harsher punishment? I've not researched enough to delineate a step-by-step process of dissolution of the police but there are enough parallels in history and similar experiences to be studied. The little I've read about seem to include that previous police officers can re-apply but would need to go through the new revamped hiring process. Such hiring process would be defined by citizens' organisations, experts, human rights organisations and so on. There is enough scientific knowledge in that, there are enough police services in the world that use them, it's a matter of shaking the status quo and removing the old roots that US policing stems from. This can't be achieved by steps if the roots of it are deeply rotten, you gotta understand that.
  - emilecantin 6y ago
    I think applying to cops something along the lines of what we have for professional engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc. could be a solution. All cops nationally would be required to have a license from this organization in order to do some "reserved acts", like arresting someone, using force, firing a taser, etc. Any complaint about cops would be evaluated by this organization, and could result in the suspension / revocation of their license. There would be a strong emphasis on deontology, and the organization's explicit mission would be to protect the public. This would probably have a similar effect overall to what you're describing, but it'd be more of a whitelist than a blacklist.
- hipsterstal1n 6y ago
  I tweeted about this a week ago being from the area. It helped the city get rid of officers that the police union were protecting not fire-able. Further, it helped the city (which had declared bankruptcy) get rid of police pensions negotiated decades ago that were draining city coffers.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    How does firing people get rid of pensions? That sounds pretty wrong - punishing every cop by taking away their pension because of the act of one? Why would anyone join the police at all if that's possible?
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Lots of people work at jobs that don't provide ludicrous pensions.
dcposch 6y ago
They did a more than just a reorg. Disbanding and replacing a PD eliminates the old police union contracts. Those lopsided contracts are at the root of the impunity and violence we've seen over the past week. Many cities have made extraordinary contractual concessions, including: - Secrecy clauses. Officer Bob might have 31 excessive force complaints against him, but the city is contractually forbidden from making that information public, or in some cases even retaining the records after X months. - Arbitration for firing. Those clauses can be shockingly strong. The Philadelphia PD fired an officer for having Nazi tattoos. They were forced to reinstate him after arbitration. https://twitter.com/dburbach/status/1269638494466514955 https://twitter.com/dburbach/status/1269638494466514955 Those clauses and more often add up to police that are effectively unfireable and therefore not under meaningful civilian control. Witness the head of a NYC police union taunting the mayor and openly flaunting the Right to Know Act / announcing that officers will be covering up their badge numbers. Camden got a start fresh with no pre-existing police contract. For many cities, that's potentially worth a lot.
- JshWright 6y ago
  I don't understand why there isn't a professional license required for LEOs. I'm a paramedic. If I harmed a patient once (let along 31 times), my card would get revoked and that would be that. A cop, meanwhile, is likely to face no consequences at all, and in the absolute "worst" case scenario, they would just get a job in the next town over.
  - fludlight 6y ago
    Paramedics and police are at opposite ends of the union representation spectrum. Paramedics have no union and are thus treated like livestock. The police have the strongest unions in America and are thus largely untouchable.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    They literally graduate from a Police Academy. Didn't you see the movie?
tomnipotent 6y ago
I don't think anyone is against more police, but rather the tactics used and how that money is spent. Twenty years ago, police deploying tasers was an outlier. In 2020, it's become normalized and happens thousands of times a year. There's no reason we can't have better trained, restrained police at the same or greater budget. It's the tactics that are in question, and qualified immunity which allows bad actors to do as they please with little-to-no impact to themselves (thanks to local governments picking up the tab). Let's not pretend we didn't just see 57 police officers resign from a volunteer position because two of their own were caught on camera pushing a 75-year old man to the ground and held accountable because "just following orders".
- malnourish 6y ago
  One thing that must happen is we must impose enhancements to penalties for crimes committed by law enforcement/police. Assault, battery, theft, etc., by a police officer is inherently worse than that by an ordinary citizen. They have abused the immense power, privilege, and trust of their position and there should commensurate consequences.
  - ethbro 6y ago
    NPR carried a segment talking about making free market liability insurance mandatory for police, with departments only paying the average rate. There needs to be a neutral third party to assess risk, because all of the current stakeholders are biased (executive government, judicial government, community organizers, police unions).
  - artificial 6y ago
    What about paying it out of the pension fund that way they police their own? Dump public sector unions (who organize against the people) as well.
- d2v 6y ago
  Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm against more police. I think communities would be better served by an increase in social workers in most cases. Drug usage and homelessness won't be solved by imprisoning people and forever branding them as criminals. You need bridge housing, treatment programs, and services for these people. And an educational system that is well funded, regardless of the community it serves. I think criminalizing social issues has proven to be pretty ineffective, generally harmful, and really expensive. I'd recommend checking out "The End of Policing" for a thoughtful, well-reasoned argument for decreasing the number of police. The ebook is free: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing
gameswithgo 6y ago
the goal was not to have less police
mcv 6y ago
Hiring more police is not a problem, as long as you fire all the old dysfunctional police, and get rid of all the mechanisms that kept dysfunctional police in place for all those years. If you fire tons of bad cops and you want good cops, you're going to have to hire them.

morgante 6y ago

Realistically, that's what will come from "abolishing" the police. That's not necessarily a bad thing! A big problem with existing departments is decades of corruption, poor leadership, and entrenched policies. Tearing the department down and rebuilding it from scratch—even if you end up with a similar size as before—gives you the opportunity to remove the excesses/abuse. You can also do things like hiring more specialized positions and firing all the bad officers (because if the department is gone, the union can't protect them).

ethbro 6y ago
> poor leadership, and entrenched policies This is underappreciated. It's hard to seriously change organizations in less than a decade when employees have long tenures. Opinions and behaviors are only truly malleable at the beginning of careers, and later change is fighting against the inertia of old timers' "Let me tell you how it's done." Which isn't only negative. Esprit de corps is what holds together people doing tough jobs for long careers. But if you want to say "No more of that. Now we're doing this" then a rebuild isn't a bad idea.
akudha 6y ago
How would they go about doing this in practice? Are they going to fire the entire police force, and recruit new people from scratch? If that is the case, can the current cops apply? How would they make sure bad cops from the current force don't get recruited again? A simple first step would be to maintain a national level open registry of fired cops and bad behavior reports. At minimum, if a cop gets fired, then he can't go to the next county and get a job
- piva00 6y ago
  > A simple first step would be to maintain a national level open registry of fired cops and bad behavior reports. At minimum, if a cop gets fired, then he can't go to the next county and get a job This is the kind of baby steps solution that is completely not the answer even if it's part of a solution for one of the problems. This is systemic and with strong opposing forces (current police officers and their unions, as one example), you can't believe that a database of bad cops would be enough if they aren't even being fired for the abuses being committed right now, if there is already a system of protecting bad police officers why do you believe that they simply wouldn't fire or prosecute even less abuses to avoid a harsher punishment? I've not researched enough to delineate a step-by-step process of dissolution of the police but there are enough parallels in history and similar experiences to be studied. The little I've read about seem to include that previous police officers can re-apply but would need to go through the new revamped hiring process. Such hiring process would be defined by citizens' organisations, experts, human rights organisations and so on. There is enough scientific knowledge in that, there are enough police services in the world that use them, it's a matter of shaking the status quo and removing the old roots that US policing stems from. This can't be achieved by steps if the roots of it are deeply rotten, you gotta understand that.
- emilecantin 6y ago
  I think applying to cops something along the lines of what we have for professional engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc. could be a solution. All cops nationally would be required to have a license from this organization in order to do some "reserved acts", like arresting someone, using force, firing a taser, etc. Any complaint about cops would be evaluated by this organization, and could result in the suspension / revocation of their license. There would be a strong emphasis on deontology, and the organization's explicit mission would be to protect the public. This would probably have a similar effect overall to what you're describing, but it'd be more of a whitelist than a blacklist.
hipsterstal1n 6y ago
I tweeted about this a week ago being from the area. It helped the city get rid of officers that the police union were protecting not fire-able. Further, it helped the city (which had declared bankruptcy) get rid of police pensions negotiated decades ago that were draining city coffers.
- thu2111 6y ago
  How does firing people get rid of pensions? That sounds pretty wrong - punishing every cop by taking away their pension because of the act of one? Why would anyone join the police at all if that's possible?
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Lots of people work at jobs that don't provide ludicrous pensions.

dcposch 6y ago

They did a more than just a reorg. Disbanding and replacing a PD eliminates the old police union contracts. Those lopsided contracts are at the root of the impunity and violence we've seen over the past week. Many cities have made extraordinary contractual concessions, including: - Secrecy clauses. Officer Bob might have 31 excessive force complaints against him, but the city is contractually forbidden from making that information public, or in some cases even retaining the records after X months. - Arbitration for firing. Those clauses can be shockingly strong. The Philadelphia PD fired an officer for having Nazi tattoos. They were forced to reinstate him after arbitration. https://twitter.com/dburbach/status/1269638494466514955 https://twitter.com/dburbach/status/1269638494466514955 Those clauses and more often add up to police that are effectively unfireable and therefore not under meaningful civilian control. Witness the head of a NYC police union taunting the mayor and openly flaunting the Right to Know Act / announcing that officers will be covering up their badge numbers. Camden got a start fresh with no pre-existing police contract. For many cities, that's potentially worth a lot.

JshWright 6y ago
I don't understand why there isn't a professional license required for LEOs. I'm a paramedic. If I harmed a patient once (let along 31 times), my card would get revoked and that would be that. A cop, meanwhile, is likely to face no consequences at all, and in the absolute "worst" case scenario, they would just get a job in the next town over.
- fludlight 6y ago
  Paramedics and police are at opposite ends of the union representation spectrum. Paramedics have no union and are thus treated like livestock. The police have the strongest unions in America and are thus largely untouchable.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  They literally graduate from a Police Academy. Didn't you see the movie?

tomnipotent 6y ago

I don't think anyone is against more police, but rather the tactics used and how that money is spent. Twenty years ago, police deploying tasers was an outlier. In 2020, it's become normalized and happens thousands of times a year. There's no reason we can't have better trained, restrained police at the same or greater budget. It's the tactics that are in question, and qualified immunity which allows bad actors to do as they please with little-to-no impact to themselves (thanks to local governments picking up the tab). Let's not pretend we didn't just see 57 police officers resign from a volunteer position because two of their own were caught on camera pushing a 75-year old man to the ground and held accountable because "just following orders".

malnourish 6y ago
One thing that must happen is we must impose enhancements to penalties for crimes committed by law enforcement/police. Assault, battery, theft, etc., by a police officer is inherently worse than that by an ordinary citizen. They have abused the immense power, privilege, and trust of their position and there should commensurate consequences.
- ethbro 6y ago
  NPR carried a segment talking about making free market liability insurance mandatory for police, with departments only paying the average rate. There needs to be a neutral third party to assess risk, because all of the current stakeholders are biased (executive government, judicial government, community organizers, police unions).
- artificial 6y ago
  What about paying it out of the pension fund that way they police their own? Dump public sector unions (who organize against the people) as well.
d2v 6y ago
Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm against more police. I think communities would be better served by an increase in social workers in most cases. Drug usage and homelessness won't be solved by imprisoning people and forever branding them as criminals. You need bridge housing, treatment programs, and services for these people. And an educational system that is well funded, regardless of the community it serves. I think criminalizing social issues has proven to be pretty ineffective, generally harmful, and really expensive. I'd recommend checking out "The End of Policing" for a thoughtful, well-reasoned argument for decreasing the number of police. The ebook is free: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing

gameswithgo 6y ago

the goal was not to have less police

mcv 6y ago

Hiring more police is not a problem, as long as you fire all the old dysfunctional police, and get rid of all the mechanisms that kept dysfunctional police in place for all those years. If you fire tons of bad cops and you want good cops, you're going to have to hire them.