11 ms·

There’s a simple way to effect change at the legislative level: force cities to pay for police misconduct settlements out of existing police budgets and pension

There’s a simple way to effect change at the legislative level: force cities to pay for police misconduct settlements out of existing police budgets and pension funds, rather than apportioning taxpayer money to do so.

alostpuppy 6y ago
I like that idea.
pavel_lishin 6y ago
Is there any reason to believe they won't up the budget to account for this?
- curryst 6y ago
  I don't think cities can run a deficit. They would have to pass tax increases to fund that, which would be unpopular.
  - yonig 6y ago
    Hello from Chicago
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > I don't think cities can run a deficit. Lol
    - smnrchrds 6y ago
      In Alberta (and perhaps elsewhere in Canada), cities are legally not allowed to run deficits.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        New York City is running a budget deficit of $5,250,000,000.
  - mark212 6y ago
    You’re right for cities and counties (and the state itself) in California. None are allowed to operate at a deficit, hence the creation of the state “rainy day fund” by Gov. Brown after the 2008 recession which has worked very well in tempering the current fiscal issues in the Covid pandemic, at least at the state level.
  - zamfi 6y ago
    > They would have to pass tax increases to fund that Or reallocate money previously allocated to libraries, social workers, community colleges, public transportation, etc. etc.
  - pavel_lishin 6y ago
    Any reason they wouldn't move the budget away from other services?
chrisseaton 6y ago
> force cities to pay for police misconduct settlements out of existing police budgets and pension funds, rather than apportioning taxpayer money to do so Err that is taxpayer money? Police budgets aren't the police's personal money. They don't care if you take it away it's no problem for them as long as they're still being paid.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  Take it from their pension (and cut their budgets). Yes, that's wasted taxpayer money but I'm sure the police also view it as their own personal money.
  - xupybd 6y ago
    What if that happened in your company? Another person's misconduct resulted in you getting your pension drained?
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      I don’t have a pension.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        Pension / retirement fund, whatever.
        solosoyokaze 6y ago
        There's a big difference. Pensions are paid by the employer and retirement accounts are paid by the employee. Excessive benefits aside, the culture of the police is rotten and policing in the US needs to be rethought from the ground up.
        chrisseaton 6y ago
        > There's a big difference. Pensions are paid by the employer and retirement accounts are paid by the employee. You make it sound like you're paid more if you get a pension! If the company pays into a pension for or gives you the money which you then pay into a pension... guess what it's the same money just a slightly different setup. I've got a pension I pay into myself, so it doesn't need to be your employer which does it.
damagednoob 6y ago
> out of existing police budgets and pension funds So the incentive here is: I better keep tabs on my partner or else I'll lose some of my pension Or I better cover for my partner or else I'll lose some of my pension. I don't think this is the solution you think it is.
- taxidump 6y ago
  With little to no repercussions financially to the department or employee and no major career punishments, what do you propose instead?
  - wonderwonder 6y ago
    Force individual officers to carry liability insurance similar to malpractice insurance for lawyers and doctors. If the insurance is forced to pay out a couple times the officer would be uninsurable and thus unemployable.
    - threatofrain 6y ago
      But is that accompanied with officers being exposed to individual liability? And removing qualified immunity? Because that would be the bigger argument.
    - opo 6y ago
      This is suggested quite often, but no one is going to sell you a liability policy to protect you from committing crimes. When police officers commit blatant misconduct the officers involved should at least be fired and criminal charges should be applied to them if applicable. This is how it works for every other job, not sure why police should be different.
  - alistairSH 6y ago
    Limit qualified immunity and require officers to carry personal liability insurance on the job. Increase police training requirements. They're woefully undertrained in the US (at least relative to Germany and several other Western European nations). National LEO registration or something similar to stop the movement of bad officers from one department to another.
GavinMcG 6y ago
Market-focused rhetoric over the past decades has made it tempting to think we can just allocate payments the right way to accomplish what we want. This is one case where that fails. Instead, we need leadership. Police budgets are taxpayer money. Even if cutting a budget meant laying off officers, there's reason to think that would create problems - the needs of the community wouldn't be reduced, so you'd be having fewer officers doing more, which is both costly (in overtime) and increases fatigue and the likelihood of problematic behavior. And taking it out of the pension fund or otherwise spreading the harm to other officers is both easily gamed and incentivizes cover-ups. It matters who we elect. A significant faction of the U.S. has been convinced that government is simply bad or ineffective, and they vote for people who deliberately prove that. But if we want to see change we need to elect people who are willing to go to the mat for the things we support.
- dna_polymerase 6y ago
  > Market-focused rhetoric over the past decades has made it tempting to think we can just allocate payments the right way to accomplish what we want. This is one case where that fails. Instead, we need leadership. No, we don't. We need a system at rewards good behaviour and punishes bad. The market solution is really the best. A solution bound on a single leader vanishes as soon as the leader goes. > It matters who we elect. Things were bad during Obama's reign, as they were under Trump. Biden won't bring change, unless systemic change will be implemented.
  - GavinMcG 6y ago
    Why focus on presidential elections when we're talking about policing? It matters who we elect at the local level. I think your knee-jerk focus on who the president is (and denying the possibility of change) demonstrates what I was saying: the rhetoric has convinced people that it doesn't matter and it's all some national team sport. That's just not true.
    - alentist 6y ago
      Did you reply to the wrong comment? Your (knee-jerk?) characterization is the opposite of what that comment is saying.
tehwebguy 6y ago
This sounds good but the only way to actually fix the problem is to hold individual police officers criminally liable. Currently they avoid criminal liability in a number of ways: - They are never arrested - other police simply fail to arrest them - They are never indicted - DAs across the country are extremely reluctant to press charges - Charges are dropped by grand juries - in some states, like NY, all felonies must be confirmed or dropped by a grand jury unless the defendant waived their right. A DA has full power to effectively force a drop by portraying a weak case to a completely secret grand jury, publicly washing their hands of the decision while still getting the result they want. Then, when a DA is elected who actually says they will hold police accountable they often simply will not (as in Jackie Lacey, Los Angeles’ previous DA) or if they make basically any strides toward actually investigating police they will be stonewalled and face a recall with support from the local PD and/or SD (as in LA’s current DA, George Gascon). Police are given unbelievable rights: we will see over and over again that officers with complaints will never actually see them investigated and even sustained complaints have barely any consequences. Additionally if they are implicated in a serious crime on the job they often have union rules barring them from being interviewed / interrogated until after a cooling period (this blew my mind). Compare this to basically any other profession, even so much as yelling at a client or failing to help customer who asked would be a final strike almost anywhere else. The biggest problem may be that the US justice system is so unbelievably cruel that police refuse to ever put one of their own through that type of hell.
- StreamBright 6y ago
  > to hold individual police officers criminally liable. Under qualified immunity that most police officers have this is not going to happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#Police_brutality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#Police_brut...
  - stefan_ 6y ago
    Qualified immunity is for civil cases, it has nothing to do with criminal.
  - tehwebguy 6y ago
antattack 6y ago
That would also increase an incentive to cover-up the misconduct. I think the best first step would be to increase transparency and accountability. For example, large number of cities did not even respond to the FIOA request. Also, I read that many Police misconducts are not even tracked at federal level and civil forfeiture has little oversight.

alostpuppy 6y ago

I like that idea.

pavel_lishin 6y ago

Is there any reason to believe they won't up the budget to account for this?

curryst 6y ago
I don't think cities can run a deficit. They would have to pass tax increases to fund that, which would be unpopular.
- yonig 6y ago
  Hello from Chicago
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > I don't think cities can run a deficit. Lol
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    In Alberta (and perhaps elsewhere in Canada), cities are legally not allowed to run deficits.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      New York City is running a budget deficit of $5,250,000,000.
- mark212 6y ago
  You’re right for cities and counties (and the state itself) in California. None are allowed to operate at a deficit, hence the creation of the state “rainy day fund” by Gov. Brown after the 2008 recession which has worked very well in tempering the current fiscal issues in the Covid pandemic, at least at the state level.
- zamfi 6y ago
  > They would have to pass tax increases to fund that Or reallocate money previously allocated to libraries, social workers, community colleges, public transportation, etc. etc.
- pavel_lishin 6y ago
  Any reason they wouldn't move the budget away from other services?

chrisseaton 6y ago

> force cities to pay for police misconduct settlements out of existing police budgets and pension funds, rather than apportioning taxpayer money to do so Err that is taxpayer money? Police budgets aren't the police's personal money. They don't care if you take it away it's no problem for them as long as they're still being paid.

solosoyokaze 6y ago
Take it from their pension (and cut their budgets). Yes, that's wasted taxpayer money but I'm sure the police also view it as their own personal money.
- xupybd 6y ago
  What if that happened in your company? Another person's misconduct resulted in you getting your pension drained?
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    I don’t have a pension.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      Pension / retirement fund, whatever.
      - solosoyokaze 6y ago
        There's a big difference. Pensions are paid by the employer and retirement accounts are paid by the employee. Excessive benefits aside, the culture of the police is rotten and policing in the US needs to be rethought from the ground up.
        chrisseaton 6y ago
        > There's a big difference. Pensions are paid by the employer and retirement accounts are paid by the employee. You make it sound like you're paid more if you get a pension! If the company pays into a pension for or gives you the money which you then pay into a pension... guess what it's the same money just a slightly different setup. I've got a pension I pay into myself, so it doesn't need to be your employer which does it.

damagednoob 6y ago

> out of existing police budgets and pension funds So the incentive here is: I better keep tabs on my partner or else I'll lose some of my pension Or I better cover for my partner or else I'll lose some of my pension. I don't think this is the solution you think it is.

taxidump 6y ago
With little to no repercussions financially to the department or employee and no major career punishments, what do you propose instead?
- wonderwonder 6y ago
  Force individual officers to carry liability insurance similar to malpractice insurance for lawyers and doctors. If the insurance is forced to pay out a couple times the officer would be uninsurable and thus unemployable.
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    But is that accompanied with officers being exposed to individual liability? And removing qualified immunity? Because that would be the bigger argument.
  - opo 6y ago
    This is suggested quite often, but no one is going to sell you a liability policy to protect you from committing crimes. When police officers commit blatant misconduct the officers involved should at least be fired and criminal charges should be applied to them if applicable. This is how it works for every other job, not sure why police should be different.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  Limit qualified immunity and require officers to carry personal liability insurance on the job. Increase police training requirements. They're woefully undertrained in the US (at least relative to Germany and several other Western European nations). National LEO registration or something similar to stop the movement of bad officers from one department to another.

GavinMcG 6y ago

Market-focused rhetoric over the past decades has made it tempting to think we can just allocate payments the right way to accomplish what we want. This is one case where that fails. Instead, we need leadership. Police budgets are taxpayer money. Even if cutting a budget meant laying off officers, there's reason to think that would create problems - the needs of the community wouldn't be reduced, so you'd be having fewer officers doing more, which is both costly (in overtime) and increases fatigue and the likelihood of problematic behavior. And taking it out of the pension fund or otherwise spreading the harm to other officers is both easily gamed and incentivizes cover-ups. It matters who we elect. A significant faction of the U.S. has been convinced that government is simply bad or ineffective, and they vote for people who deliberately prove that. But if we want to see change we need to elect people who are willing to go to the mat for the things we support.

dna_polymerase 6y ago
> Market-focused rhetoric over the past decades has made it tempting to think we can just allocate payments the right way to accomplish what we want. This is one case where that fails. Instead, we need leadership. No, we don't. We need a system at rewards good behaviour and punishes bad. The market solution is really the best. A solution bound on a single leader vanishes as soon as the leader goes. > It matters who we elect. Things were bad during Obama's reign, as they were under Trump. Biden won't bring change, unless systemic change will be implemented.
- GavinMcG 6y ago
  Why focus on presidential elections when we're talking about policing? It matters who we elect at the local level. I think your knee-jerk focus on who the president is (and denying the possibility of change) demonstrates what I was saying: the rhetoric has convinced people that it doesn't matter and it's all some national team sport. That's just not true.
  - alentist 6y ago
    Did you reply to the wrong comment? Your (knee-jerk?) characterization is the opposite of what that comment is saying.

tehwebguy 6y ago

This sounds good but the only way to actually fix the problem is to hold individual police officers criminally liable. Currently they avoid criminal liability in a number of ways: - They are never arrested - other police simply fail to arrest them - They are never indicted - DAs across the country are extremely reluctant to press charges - Charges are dropped by grand juries - in some states, like NY, all felonies must be confirmed or dropped by a grand jury unless the defendant waived their right. A DA has full power to effectively force a drop by portraying a weak case to a completely secret grand jury, publicly washing their hands of the decision while still getting the result they want. Then, when a DA is elected who actually says they will hold police accountable they often simply will not (as in Jackie Lacey, Los Angeles’ previous DA) or if they make basically any strides toward actually investigating police they will be stonewalled and face a recall with support from the local PD and/or SD (as in LA’s current DA, George Gascon). Police are given unbelievable rights: we will see over and over again that officers with complaints will never actually see them investigated and even sustained complaints have barely any consequences. Additionally if they are implicated in a serious crime on the job they often have union rules barring them from being interviewed / interrogated until after a cooling period (this blew my mind). Compare this to basically any other profession, even so much as yelling at a client or failing to help customer who asked would be a final strike almost anywhere else. The biggest problem may be that the US justice system is so unbelievably cruel that police refuse to ever put one of their own through that type of hell.

StreamBright 6y ago
> to hold individual police officers criminally liable. Under qualified immunity that most police officers have this is not going to happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#Police_brutality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#Police_brut...
- stefan_ 6y ago
  Qualified immunity is for civil cases, it has nothing to do with criminal.
- tehwebguy 6y ago

antattack 6y ago

That would also increase an incentive to cover-up the misconduct. I think the best first step would be to increase transparency and accountability. For example, large number of cities did not even respond to the FIOA request. Also, I read that many Police misconducts are not even tracked at federal level and civil forfeiture has little oversight.