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Is there a justice system anywhere in the world that actually does state-driven financial punishment on police to disincentivize false arrest? (E.g. all costs s

by derefr 5y ago

Is there a justice system anywhere in the world that actually does state-driven financial punishment on police to disincentivize false arrest? (E.g. all costs stemming from a false arrest being taken as treble damages from the department and awarded to the innocent accused, automatically, without the accused having to bother to sue?)

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
I suppose the difference is that in most other places in the world there would be no 'costs stemming from a false arrest' (I mean direct costs if you exclude things like the opportunity cost of lost time, and the damages/stress inflicted, etc).
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  In Germany you are compensated for a wrong arrest. (Base rate is 25€ per day, which isn't much, but you can claim additional reimbursements with some paperwork and help from your (state paid) lawyer)
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
that would punish justice systems for making mistakes, which if they are an honest system they are already being punished for because of course a mistake is the system being inefficient. The purpose of awarding damages for false arrests is to punish malicious false arrests, or mistakes so egregious that we might as well consider them malicious, which some systems are more prone to than others.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  As the justice system does have a lot of power - like arresting people - of course mistakes should be punished to some extend. And those people making those mistakes, usually have little concerns over the efficiency of the justice system.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    fiat rules that do not handle things on a case by case basis are particularly prone to perverse incentives.
chx 5y ago
There's no need for that when no one profits from a false arrest or false conviction. Civil asset forfeiture, bail loan firms, for profit prisons, breathtakingly expensive phone calls and all sorts of other scams are pretty much unheard of anywhere else and we honestly can believe what we are reading when we see these .
- throw170521 5y ago
  Add mugshot sites recently discussed on HN to the list [1]. Who would have guessed shit like this can even exist? All those scams have to stop being dirty little secrets, there needs to be public outrage built around it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27153800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27153800
- Jiejeing 5y ago
  > There's no need for that when no one profits from a false arrest or false conviction. You underestimate the power of racism, homophobia and other things that drive some people, plus the feeling of having power over other people (and also, if a crime has been committed, the drive to make culprits out of innocents if police cannot find the real ones). Sure, the US has some amazingly broken systems that seem to foster endemic corruption, but even without them it’s not enough to guarantee that a police force behaves appropriately (we just had a case in france where at least two people have done 1.5 years and 4 years in detention based on a made-up testimony forced by police officers caught on video, and the police unions and the far-right are still screaming that justice is too lenient and the liberation is a scandal).
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    I don’t understand how this would work. Is the idea that racists know about these scams and vote to protect them legally? I didn’t know about these and I consider myself pretty informed, while I (unsurprisingly) haven’t met any informed racists. No doubt racism is real (especially in the criminal justice system), but it feels like Occam’s Razor would favor the “incentives” argument here.
johannes1234321 5y ago
Putting it on the officers is bad. They then tend to lean back and not take the personal risk. You need clear guidance about when they have to arrest somebody and when not. And only secondary a system where abuse can be punished.
- greedo 5y ago
  Personal risk? Law enforcement in the US is not as dangerous an occupation as their unions would like you to believe. And it's not like police are preventing crime. They're like janitor who come along after the crime has been committed.
jopsen 5y ago
> ...state-driven financial punishment on police... You need to stop thinking that punishment works. Punishing people, like with dogs, rarely serves any purpose beyond "feeling of justice". Such "feelings of justice" don't tend to make the world a better place. I'm no expert, but if you remove perverse incentives and train officers to resolve conflicts without violence, then you'll probably get very far. Prosecuting police officers is a difficult way to change policing culture.
- banannaise 5y ago
  If punishment doesn't work (and it doesn't) then we don't need prisons and jails as they currently exist, nor do we need police as they currently exist. There's no point to improving the police. Get rid of the punishment angle to policing, then give all the non-punishment jobs that police do to people who are far, far more qualified to handle them than the police are. Then you have essentially no police, so there's no need to improve them.

by derefr 5y ago

DoingIsLearning 5y ago

I suppose the difference is that in most other places in the world there would be no 'costs stemming from a false arrest' (I mean direct costs if you exclude things like the opportunity cost of lost time, and the damages/stress inflicted, etc).

johannes1234321 5y ago
In Germany you are compensated for a wrong arrest. (Base rate is 25€ per day, which isn't much, but you can claim additional reimbursements with some paperwork and help from your (state paid) lawyer)

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

that would punish justice systems for making mistakes, which if they are an honest system they are already being punished for because of course a mistake is the system being inefficient. The purpose of awarding damages for false arrests is to punish malicious false arrests, or mistakes so egregious that we might as well consider them malicious, which some systems are more prone to than others.

_ph_ 5y ago
As the justice system does have a lot of power - like arresting people - of course mistakes should be punished to some extend. And those people making those mistakes, usually have little concerns over the efficiency of the justice system.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  fiat rules that do not handle things on a case by case basis are particularly prone to perverse incentives.

chx 5y ago

There's no need for that when no one profits from a false arrest or false conviction. Civil asset forfeiture, bail loan firms, for profit prisons, breathtakingly expensive phone calls and all sorts of other scams are pretty much unheard of anywhere else and we honestly can believe what we are reading when we see these .

throw170521 5y ago
Add mugshot sites recently discussed on HN to the list [1]. Who would have guessed shit like this can even exist? All those scams have to stop being dirty little secrets, there needs to be public outrage built around it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27153800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27153800
Jiejeing 5y ago
> There's no need for that when no one profits from a false arrest or false conviction. You underestimate the power of racism, homophobia and other things that drive some people, plus the feeling of having power over other people (and also, if a crime has been committed, the drive to make culprits out of innocents if police cannot find the real ones). Sure, the US has some amazingly broken systems that seem to foster endemic corruption, but even without them it’s not enough to guarantee that a police force behaves appropriately (we just had a case in france where at least two people have done 1.5 years and 4 years in detention based on a made-up testimony forced by police officers caught on video, and the police unions and the far-right are still screaming that justice is too lenient and the liberation is a scandal).
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I don’t understand how this would work. Is the idea that racists know about these scams and vote to protect them legally? I didn’t know about these and I consider myself pretty informed, while I (unsurprisingly) haven’t met any informed racists. No doubt racism is real (especially in the criminal justice system), but it feels like Occam’s Razor would favor the “incentives” argument here.

johannes1234321 5y ago

Putting it on the officers is bad. They then tend to lean back and not take the personal risk. You need clear guidance about when they have to arrest somebody and when not. And only secondary a system where abuse can be punished.

greedo 5y ago
Personal risk? Law enforcement in the US is not as dangerous an occupation as their unions would like you to believe. And it's not like police are preventing crime. They're like janitor who come along after the crime has been committed.

jopsen 5y ago

> ...state-driven financial punishment on police... You need to stop thinking that punishment works. Punishing people, like with dogs, rarely serves any purpose beyond "feeling of justice". Such "feelings of justice" don't tend to make the world a better place. I'm no expert, but if you remove perverse incentives and train officers to resolve conflicts without violence, then you'll probably get very far. Prosecuting police officers is a difficult way to change policing culture.

banannaise 5y ago
If punishment doesn't work (and it doesn't) then we don't need prisons and jails as they currently exist, nor do we need police as they currently exist. There's no point to improving the police. Get rid of the punishment angle to policing, then give all the non-punishment jobs that police do to people who are far, far more qualified to handle them than the police are. Then you have essentially no police, so there's no need to improve them.