8 ms·

Creating a new federal body to specifically deal with use-of-force by law enforcement could correct many issues by conducting investigates in a more impartial m

by kanox 6y ago

Creating a new federal body to specifically deal with use-of-force by law enforcement could correct many issues by conducting investigates in a more impartial manner. It could also issue nation-wide guidelines such as making it impossible to turn off body cameras.

GVIrish 6y ago
I see this much like the Civil Rights Act. There was no way segregation was going to be ended without significant legislation and enforcement from the federal government. Bottom line is that the sort of large scale reform needed to end systemic problems of police misconduct is going to be extremely difficult to achieve via local reforms. Congress needs to end qualified immunity, end civil asset forfeiture, increase federal oversight, and potentially write new laws governing the use of body cams. One idea I've seen from police reformers is a 'Missing Video Presumption' law. The basic idea is that if the body cam (or vehicle cam) footage goes missing and there is a conflicting account of events, the court will presume the video would've corroborated the civilian's version of events. This would give an extremely strong incentive to not turn off cameras or sabotage video as police have done in a number of cases.
- kanox 6y ago
  A lot of these policing issues seems to come from progressive localities so I'm not sure it's even due to government unwillingness to solve the issues. Most organizations are really extremely bad at dealing with internal abuses which is why external watchdogs could work very well. Mandatory body cams make a lot of sense but if you need to deal with the opposition of 1000s local police unions it's not going to happen very quickly.
  - GVIrish 6y ago
    > A lot of these policing issues seems to come from progressive localities so I'm not sure it's even due to government unwillingness to solve the issues. Part of the reason for this is that police unions fight vigorously against reform and police unions are powerful in local politics. That's why some police departments ended up getting disbanded by their municipalities to restart from the ground up. It seems like opposition to body cams in general isn't strong, but the real fight will come when stronger laws are proposed for when body cams need to be on, penalties for not having them on, and when footage must be released.
    - roenxi 6y ago
      > police unions fight vigorously against reform and police unions are powerful in local politics Aren't the Democrats the notionally pro-union party? I think it has fallen out of rhetorical favour in recent years, but I thought there was an association between Democrats being in charge and strong local union presences.
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        Yes. Police unions are seen as an exception to the usual party alignment. The Minneapolis police union and its president Bob Kroll supported Trump's campaign: https://www.lawofficer.com/minneapolis-police-union-touting-support-trump/ https://www.lawofficer.com/minneapolis-police-union-touting-... (2019)
  - greedo 6y ago
    External watchdogs are only as good as their leaders. For example, the Seattle PD was recently under a consent decree with the Department of Justice over civil rights abuses. Yet they still beat the shit out of people expressing their 1st Amendment rights.
- int_19h 6y ago
  Most large PDs are in urban areas that are either in blue states, or that are blue islands in red states. They also tend to be the most problematic. So this problem can largely be solved at municipal level - if there's political will for it.
LoSboccacc 6y ago
Americans: we don't trust authority, most of our Constitution deals with limitations to authorities and opens with a stern remainder that power comes from the will of people trough armed militias also Americans: we need more authority to deal with the untrustworthy authorities
- brigandish 6y ago
  I see you're being downvoted, perhaps for the directed satire (something, as a Brit, I enjoy… it is our natural habitat:) but it's a legitimate point. I read a book by Chomsky (I forget which) in which he went through why the American democratic system was corrupt. It was very compelling. His solution, however, would be to "guard the guards" with more state apparatus and a more involved electorate. This is where he and I digressed because it's obviously pie in the sky and open to the same kinds of corruption. Turtles all the way down. Less is more when it comes to the state - smaller government as a principle can be extended to the police by defunding and not abolishing. Remove their military vehicles, remove their ability to get no-knock warrants and other vast overreaches of power, and strengthen the power of the citizenry. Has that (less government, more individual rights) ever not worked?
thephyber 6y ago
> could correct many issues by conducting investigates in a more impartial manner. Police already think that Obama's DoJ was incredibly political and it did exactly this[1] when issuing more consent decrees (source: police in family). Putting a new "Space Force" brand on the box doesn't make officers trust either their own brass or the feds more than they did. There's no solution to a lack of trust here except perhaps a massive airing of grievances and more transparency. People like me don't trust that police officers charged with crimes will ever be impartially prosecuted by the same prosecutors who need their hard work on all other cases (departments and unions have actually tanked careers of DAs and ADAs who have aimed to cross the "think blue line of silence"). In my city, the police union used propaganda and threats to scare an independent civilian oversight (private attorney acting in a public role) into quitting his oversight role. [1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-the-doj-reforms-a-police-department-like-ferguson/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-the-doj-refor...
- fellInchoate 6y ago
  Wouldn't a federal body less reliant on a favorable disposition from the police be the answer here? Few are going to welcome more oversight of themselves, but it seems more and more like what's required. That oversight doesn't seem to work when it's locally based, for all the reasons you've outlined.
spaetzleesser 6y ago
I think there should be nationwide training standards and standards for tactics that then get enforced. What I get from a lot of videos is that cops often have to improvise because they aren’t trained to deal with a situation. Most of the time the improvisation goes well but sometimes it doesn’t. I think this uncertainty is causing a lot of stress to cops and the people they have to deal with and then leads to bad behavior. I used to know some cops personally and they all said there was almost no way to discuss a difficult situation and develop better approaches. The general attitude seems to be “suck it up” and be quiet. It seems the whole organization is rotten from the top and highly abusive to people working in it.

by kanox 6y ago

GVIrish 6y ago

I see this much like the Civil Rights Act. There was no way segregation was going to be ended without significant legislation and enforcement from the federal government. Bottom line is that the sort of large scale reform needed to end systemic problems of police misconduct is going to be extremely difficult to achieve via local reforms. Congress needs to end qualified immunity, end civil asset forfeiture, increase federal oversight, and potentially write new laws governing the use of body cams. One idea I've seen from police reformers is a 'Missing Video Presumption' law. The basic idea is that if the body cam (or vehicle cam) footage goes missing and there is a conflicting account of events, the court will presume the video would've corroborated the civilian's version of events. This would give an extremely strong incentive to not turn off cameras or sabotage video as police have done in a number of cases.

kanox 6y ago
A lot of these policing issues seems to come from progressive localities so I'm not sure it's even due to government unwillingness to solve the issues. Most organizations are really extremely bad at dealing with internal abuses which is why external watchdogs could work very well. Mandatory body cams make a lot of sense but if you need to deal with the opposition of 1000s local police unions it's not going to happen very quickly.
- GVIrish 6y ago
  > A lot of these policing issues seems to come from progressive localities so I'm not sure it's even due to government unwillingness to solve the issues. Part of the reason for this is that police unions fight vigorously against reform and police unions are powerful in local politics. That's why some police departments ended up getting disbanded by their municipalities to restart from the ground up. It seems like opposition to body cams in general isn't strong, but the real fight will come when stronger laws are proposed for when body cams need to be on, penalties for not having them on, and when footage must be released.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > police unions fight vigorously against reform and police unions are powerful in local politics Aren't the Democrats the notionally pro-union party? I think it has fallen out of rhetorical favour in recent years, but I thought there was an association between Democrats being in charge and strong local union presences.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Yes. Police unions are seen as an exception to the usual party alignment. The Minneapolis police union and its president Bob Kroll supported Trump's campaign: https://www.lawofficer.com/minneapolis-police-union-touting-support-trump/ https://www.lawofficer.com/minneapolis-police-union-touting-... (2019)
- greedo 6y ago
  External watchdogs are only as good as their leaders. For example, the Seattle PD was recently under a consent decree with the Department of Justice over civil rights abuses. Yet they still beat the shit out of people expressing their 1st Amendment rights.
int_19h 6y ago
Most large PDs are in urban areas that are either in blue states, or that are blue islands in red states. They also tend to be the most problematic. So this problem can largely be solved at municipal level - if there's political will for it.

LoSboccacc 6y ago

Americans: we don't trust authority, most of our Constitution deals with limitations to authorities and opens with a stern remainder that power comes from the will of people trough armed militias also Americans: we need more authority to deal with the untrustworthy authorities

brigandish 6y ago
I see you're being downvoted, perhaps for the directed satire (something, as a Brit, I enjoy… it is our natural habitat:) but it's a legitimate point. I read a book by Chomsky (I forget which) in which he went through why the American democratic system was corrupt. It was very compelling. His solution, however, would be to "guard the guards" with more state apparatus and a more involved electorate. This is where he and I digressed because it's obviously pie in the sky and open to the same kinds of corruption. Turtles all the way down. Less is more when it comes to the state - smaller government as a principle can be extended to the police by defunding and not abolishing. Remove their military vehicles, remove their ability to get no-knock warrants and other vast overreaches of power, and strengthen the power of the citizenry. Has that (less government, more individual rights) ever not worked?

thephyber 6y ago

> could correct many issues by conducting investigates in a more impartial manner. Police already think that Obama's DoJ was incredibly political and it did exactly this[1] when issuing more consent decrees (source: police in family). Putting a new "Space Force" brand on the box doesn't make officers trust either their own brass or the feds more than they did. There's no solution to a lack of trust here except perhaps a massive airing of grievances and more transparency. People like me don't trust that police officers charged with crimes will ever be impartially prosecuted by the same prosecutors who need their hard work on all other cases (departments and unions have actually tanked careers of DAs and ADAs who have aimed to cross the "think blue line of silence"). In my city, the police union used propaganda and threats to scare an independent civilian oversight (private attorney acting in a public role) into quitting his oversight role. [1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-the-doj-reforms-a-police-department-like-ferguson/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-the-doj-refor...

fellInchoate 6y ago
Wouldn't a federal body less reliant on a favorable disposition from the police be the answer here? Few are going to welcome more oversight of themselves, but it seems more and more like what's required. That oversight doesn't seem to work when it's locally based, for all the reasons you've outlined.

spaetzleesser 6y ago

I think there should be nationwide training standards and standards for tactics that then get enforced. What I get from a lot of videos is that cops often have to improvise because they aren’t trained to deal with a situation. Most of the time the improvisation goes well but sometimes it doesn’t. I think this uncertainty is causing a lot of stress to cops and the people they have to deal with and then leads to bad behavior. I used to know some cops personally and they all said there was almost no way to discuss a difficult situation and develop better approaches. The general attitude seems to be “suck it up” and be quiet. It seems the whole organization is rotten from the top and highly abusive to people working in it.