5 ms·

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, breathtakingl

by 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.
  - Jiejeing 5y ago
    I was just answering the parent by saying that no, police do not need to have financial incentives to make up cases and lock up innocents; and therefore there stills needs to be a way to punish corrupt police officers and departments even if those incentives do not exist. Obviously financial incentives are a key motivator for many people in forces as well, I was only saying that this can happen even if there is no money to make.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      Ah, thanks for clarifying. No doubt racism can explain arrests and undue charges, but the context of the thread is about institutional extortive practices (bail loans, etc). So we still need “financial incentives” to explain these extortive practices.
  - Flozzin 5y ago
    There is a lot of information out there on this topic. But I will try to summarize my understanding of what goes on in the USA. There is institutional racism in our system. These are laws from long ago, that stick around due to inertia. They end up punishing POC more. When changing these laws comes up for debate, it's not that hooded KKK stand up and protect them, it's that the laws been around for decades. The laws don't affect the majority white population. They are defended uses words like, lazy, poor, criminals, bad part of town...Those words don't tend to bring to mind white middle class people. Then the laws stick around. Or new laws are pass using the same methods. You don't have to say racist things in the US in order to defend racist laws. There are a myriad of code words you can use instead. Also, many people don't realize just how racist we are as a culture. The Christian church in America has deep racism issues.(read White Too Long by Robert P. Jones) The US population has been raised by generations of racists so we just literally don't see it anymore. It doesn't affect the majority, so it isn't an issue. Each time a problem is brought up, it's usually dismissed out of hand. We love our victim blaming, our blind eyes, our justifications, and our fear. Yes, there are massive incentives and money to be made in the criminal justice system. But they only exist because of who they are keeping down. And why don't we care about the ones being kept underfoot?
cutemonster 5y ago
Some policemen beat up people of color, just because those policemen think it's fun. (Not only in the US)

by chx 5y ago

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.
- Jiejeing 5y ago
  I was just answering the parent by saying that no, police do not need to have financial incentives to make up cases and lock up innocents; and therefore there stills needs to be a way to punish corrupt police officers and departments even if those incentives do not exist. Obviously financial incentives are a key motivator for many people in forces as well, I was only saying that this can happen even if there is no money to make.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Ah, thanks for clarifying. No doubt racism can explain arrests and undue charges, but the context of the thread is about institutional extortive practices (bail loans, etc). So we still need “financial incentives” to explain these extortive practices.
- Flozzin 5y ago
  There is a lot of information out there on this topic. But I will try to summarize my understanding of what goes on in the USA. There is institutional racism in our system. These are laws from long ago, that stick around due to inertia. They end up punishing POC more. When changing these laws comes up for debate, it's not that hooded KKK stand up and protect them, it's that the laws been around for decades. The laws don't affect the majority white population. They are defended uses words like, lazy, poor, criminals, bad part of town...Those words don't tend to bring to mind white middle class people. Then the laws stick around. Or new laws are pass using the same methods. You don't have to say racist things in the US in order to defend racist laws. There are a myriad of code words you can use instead. Also, many people don't realize just how racist we are as a culture. The Christian church in America has deep racism issues.(read White Too Long by Robert P. Jones) The US population has been raised by generations of racists so we just literally don't see it anymore. It doesn't affect the majority, so it isn't an issue. Each time a problem is brought up, it's usually dismissed out of hand. We love our victim blaming, our blind eyes, our justifications, and our fear. Yes, there are massive incentives and money to be made in the criminal justice system. But they only exist because of who they are keeping down. And why don't we care about the ones being kept underfoot?

cutemonster 5y ago

Some policemen beat up people of color, just because those policemen think it's fun. (Not only in the US)