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I think that the Game theory suggests that cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal
by coolspot 6y ago
I think that the Game theory suggests that cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal responsibility.
Eat donuts, ignore the radio and you will be fine.
- bigiain 6y agoThat might actually be a win overall...
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal responsibility Police report to elected governments. They are checked the same way the rest of the state is: through elections. Police pay is high across America because they're widely seen as bringing value to the community. Their strikes are feared by politicians; the cops turning on the mayor signals instant political death in most cities. If that perception of police frays, their leverage disappears. More pointedly, if a civil servant decides it's too much legal responsibility to not break the law, they should find another line of work.
- coolspot 6y agoI am not sure you are familiar with usual clientele of law enforcement officer, but usual day-to-day interactions are not nice. You will have to use violence, because nice obedient people don’t cause trouble. People that cops are called on will likely fight and resist and you will have a high chance of breaking someone’s bones (or kill someone). So, a rational cop can just avoid risky situations by doing absolute minimum and not showing up or not engaging. Drug addict trashes a store that didn’t accept his fake dollar bill? Whatever, just yell “sir please stop” from distance and leave.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> usual day-to-day interactions are not nice This describes a lot of jobs. Statistically, police work is less fatal than roofing, truck driving, garbage collecting and farming [1]. With respect to dealing with non-dangerous people who simply aren't nice, talk to a server or bartender or anyone who works in retail. > will likely fight and resist A small fraction (about one in eight) resist arrest [2]. Most of this is due to police having been thanklessly given, fairly recently, the job of dealing with our mentally ill [3]. > can just avoid risky situations by doing absolute minimum and not showing up or not engaging Again, this describes a lot of jobs. If a department is staffed by people who won't work unless they feel free to break the law, it's crying out for overhaul. We've given police tremendous pay, perks and employment protections. If it turns out a good fraction of a department's staff are too lethargic or terrified to do their jobs (for which we have zero evidence), they were improperly staffed. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-dangerous-is-police-work https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-da... [2] https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/36600547/Terrill_Police_Quarterly.pdf?1423675141=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DPolice_Use_of_Force_and_Suspect_Resistan.pdf&Expires=1617865932&Signature=ebVauHVyjL0uKtJ5Rm7XexA566NTwBwORl7SJMooMAggdOwI76kwHpIzj8Z3D1t6f3IdN8-hwkQFLLaBY3Pdd2tONDWo0mS3dBYVGp1iyJmNfqjSIlDHpOp1I9ZE4vr9H184fBogKaGTHKivi4XSgk4aXN8q8hgmeJ4yyeLu2-8peCOiiXjpH9QmBOtywzRs3YXUGdDKV4HC73rObNVm4EKqAIZ1JDy5ePcivm5dJbe1xqknYZ6ALIFX2d5-kuISmiYlFsRc~ETVWjZY8NjfQO-NG33ImZDG4KuWbDFtsRqYZsPfBXUCkwPODHLNPkaX4TIhgeOMH6NPcTM0vhd6bA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/36600547/Terrill_Polic... [3] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Terrill/publication/317028598_Mental_Illness_Police_Use_of_Force_and_Citizen_Injury/links/5aa173c1a6fdcc22e2d11c51/Mental-Illness-Police-Use-of-Force-and-Citizen-Injury.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Terrill/publica...
- pydry 6y agoIt probably would be a lot more dangerous if cops weren't so risk averse. There's essentially no penalty for being a cowardly cop. The las Vegas cop who chickened out of confronting the shooter got fired, for instance, but even he was reinstated.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
- chrisseaton 6y ago> Police pay is high Lol what?
- gremlinsinc 6y agoPolice earn more than teachers, and the median income in America. Training to be a cop often is less than to become a Teacher. Cops aren't even in the top 20 most dangerous job in America. Loggers, Sailors, Fishers, pilots, construction, oil-industry, roofers, drivers, farmers, etc are all more dangerous jobs. Honestly, cops should be paid somewhere around what a security guard at a bank is paid. Below is a list of the top-10 highest-paying states for police officers: source: https://www.businessinsider.com/teacher-salary-in-every-state-2018-4#1-new-york-51 https://www.businessinsider.com/teacher-salary-in-every-stat... - national average: $67,600 - California average police officer salary: $105,220 - Alaska average police officer salary: $87,870 - New Jersey average police officer salary: $86,840 - Washington average police officer salary: $80,200 - Hawaii average police officer salary: $78,720 - Illinois average police officer salary: $78,350 - New York average police officer salary: $77,490 - Colorado average police officer salary: $75,720 - Delaware average police officer salary: $73,740 - Nevada average police officer salary: $73,660 Compare with teachers, the highest state (New York) averages $85,889 with national average $61,730. Source : https://www.businessinsider.com/teacher-salary-in-every-state-2018-4#1-new-york-51 https://www.businessinsider.com/teacher-salary-in-every-stat... "As of 2018, the average U.S. household income was $87,864, while the median household income was $61,937. When the median is considerably lower than the average, it means that there are outliers on the top end. In short, a few people who make a lot of money boost the average. So $61,937 may be a more accurate representation of typical household earnings." Source: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-us-income/ https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-us-income/
- chrisseaton 6y ago> Police earn more than teachers Have you considered maybe teachers are poorly paid, rather than police are highly paid? > Cops aren't even in the top 20 most dangerous job in America Did I say they were? Did I say they should be paid based on danger? So why do you think this is relevant? > national average: $67,600 .. median household income was $61,937 All your numbers say they earn roughly a basic middle income for their locations. That's not 'highly paid'. > cops should be paid somewhere around what a security guard at a bank is paid Why would anyone take the job of being the officer over being the security guard in that case? Why take on the additional duties and responsibilities, the being in hazardous environments like messy crime scenes, and why take on the intellectual work of detection? I don't get why any member of society would argue for another memory of society to get less money for their job. ‘What we need is lower wages for the working class!’ Baffles me.
- upbeat_general 6y agoExcept that it’s their job to do so. It’s relatively trivial to check what a police officer is doing if the department cares. Doctors can be sued for malpractice yet they still perform operations.
- coolspot 6y agoBut cost of healthcare is astronomical in part because malpractice insurance is expensive, because too many people abuse it. If we increase (already high) risk of being a cop, then we will have to be ready to pay 200k-300k salaries.
- MaximumYComb 6y agoWhat about the city/county where a few issues causes insurance to not want to touch the place? All of a sudden they can't hire enough police and this causes social issues.
- ruph123 6y ago> But cost of healthcare is astronomical in part because malpractice insurance is expensive, because too many people abuse it. You pulled the “trigger a European” card. This is not why the US healthcare is astronomically high. The reason is: practically no meaningful regulation and thus free roaming oligopolies of a few providers with insane billing practices (which hospitals are covered, etc.). And much more...
- KptMarchewa 6y agoAnd some of the meaningful regulation drastically increases costs. Mostly for good reasons.
- ruph123 6y agoWhy would that be? In countries with universal health care (which would be pretty high up on the regulation scale) costs for medical procedures are significantly lower. [0] Americans have to understand that they are drastically overpaying for almost everything medical including drugs. There is no way around it. [0]: https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2012/03/comparing-health-care-costs-in-us-and-8-other-countries/ https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2012/03/comparing-health-ca...
- katbyte 6y agothe cops who worry about this are the ones we don't want to be cops. Its like my male friends who complained about the MeToo movement "how will i date when i have to worry about consent" - uh shouldn't you already be confident theres consent before doing anything? lol
- dk775 6y agoNot true. Anyone who joins a job like that is going to want strong protections whether they use them or not. Why would I work for department X where if I make a mistake I can be ruined when department Y will trust that by going thru the process to become LE, in general I’m not looking to be a corrupt maniac. Not to mention those same depts will let me keep an AR in my trunk, send an MRAP to cover me when I am going into a sketchy situations Similarly, why would I join a dept with a weak union when I can be in one where I’m backed by a union that for better or worse will assume innocent until proven guilty and protect the paying members.
- kergonath 6y ago> Anyone who joins a job like that is going to want strong protections whether they use them or not. Then it’s not surprising if you get a bunch of bullies drunk on power with guns. They need to be accountable because they can ruin people’s lives or end them altogether, and regularly do. > going thru the process to become LE, in general I’m not looking to be a corrupt maniac. Then the process needs improvements. It looks like there are way too many corrupt maniacs getting through. > Similarly, why would I join a dept with a weak union when I can be in one where I’m backed by a union that for better or worse will assume innocent until proven guilty and protect the paying members. Innocent until proven guilty is for plebs. The problem is when they are shielded from even getting prosecuted. This is no justice. From the society’s point of view some degree of protection of law enforcement is useful, because it helps them do their job in difficult situations. However, the rest of us need to trust law enforcement, otherwise the social contract breaks down. This means we need to trust that they get punished when they kill people they should not or when they bully and harass people for the lulz. Otherwise, what’s the incentive for them to behave?
- 6y ago
- barnaclejive 6y agoStop name-dropping "Game theory" into everything. Life is more complex.
- cdash 6y agoEat donuts, ignore the radio and get fired. That is how it should be.
- ookdatnog 6y agoGame theory is an abstract mathematical model. Citing mathematical models is not science: science requires experiment to verify whether your model holds up in practice. In this case, one could gather data from different countries to see if there's any correlation between the effectiveness of police and their level of legal protection. AFAIK, police forces in other rich nations function just fine without qualified immunity (admittedly, I have not studied this in detail).
- austincheney 6y agoAre police in other countries without qualified immunity more or less likely to be sued? Your argument ignores the rather important consideration of civil litigation frequency, which is a question of torts not policing.
- jmull 6y agoI’m not sure that’s the right question. What we want is for the police to behave better. The mechanism is increased legal liability. That is, both the fear and effects off law suits. Presumably, law suits would have to rise, especially at first, for this to work because I’m pretty sure the fear of increased legal liability alone will not change police behavior significantly. They will need to feel the teeth of this.
- ookdatnog 6y agoIf you find a single instance of a nation where the police functions well without qualified immunity, you can at least conclude that it's not a necessary condition for police to be able to operate well. Sure, in a different context it may be a necessary condition, if you consider all other variables immutable. But there's no need to do that. Many variables can be changed, including the legal system. I think if you observe that your legal system is so janky that you can only have a functioning police force by making police officers selectively immune to the law, your response should be to not accept such a kludge and insist on actually reforming your legal system.
- aseipp 6y ago"Cops violate citizens rights, but if we stop them their feelings might get hurt and then they might willfully stop doing their jobs, can't you see that cops are the good guys" isn't exactly the slam dunk defense you think it is.
- CountDrewku 6y agoNeither is a blanket statement like "cops violate citizen rights". The way to fix these issues is not to make it so the good ones are scared of helping people due to possible litigation. That's just silly. It's already a job very few people want to do and you're making it even less desirable. This is a good way to ensure you only get shitty cops.
- moolcool 6y ago"If we hold them accountable for the actions they take at their jobs jobs, they'll stop doing their jobs altogether" Wtf kind of logic is this?
- Dirlewanger 6y agoContrary to popular belief, the purpose of police in America isn't to "protect and serve". Even the Supreme Court has said they're under no obligation to protect the public.
- ric2b 6y agoSomehow that game theory doesn't seem to apply to most jobs, so maybe your model is overly simplistic to the point of being useless.
- Der_Einzige 6y agoMake it so that they have a genuine public duty requirement by reversing warren vs DC and suddenly we can prosecute cops for not showing up if we can prove that they intentionally lollygagged.