15 ms·

RateOurCops – Like Yelp, but for Cops

245 points by Roco_ 5y ago

smoldesu 5y ago
This website is golden, but there are some issues with fake reviews. For example, the top review of the Chicago Department [0] seems to be from someone very disgruntled at the idea of people sharing their opinions online. [0] https://rateourcops.org/agencies/1425 https://rateourcops.org/agencies/1425
aliasEli 5y ago
This site would definitely be illegal in the EU. GDPR certainly prohibits showing details like phone or email info. I can understand that people want to hold police accountable for their actions but I don't think this is the way to do it.
- tyingq 5y ago
  I don't know to what degree they are reviewing info, but the officer listings I saw were just office email and office phone. I can't imagine that's illegal in the EU.
  - rOOb85 5y ago
    Same thing for the officers I checked. All emails/phones were publicly listed on their own agencies websites.
haroldp 5y ago
What is the point of this if it omits the step where you can choose not to use someone's services if you don't like their rating?
- tyingq 5y ago
  It sets up the launch of the companion site where you buy improved service.
  - haroldp 5y ago
    My city has a monopoly contract with one provider. I don't get to choose.
    - tyingq 5y ago
      Oh, no, not like that. It helps you understand when you might need to let a $100 fall out of your wallet when you're pulled over.
      - haroldp 5y ago
        What's $100 to a dude making over $100 per hour?
        blix 5y ago
        Assuming a 40hr/wk schedule, the average salary for police officers in the usa ($70k) works out to about $33/hr with about half making less (likely more depending on the skew in the distribution). There are job postings for usa police listing ~30k yearly salary, which comes to about $15/hr. Probably some new recruits end up in the typical situation of salaried workers and work significnatly more than 40 hours. I bet $100 could seem pretty nice.
        newbie789 5y ago
        > Assuming a 40hr/wk schedule… A lot of police officers work a lot of overtime hours, for example in Oakland one officer averaged a half a million dollars per year. (1) I’m not sure exactly what his hourly wage worked out to, but I’ll agree with the overall sentiment that somebody making that much money would not likely be swayed by $100. 1 https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-average-30-million-a-year-in-overtime-one-officer-racked-up-nearly-2-5m-in-5-years https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-average-30-million-...
        blix 5y ago
- asteroidbelt 5y ago
  The stated goal on the website is good: better accountability. But I’m afraid the proposed solution may lead to doxxing and threatening of police officers and their family members, ie 2021 style mob rule. The correct solution would be more legislation requiring police to disclose whatever it should disclose. The law should define the level of police transparency, not anonymous justice warriors.
- timcambrant 5y ago
  ”Warning: The officer approaching you has a RateOurCops rating of 1.6. Do not make any sudden movements. Use old english language and manners. Attempt to turn caucasian. Good luck.”
  - sparker72678 5y ago
    Good advice for any law enforcement encounter.
  - ignoranceprior 5y ago
    > Use old english language Hwæt, weardmann! Hwæt is sēo ġedrēfednes?
- jonathankoren 5y ago
  It's a political tool to highlight abusive behavior, and thus exert pressure for police reform. However if that is too abstract for you, an individual's legal team could use this tool determine if an arresting officer has a history of abuse and police perjury. I imagine the impetus for this comes from the widespread accounts of cops that have long histories of abusive behavior and evidence tampering being tolerated and indeed covered up by the police. In fact in many states, disciplinary records are secret, and indeed there are moves in several states to make independently documenting abusive police encounters a criminal offense.
  - easterncalculus 5y ago
    > an individual's legal team could use this tool determine if an arresting officer has a history of abuse and police perjury. No self-respecting attorney would ever trust a third-party site with zero verification. You would literally get more accurate information from Twitter or Facebook. > I imagine the impetus for this comes from the widespread accounts of cops that have long histories of abusive behavior and evidence tampering being tolerated and indeed covered up by the police. All of these issues are only going to be correctly handled by legitimate authorities anyways, this site doesn't actually solve anything. Anything posted here can be safely ignored. If anything, this site's layout should just be translated to an official city's website for handling complaints, so that they can spend the money to use it and make it effective.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      > No self-respecting attorney would ever trust a third-party site with zero verification. You would literally get more accurate information from Twitter or Facebook. Of course they wouldn't, but now they have leads they can reach out to and verify. And if they want to give testimony, and the court will hear them, then they can do so under the threat of perjury. > All of these issues are only going to be correctly handled by legitimate authorities anyways, this site doesn't actually solve anything Except this hasn't been the case. There are plenty of examples of abuse of power by law enforcement being brushed under the rug by authorities until the public or their team of lawyers pressured them into doing something about it.
macspoofing 5y ago
This won't have any unintended consequences ... no sir.
- easterncalculus 5y ago
  As if Yelp itself was even a good idea. I can't think of anyone I've met that's gone to anywhere based on positive Yelp reviews, but it takes no time at all to point to small businesses extorted and destroyed by review scammers.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    > I can't think of anyone I've met that's gone to anywhere based on positive Yelp reviews You’re kidding, right? They wouldn’t exist if people didn’t extract value out of them. I certainly have many, many, many times visited or hired businesses because of Yelp, and Aziz Ansari has an entire bit in this. Reviews are a backbone of much online commerce.
    - easterncalculus 5y ago
      As much as you have decided to trust online reviews, Yelp has led to the destruction of good people's livelihoods. It has screwed over tons of people. Of course even if Yelp were perfect or even good, it doesn't matter because this site is nothing like Yelp or RateMyProfessors, because there is no choice involved. It's not like you choose which officers or departments show up to your 911 call. If the police do show up, it's not like you check their RateOurCops score before they get to your door.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - azinman2 5y ago
        I wasn’t reacting to the web page (personally I don’t care for it at all for a wide variety of reasons), but to the comment that positive Yelp reviews don’t drive engagement.
bmarquez 5y ago
> We don't require an account to submit reviews or contribute data to the site. User submissions contain no data that could be used to personally identify the submitter. This is great from a privacy perspective, but how do they prevent false reviews? Yelp collects personal information upon signup and they still have a fake review problem.
- whymauri 5y ago
  As this site stands, could a department run an automated astroturfing operation? Seems... not good.
- jonas21 5y ago
  They also seem to have no privacy policy, nor any way to flag inaccurate content, harassment, etc. Yikes!
  - easterncalculus 5y ago
    Going through all of the work to create the site, and providing two social media accounts and a Discord invite link without setting up privacy, verification, and anti-harassment policies seems like a choice. Creating just about everything but those things seems a lot less like negligence.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      Seems like they want their 10 minutes (or maybe more than 1 month) of fame to spark the conversation of whether or not a site like this is good/legal/would work. If this service doesn't shutter at the first sign of (libel) lawsuit, I would imagine some political interest groups using it as a way of setting a precedent in their favor (on either side).
      - jonas21 5y ago
        That's what I thought at first, but they also have an "Enterprise" page where you can buy their data, so who knows what they're thinking. https://rateourcops.org/enterprise https://rateourcops.org/enterprise
hirundo 5y ago
I admire the courage of the makers of this site, because as a web developer I'd be dissuaded from investing much time on this due to an expectation of high legal costs to defend against libel claims. The police are one of the most politically powerful, protected, and legally savvy groups in the country. Whether the law favors such claims or not is barely relevant to the risk of being destroyed by the cost of defending against such suits. Legislation along the lines of anti-SLAPP laws could help, making the plaintiff pay for a failed action. But the political power of the police makes that unlikely, and if not narrowly tailored would discourage even well founded suits by plaintiffs with shallow pockets.
- perihelions 5y ago
  Forget libel -- in some states, it potentially introduces criminal liability! https://kfor.com/news/oklahoma-legislature/controversial-anti-doxxing-bill-signed-into-oklahoma-law-by-gov-stitt/ https://kfor.com/news/oklahoma-legislature/controversial-ant... [2021] >"Governor Kevin Stitt today signed into law House Bill 1643, a bill that makes it crime to dox, or post personal information, of law enforcement and county officials online." Sure, it's egregiously unconstitutional; but just as you say, I wouldn't want to be the one hiring attorneys. ~~~~~ [late edit]: To defend of my assertion of "egregiously unconsitutional", I'll quote this succinct summary of the enumerated First Amendment exceptions in United States v. Stevens [2010], as summarized in Rynearson v. Ferguson. I can't imagine how any of these could even loosely apply here; please correct my misunderstandings if you are able. (For those Googling things, be warned that Stevens is a very disturbing case). > Over the years, the Supreme Court has enumerated certain “well-defined and narrowly limited’ classes of speech that remain unprotected by the First Amendment. See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-72 (1949). The unprotected speech is limited to, (a) obscenity, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476; (b) defamation, Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 254-255 (1952); (c) fraud, Virginia Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748 (1976); (d) incitement, Brandenbury v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447-49 (1969); (e) true threats, Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969); and (f) speech integral to criminal conduct, Giboney v. Expire Storate & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 498 (1949). Speech that does not fall into these exceptions remains protected. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460 (2010). https://www.eff.org/files/2019/02/22/order_granting_pi.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/2019/02/22/order_granting_pi.pdf Here's a longer (two page PDF) summary of the same, glossing some definitions: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11072 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11072 [.pdf]
coolspot 5y ago
Next step is “rateaperson” a la blackmirror.
- runawaybottle 5y ago
  I suppose you never heard of Instagram or LinkedIn likes.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    I suppose the difference is that you can potentially be off instagram. This is like someone else creating an insta account for you, downvoting it, and then having others judge you based off of that. I guess LinkedIn fits the bill better.
  - whoooooo123 5y ago
    Or Peeple
Ensorceled 5y ago
Not a lot of reviews ... not that I find that surprising, nor the types of reviews that are being left ... > Considering Chicago is the most violent city in America , the police are way too lenient and practice more social justice than they do law enforcement. The scale of punishment vs reward is way off. The revolving door of crime also known as recidivism is out of control. They spend too much money, time, and effort on policing the police than prosecuting forcible felons, including; pedophiles, murderers, and other heinous crimes. Ever since they have gone overboard with watchdog groups over emphasizing everything the police do wrong 1% of the time the crime had skyrocketed. I highly recommend you utilize your tech savvy rating blog to create charts and graphs comparing depolicing, lack of prosecution, and crime. You will find that this marxist agenda tool is the cause of the priblem a d not law enforcement. I therefore give the Chicago Police Deparment 5 stars and Communism no stars. Peace be with you. I pray to Jesus.
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  What do you mean by 'types of reviews'? What 'type' is this?
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    I'd suggest "batshit crazy".
    - LAC-Tech 5y ago
      A lot of people - particularly working class people - would agree with this assessment. Do you genuinely believe they're all "batshit crazy"?
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        I'm certainly not making some sort of general statement about "working class people". The specific review quoted above is batshit crazy. There's nothing "communist" about holding authoritarian public officials to account. The "Red Scare" was like 70 years ago. Chicago isn't even in the top ten of most violent cities. There are more black men in prison right now than were enslaved at any point in our history. We have more people in the prison system than any other nation on earth, in the history of earth. (That is true whether measuring by count or by percentage.) Most of these people were thrown in prison during the last thirty years, a time period over which all crime in USA dropped precipitously. Literally every nation on earth in history has been more merciful than USA is right now. I'm not sure why you would consider an unhinged stream of emotional bullshit to have anything to do with "working class".
easterncalculus 5y ago
This is not Yelp for Cops, or RateMyProfessors, that is just a false comparison to justify what is almost definitely going to turn into a harassment and doxxing platform. Yelp and online business review sites provide value on the basis that you can make educated choices, but there is no choice involved with police. You don't get to pick and choose which officers or departments are coming, and if someone calls the police on you you're not not going to be have the time or knowledge of who's being sent to search on RateOurCops before they get there. It's a fallacy.
- leesalminen 5y ago
  You can certainly choose where to live and travel though based on these reviews.
  - easterncalculus 5y ago
    You can certainly also make that choice based on information from legitimate channels. People in LA don't need to have input on police departments that they'll never run into.
    - jonathankoren 5y ago
      You do realize that cops -- especially bad cops -- change departments all the time. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/16/what-happens-when-police-officer-gets-fired-very-often-another-police-agency-hires-them/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/16/what-happ...
      - easterncalculus 5y ago
        I'm very aware of this practice, but once again it doesn't justify this website. It needs to be handled by the city in question. They can write their own policies and have autonomy, instead of everything coming down to online hearsay.
        5y ago
arionhardison 5y ago
I made something like this a while ago (CopScore), not only were there serious issues with it but it was also very ineffective. This can ONLY be done by the gov in an official capacity. Link: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/crowdsource-police-reviews-transparency https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/crowdsource-police-reviews-...
- cwkoss 5y ago
  > This can ONLY be done by the gov in an official capacity. What should citizens do when the government and official capacities are completely failing to hold police accountable? In Seattle our Office of Police Accountability is a blind rubber stamping agency that our OIG recently reprimanded for their abysmal failures in investigating an incident with a lot of public intention. https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/30/oig-memo-reveals-serious-deficiencies-in-opa-protest-investigation-that-cannot-be-remedied/ https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/30/oig-memo-reveals-...
  - gogopuppygogo 5y ago
    Run for office. You live in a democracy.
  - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
    Where does this learned helplessness come from? You can run for city council in Seattle. Or fund the candidates that you like. This is what citizens can do.
    - cwkoss 5y ago
      I think expecting citizens to pay if they want their government to be accountable may be at the root of this problem... (For the record, I do fund the 3 city council members who are toughest on police accountability. And our city council is moving in the right direction on police accountability - the mayor is the biggest obstacle)
      - 5y ago
rubatuga 5y ago
I'm sorry, but this is not the way to enforce "good cops". You need to focus more on local surroundings that represent smaller communities, where reputation and social interactions matter. The internet is an amplification in both good and bad ways, but a large centralized way to enforce "good cops" is ripe for disaster. We need to develop tools to help stabilize small-scale communities, not cause schisms. In turn, these tools can be considered a form of public infrastructure. Maybe open-source the code so that local communities could run such a website?
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  Store owners sometimes advertise their bad yelp reviews as a point of pride, just to show how unseriously they take those reviews: https://www.boredpanda.com/yelp-one-star-review-owner-comeback-choosing-beggars/?utm_source=duckduckgo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=organic https://www.boredpanda.com/yelp-one-star-review-owner-comeba...
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
    Yep, a trendy restaurant in my city hired voice actors to read some of their most ridiculous bad Yelp reviews, and played the recording on loop in the bathrooms.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Wow, that sounds obnoxious
- dheera 5y ago
  Most local communities aren't going to do that.
  - danielheath 5y ago
    Saying that in reply to “We need to develop tools to help stabilize small-scale communities” reads to me like you are furiously agreeing with the underlying principle, while ignoring the substance of the argument. Most local communities are not going to do that for reasons largely due to macro policies (which have positive effects too; eg labor mobility is harmful to local communities but well worth the cost).
cwkoss 5y ago
Awesome project. Will you be adding Seattle anytime soon? Would love this for our area - we've got plenty of problematic cops up here.
- Roco_ 5y ago
  Thank you! Seattle PD has just been added by someone https://rateourcops.org/agencies/2955 https://rateourcops.org/agencies/2955
xupybd 5y ago
If a cop is doing their job what percentage of their interactions with the public would be positive for the person they are interacting with? I understand the problem this site is trying to address but I'm not sure this is the correct metric.
golemiprague 5y ago
They should make also RateOurCriminal just for balance, or maybe RateOurCitizen like they do in China to some extent but in a less blatant way. This idea is more of a political agenda than an honest attempt to improve policing. police service is not like a commercial transaction where both sides can choose who they deal with and both sides have an interest for the interaction to be successful.
wydfre 5y ago
Where can I rank them for protecting people from Japanese mind control? Something like "Seargent Smith seems quite competent: he told me that I had Japanese cloned consciousnesses in my head and that it was terminal - 4/5 stars". Or "Detective Samantha of NJU lacked imagination and just thought I was screwed in the head, self-incriminating and wanted attention when I clearly wanted someone to 'clean house' again in my head - 2/5 stars" Or "Officer Breen seemed to despise me, as he took notes on his Panasonic Toughbook without an ounce of thought - 3/5 stars". Or "Did an obese redditor just upset the Japanese empire again?"
- yeahr4579 5y ago
  For the life of me I don’t understand what your saying. Is this an inside joke I’m not getting?
caiob 5y ago
Make it available for Canadian provinces too.
throwawaysea 5y ago
This seems like an unnecessary service that is largely built off the unhinged fervor of dedicated activists. Cops are not bad people, by and large. They have been unfairly demonized this last year and in some past years, based off lone anecdotal examples. Remember, the police in America literally have hundreds of millions of interactions with citizens each year. There are very very few incidents of bad or unjust policing as a percentage of those interactions. In fact, I would argue the system is closer to being perfect than it is to being broken. So what's the actual utility of this service? Those who have good experiences with cops will ignore it and not use it, while a small number of vocal and dedicated persons with an axe to grind may use it. At best, it will provide a biased perspective and open up avenues of abuse.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > Cops are not bad people, by and large. That may be true, but I can't help imagining a good cop seeing this and saying "Hey, that's not fair, you're watching us all the time, collecting all this information in a permanent record, just waiting to portray something innocent in a negative light and requiring us to clear our names." to which the response of the average citizens should be, "Right, now do you see why mass surveillance is bad?"
rossdavidh 5y ago
"Like Yelp..." You know, they may turn out to be more correct than they intended...
mancerayder 5y ago
Yelp? Yelp rates things like service quality, food quality, and whether your roofer did a good job. I'm not so certain people will leave glowing positive reviews, or 4-star reviews of cops. "Fantastic service, the interior of the back of the car could have been more clean, I wish I could give this 3.5 stars." Or, "Gave me directions when I was lost near 9th ave, looking the M&M store. Thanks! 5 stars." But most likely, "Was rude, yelled at me, and then pushed me up against the wall. 1 star" This idea is ridiculous. If you want a platform for civilian review, that does exist in some cities. Because, and this evidenced by some of the "how brave" comments below, this is really intended to punish bad cops and call them out. Calling this a Yelp is dishonest. If you want to be honest call it like it is, a complaint area. In some cities there's a civilian review board, and there's a special section of the DA for investigating bad behavior and illegal behavior. The role of the cop is to enforce laws. Will this idea make them more accountable to those things, or does it exist to create mayhem using technology and an online platform for doxxing? That's not a rhetorical question - it's an honest question and I'm curious what people believe.
- colecut 5y ago
  I guess the case that you are making is that police generally provide much worse service than restaurants
  - mancerayder 5y ago
    If you calculate the odds, the odds that an interaction with the police is a desired one is fairly low. You're either getting stopped / questioned / arrested / whatevered by the police when you're suspected of a crime. Or, something terrible happen and you're reporting a crime. The only 5 star experience is the tourist asking for directions, and even that is stretching it. A restaurant provides a service in exchange for a payment. A police officer is taught to uphold the law, and interactions with the citizenry isn't like a hotelier interacting with a guest after a flight. I'm not justifying anything the police do, or excusing anything. The case I'm making is that the metaphor of Yelp and service are just wrong. In the U.S., at least. And certainly in big cities. It's no picnic being on either side of the police-citizen interaction.
dntrkv 5y ago
Would love to see the reaction from everyone here with an equivalent: RateOurEngineers.com John - Dicks around on HackerNews all day and doesn't get any work done. 1/5 stars, would not hire.
- heartbreak 5y ago
  You’re right. What we really need is GitHub for cops. Let’s see their “contributions.” Court records are almost always open. I’d like to see for any given cop, every case in which they were the arresting officer in an easily searchable format. Even better if it exposes suspect demographic information and charges.
WoahNoun 5y ago
Oh this is easy. Just rate ACAB. Anyone willing to actively participate in a racist and unjust system like American policing certainly deserves the ACAB badge.
black_13 5y ago
This is more information will make more freedom fallacy. Technology doesn’t solve bad ideas and bad philosophy.
VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
Interesting idea but this is very likely to be sued out of existence very quickly. And depending on the nature of the anonymous comments left on specific officers' records, the operators of the website could very easily be criminally prosecuted.
- Roco_ 5y ago
  n
  - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
    no it wouldn't.
  - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
    Just to clarify. You need to have legal counsel right now. You can't wait until you've been served. At that point it will be too late.
sbussard 5y ago
There are way too many misuse cases for this product. For example - someone who wants to convert good cops into bad cops could use a system like this to target good cops.
ListenLinda 5y ago
The current model will not work. No way to fact check reviews, no way to prevent spam. Amazon has the same problem with their public reviews.
OminousWeapons 5y ago
I see what this is trying to do, but I'm not sure what the creators think this is going to achieve. Many if not most police interactions are going to leave someone unhappy; it is the nature of policing. Either an innocent party is confronted, a criminal is caught, or a victim does not receive justice. As we know, unhappy people are more likely to leave a review than happy ones, so if this site is actually used by people, most cops regardless of behavior will end up with poor ratings. There will also inevitably be heavy brigading whenever there is a controversy. As these ratings have no bearing on whether police keep their jobs, whether a civilian interacts with a given cop, whether a given cop is promoted, or anything else, all this really does is serve as a platform to shit talk the police. Now, there are definitely some police who deserve to be called out for inappropriate behavior, but doing it on the internet really won't do any good.
- claymav 5y ago
  Yeah, another issue I see with this is if people think this has any kind of sway with the police or their departments, they will be less likely to report bad police behavior to police departments. Really, if you want to increase accountability (without policy), advertising heavy usage of police department reporting mechanisms is the best you can do (and it ain’t much).
- scotuswroteus 5y ago
  I see what this comment is trying to do, but I'm not sure what the author thinks this comment is going to achieve. Many if not most hacker news links are going to leave someone unhappy; it is the nature of hacker news. Either a navel gazing techie is confronted, or a victim of tech myopia does not receive justice. As we know, unhappy people are more likely to leave a comment than happy ones, so if this comment is actually read by people, most people who read it, regardless of their IQ, will just dismiss it as written by someone who probably doesn't care about police accountability in any form. As this comment will have no bearing on whether the website will have its intended effect, whether anyone uses the website, whether public records of negative interactions will spur reform, or anything else, all this comment really does is serve as a platform to shit talk the website. Now, there are definitely some websites that deserve to be called out for not achieving the effect of full scale, immediate nationwide police reform, but commenting about it on Hacker News really won't do any good.
brailsafe 5y ago
I really don't want anyone to be rated publicly on the internet. I've good and bad interactions with cops, but all something like this would do is accumulate latent negative experiences probably until all cops have some. This is furthered by apparent social pressure to publicly deride cops in general, and I'd wager that even someone who's had good experiences with cops is much more likely to only publicly describe a bad experience. People don't only exist at one point in time, neither do interactions. I witnessed a woman start filming and getting in the officers faces long after it was evident that the person obviously needed to be taken out of the space. Maybe she posted it to her Instagram. Nobody's going to challenge that, even though she was more likely just trying to draw attention to herself and getting in the way.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  I bet the number of bad reviews would be correlated with bad cops though. Won't be perfect, but this seems worth trying.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    Idk, public shaming just seems like a shit way to run our world. It's hard to redeem yourself if some website has a negative description of you in writing. What recourse do you have, other than granting a company the ability to play arbiter in social disputes like this. Fuck that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bredren 5y ago
I’d like to see this done for landlords.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

245 points by Roco_ 5y ago

This website is golden, but there are some issues with fake reviews. For example, the top review of the Chicago Department [0] seems to be from someone very disgruntled at the idea of people sharing their opinions online. [0] https://rateourcops.org/agencies/1425 https://rateourcops.org/agencies/1425

aliasEli 5y ago

This site would definitely be illegal in the EU. GDPR certainly prohibits showing details like phone or email info. I can understand that people want to hold police accountable for their actions but I don't think this is the way to do it.

tyingq 5y ago
I don't know to what degree they are reviewing info, but the officer listings I saw were just office email and office phone. I can't imagine that's illegal in the EU.
- rOOb85 5y ago
  Same thing for the officers I checked. All emails/phones were publicly listed on their own agencies websites.

haroldp 5y ago

What is the point of this if it omits the step where you can choose not to use someone's services if you don't like their rating?

tyingq 5y ago
It sets up the launch of the companion site where you buy improved service.
- haroldp 5y ago
  My city has a monopoly contract with one provider. I don't get to choose.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    Oh, no, not like that. It helps you understand when you might need to let a $100 fall out of your wallet when you're pulled over.
    - haroldp 5y ago
      What's $100 to a dude making over $100 per hour?
      - blix 5y ago
        Assuming a 40hr/wk schedule, the average salary for police officers in the usa ($70k) works out to about $33/hr with about half making less (likely more depending on the skew in the distribution). There are job postings for usa police listing ~30k yearly salary, which comes to about $15/hr. Probably some new recruits end up in the typical situation of salaried workers and work significnatly more than 40 hours. I bet $100 could seem pretty nice.
        newbie789 5y ago
        > Assuming a 40hr/wk schedule… A lot of police officers work a lot of overtime hours, for example in Oakland one officer averaged a half a million dollars per year. (1) I’m not sure exactly what his hourly wage worked out to, but I’ll agree with the overall sentiment that somebody making that much money would not likely be swayed by $100. 1 https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-average-30-million-a-year-in-overtime-one-officer-racked-up-nearly-2-5m-in-5-years https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-average-30-million-...
        blix 5y ago
asteroidbelt 5y ago
The stated goal on the website is good: better accountability. But I’m afraid the proposed solution may lead to doxxing and threatening of police officers and their family members, ie 2021 style mob rule. The correct solution would be more legislation requiring police to disclose whatever it should disclose. The law should define the level of police transparency, not anonymous justice warriors.
timcambrant 5y ago
”Warning: The officer approaching you has a RateOurCops rating of 1.6. Do not make any sudden movements. Use old english language and manners. Attempt to turn caucasian. Good luck.”
- sparker72678 5y ago
  Good advice for any law enforcement encounter.
- ignoranceprior 5y ago
  > Use old english language Hwæt, weardmann! Hwæt is sēo ġedrēfednes?
jonathankoren 5y ago
It's a political tool to highlight abusive behavior, and thus exert pressure for police reform. However if that is too abstract for you, an individual's legal team could use this tool determine if an arresting officer has a history of abuse and police perjury. I imagine the impetus for this comes from the widespread accounts of cops that have long histories of abusive behavior and evidence tampering being tolerated and indeed covered up by the police. In fact in many states, disciplinary records are secret, and indeed there are moves in several states to make independently documenting abusive police encounters a criminal offense.
- easterncalculus 5y ago
  > an individual's legal team could use this tool determine if an arresting officer has a history of abuse and police perjury. No self-respecting attorney would ever trust a third-party site with zero verification. You would literally get more accurate information from Twitter or Facebook. > I imagine the impetus for this comes from the widespread accounts of cops that have long histories of abusive behavior and evidence tampering being tolerated and indeed covered up by the police. All of these issues are only going to be correctly handled by legitimate authorities anyways, this site doesn't actually solve anything. Anything posted here can be safely ignored. If anything, this site's layout should just be translated to an official city's website for handling complaints, so that they can spend the money to use it and make it effective.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > No self-respecting attorney would ever trust a third-party site with zero verification. You would literally get more accurate information from Twitter or Facebook. Of course they wouldn't, but now they have leads they can reach out to and verify. And if they want to give testimony, and the court will hear them, then they can do so under the threat of perjury. > All of these issues are only going to be correctly handled by legitimate authorities anyways, this site doesn't actually solve anything Except this hasn't been the case. There are plenty of examples of abuse of power by law enforcement being brushed under the rug by authorities until the public or their team of lawyers pressured them into doing something about it.

macspoofing 5y ago

This won't have any unintended consequences ... no sir.

easterncalculus 5y ago
As if Yelp itself was even a good idea. I can't think of anyone I've met that's gone to anywhere based on positive Yelp reviews, but it takes no time at all to point to small businesses extorted and destroyed by review scammers.
- azinman2 5y ago
  > I can't think of anyone I've met that's gone to anywhere based on positive Yelp reviews You’re kidding, right? They wouldn’t exist if people didn’t extract value out of them. I certainly have many, many, many times visited or hired businesses because of Yelp, and Aziz Ansari has an entire bit in this. Reviews are a backbone of much online commerce.
  - easterncalculus 5y ago
    As much as you have decided to trust online reviews, Yelp has led to the destruction of good people's livelihoods. It has screwed over tons of people. Of course even if Yelp were perfect or even good, it doesn't matter because this site is nothing like Yelp or RateMyProfessors, because there is no choice involved. It's not like you choose which officers or departments show up to your 911 call. If the police do show up, it's not like you check their RateOurCops score before they get to your door.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - azinman2 5y ago
      I wasn’t reacting to the web page (personally I don’t care for it at all for a wide variety of reasons), but to the comment that positive Yelp reviews don’t drive engagement.

bmarquez 5y ago

> We don't require an account to submit reviews or contribute data to the site. User submissions contain no data that could be used to personally identify the submitter. This is great from a privacy perspective, but how do they prevent false reviews? Yelp collects personal information upon signup and they still have a fake review problem.

whymauri 5y ago
As this site stands, could a department run an automated astroturfing operation? Seems... not good.
jonas21 5y ago
They also seem to have no privacy policy, nor any way to flag inaccurate content, harassment, etc. Yikes!
- easterncalculus 5y ago
  Going through all of the work to create the site, and providing two social media accounts and a Discord invite link without setting up privacy, verification, and anti-harassment policies seems like a choice. Creating just about everything but those things seems a lot less like negligence.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    Seems like they want their 10 minutes (or maybe more than 1 month) of fame to spark the conversation of whether or not a site like this is good/legal/would work. If this service doesn't shutter at the first sign of (libel) lawsuit, I would imagine some political interest groups using it as a way of setting a precedent in their favor (on either side).
    - jonas21 5y ago
      That's what I thought at first, but they also have an "Enterprise" page where you can buy their data, so who knows what they're thinking. https://rateourcops.org/enterprise https://rateourcops.org/enterprise

hirundo 5y ago

I admire the courage of the makers of this site, because as a web developer I'd be dissuaded from investing much time on this due to an expectation of high legal costs to defend against libel claims. The police are one of the most politically powerful, protected, and legally savvy groups in the country. Whether the law favors such claims or not is barely relevant to the risk of being destroyed by the cost of defending against such suits. Legislation along the lines of anti-SLAPP laws could help, making the plaintiff pay for a failed action. But the political power of the police makes that unlikely, and if not narrowly tailored would discourage even well founded suits by plaintiffs with shallow pockets.

perihelions 5y ago
Forget libel -- in some states, it potentially introduces criminal liability! https://kfor.com/news/oklahoma-legislature/controversial-anti-doxxing-bill-signed-into-oklahoma-law-by-gov-stitt/ https://kfor.com/news/oklahoma-legislature/controversial-ant... [2021] >"Governor Kevin Stitt today signed into law House Bill 1643, a bill that makes it crime to dox, or post personal information, of law enforcement and county officials online." Sure, it's egregiously unconstitutional; but just as you say, I wouldn't want to be the one hiring attorneys. ~~~~~ [late edit]: To defend of my assertion of "egregiously unconsitutional", I'll quote this succinct summary of the enumerated First Amendment exceptions in United States v. Stevens [2010], as summarized in Rynearson v. Ferguson. I can't imagine how any of these could even loosely apply here; please correct my misunderstandings if you are able. (For those Googling things, be warned that Stevens is a very disturbing case). > Over the years, the Supreme Court has enumerated certain “well-defined and narrowly limited’ classes of speech that remain unprotected by the First Amendment. See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-72 (1949). The unprotected speech is limited to, (a) obscenity, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476; (b) defamation, Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 254-255 (1952); (c) fraud, Virginia Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748 (1976); (d) incitement, Brandenbury v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447-49 (1969); (e) true threats, Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969); and (f) speech integral to criminal conduct, Giboney v. Expire Storate & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 498 (1949). Speech that does not fall into these exceptions remains protected. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460 (2010). https://www.eff.org/files/2019/02/22/order_granting_pi.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/2019/02/22/order_granting_pi.pdf Here's a longer (two page PDF) summary of the same, glossing some definitions: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11072 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11072 [.pdf]

coolspot 5y ago

Next step is “rateaperson” a la blackmirror.

runawaybottle 5y ago
I suppose you never heard of Instagram or LinkedIn likes.
- iammisc 5y ago
  I suppose the difference is that you can potentially be off instagram. This is like someone else creating an insta account for you, downvoting it, and then having others judge you based off of that. I guess LinkedIn fits the bill better.
- whoooooo123 5y ago
  Or Peeple

Ensorceled 5y ago

Not a lot of reviews ... not that I find that surprising, nor the types of reviews that are being left ... > Considering Chicago is the most violent city in America , the police are way too lenient and practice more social justice than they do law enforcement. The scale of punishment vs reward is way off. The revolving door of crime also known as recidivism is out of control. They spend too much money, time, and effort on policing the police than prosecuting forcible felons, including; pedophiles, murderers, and other heinous crimes. Ever since they have gone overboard with watchdog groups over emphasizing everything the police do wrong 1% of the time the crime had skyrocketed. I highly recommend you utilize your tech savvy rating blog to create charts and graphs comparing depolicing, lack of prosecution, and crime. You will find that this marxist agenda tool is the cause of the priblem a d not law enforcement. I therefore give the Chicago Police Deparment 5 stars and Communism no stars. Peace be with you. I pray to Jesus.

LAC-Tech 5y ago
What do you mean by 'types of reviews'? What 'type' is this?
- jessaustin 5y ago
  I'd suggest "batshit crazy".
  - LAC-Tech 5y ago
    A lot of people - particularly working class people - would agree with this assessment. Do you genuinely believe they're all "batshit crazy"?
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      I'm certainly not making some sort of general statement about "working class people". The specific review quoted above is batshit crazy. There's nothing "communist" about holding authoritarian public officials to account. The "Red Scare" was like 70 years ago. Chicago isn't even in the top ten of most violent cities. There are more black men in prison right now than were enslaved at any point in our history. We have more people in the prison system than any other nation on earth, in the history of earth. (That is true whether measuring by count or by percentage.) Most of these people were thrown in prison during the last thirty years, a time period over which all crime in USA dropped precipitously. Literally every nation on earth in history has been more merciful than USA is right now. I'm not sure why you would consider an unhinged stream of emotional bullshit to have anything to do with "working class".

easterncalculus 5y ago

This is not Yelp for Cops, or RateMyProfessors, that is just a false comparison to justify what is almost definitely going to turn into a harassment and doxxing platform. Yelp and online business review sites provide value on the basis that you can make educated choices, but there is no choice involved with police. You don't get to pick and choose which officers or departments are coming, and if someone calls the police on you you're not not going to be have the time or knowledge of who's being sent to search on RateOurCops before they get there. It's a fallacy.

leesalminen 5y ago
You can certainly choose where to live and travel though based on these reviews.
- easterncalculus 5y ago
  You can certainly also make that choice based on information from legitimate channels. People in LA don't need to have input on police departments that they'll never run into.
  - jonathankoren 5y ago
    You do realize that cops -- especially bad cops -- change departments all the time. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/16/what-happens-when-police-officer-gets-fired-very-often-another-police-agency-hires-them/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/16/what-happ...
    - easterncalculus 5y ago
      I'm very aware of this practice, but once again it doesn't justify this website. It needs to be handled by the city in question. They can write their own policies and have autonomy, instead of everything coming down to online hearsay.
      - 5y ago

arionhardison 5y ago

I made something like this a while ago (CopScore), not only were there serious issues with it but it was also very ineffective. This can ONLY be done by the gov in an official capacity. Link: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/crowdsource-police-reviews-transparency https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/crowdsource-police-reviews-...

cwkoss 5y ago
> This can ONLY be done by the gov in an official capacity. What should citizens do when the government and official capacities are completely failing to hold police accountable? In Seattle our Office of Police Accountability is a blind rubber stamping agency that our OIG recently reprimanded for their abysmal failures in investigating an incident with a lot of public intention. https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/30/oig-memo-reveals-serious-deficiencies-in-opa-protest-investigation-that-cannot-be-remedied/ https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/30/oig-memo-reveals-...
- gogopuppygogo 5y ago
  Run for office. You live in a democracy.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  Where does this learned helplessness come from? You can run for city council in Seattle. Or fund the candidates that you like. This is what citizens can do.
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    I think expecting citizens to pay if they want their government to be accountable may be at the root of this problem... (For the record, I do fund the 3 city council members who are toughest on police accountability. And our city council is moving in the right direction on police accountability - the mayor is the biggest obstacle)
    - 5y ago

rubatuga 5y ago

I'm sorry, but this is not the way to enforce "good cops". You need to focus more on local surroundings that represent smaller communities, where reputation and social interactions matter. The internet is an amplification in both good and bad ways, but a large centralized way to enforce "good cops" is ripe for disaster. We need to develop tools to help stabilize small-scale communities, not cause schisms. In turn, these tools can be considered a form of public infrastructure. Maybe open-source the code so that local communities could run such a website?

commandlinefan 5y ago
Store owners sometimes advertise their bad yelp reviews as a point of pride, just to show how unseriously they take those reviews: https://www.boredpanda.com/yelp-one-star-review-owner-comeback-choosing-beggars/?utm_source=duckduckgo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=organic https://www.boredpanda.com/yelp-one-star-review-owner-comeba...
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  Yep, a trendy restaurant in my city hired voice actors to read some of their most ridiculous bad Yelp reviews, and played the recording on loop in the bathrooms.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Wow, that sounds obnoxious
dheera 5y ago
Most local communities aren't going to do that.
- danielheath 5y ago
  Saying that in reply to “We need to develop tools to help stabilize small-scale communities” reads to me like you are furiously agreeing with the underlying principle, while ignoring the substance of the argument. Most local communities are not going to do that for reasons largely due to macro policies (which have positive effects too; eg labor mobility is harmful to local communities but well worth the cost).

cwkoss 5y ago

Awesome project. Will you be adding Seattle anytime soon? Would love this for our area - we've got plenty of problematic cops up here.

Roco_ 5y ago
Thank you! Seattle PD has just been added by someone https://rateourcops.org/agencies/2955 https://rateourcops.org/agencies/2955

xupybd 5y ago

If a cop is doing their job what percentage of their interactions with the public would be positive for the person they are interacting with? I understand the problem this site is trying to address but I'm not sure this is the correct metric.

golemiprague 5y ago

They should make also RateOurCriminal just for balance, or maybe RateOurCitizen like they do in China to some extent but in a less blatant way. This idea is more of a political agenda than an honest attempt to improve policing. police service is not like a commercial transaction where both sides can choose who they deal with and both sides have an interest for the interaction to be successful.

wydfre 5y ago

Where can I rank them for protecting people from Japanese mind control? Something like "Seargent Smith seems quite competent: he told me that I had Japanese cloned consciousnesses in my head and that it was terminal - 4/5 stars". Or "Detective Samantha of NJU lacked imagination and just thought I was screwed in the head, self-incriminating and wanted attention when I clearly wanted someone to 'clean house' again in my head - 2/5 stars" Or "Officer Breen seemed to despise me, as he took notes on his Panasonic Toughbook without an ounce of thought - 3/5 stars". Or "Did an obese redditor just upset the Japanese empire again?"

yeahr4579 5y ago
For the life of me I don’t understand what your saying. Is this an inside joke I’m not getting?

caiob 5y ago

Make it available for Canadian provinces too.

throwawaysea 5y ago

This seems like an unnecessary service that is largely built off the unhinged fervor of dedicated activists. Cops are not bad people, by and large. They have been unfairly demonized this last year and in some past years, based off lone anecdotal examples. Remember, the police in America literally have hundreds of millions of interactions with citizens each year. There are very very few incidents of bad or unjust policing as a percentage of those interactions. In fact, I would argue the system is closer to being perfect than it is to being broken. So what's the actual utility of this service? Those who have good experiences with cops will ignore it and not use it, while a small number of vocal and dedicated persons with an axe to grind may use it. At best, it will provide a biased perspective and open up avenues of abuse.

dane-pgp 5y ago
> Cops are not bad people, by and large. That may be true, but I can't help imagining a good cop seeing this and saying "Hey, that's not fair, you're watching us all the time, collecting all this information in a permanent record, just waiting to portray something innocent in a negative light and requiring us to clear our names." to which the response of the average citizens should be, "Right, now do you see why mass surveillance is bad?"

rossdavidh 5y ago

"Like Yelp..." You know, they may turn out to be more correct than they intended...

mancerayder 5y ago

Yelp? Yelp rates things like service quality, food quality, and whether your roofer did a good job. I'm not so certain people will leave glowing positive reviews, or 4-star reviews of cops. "Fantastic service, the interior of the back of the car could have been more clean, I wish I could give this 3.5 stars." Or, "Gave me directions when I was lost near 9th ave, looking the M&M store. Thanks! 5 stars." But most likely, "Was rude, yelled at me, and then pushed me up against the wall. 1 star" This idea is ridiculous. If you want a platform for civilian review, that does exist in some cities. Because, and this evidenced by some of the "how brave" comments below, this is really intended to punish bad cops and call them out. Calling this a Yelp is dishonest. If you want to be honest call it like it is, a complaint area. In some cities there's a civilian review board, and there's a special section of the DA for investigating bad behavior and illegal behavior. The role of the cop is to enforce laws. Will this idea make them more accountable to those things, or does it exist to create mayhem using technology and an online platform for doxxing? That's not a rhetorical question - it's an honest question and I'm curious what people believe.

colecut 5y ago
I guess the case that you are making is that police generally provide much worse service than restaurants
- mancerayder 5y ago
  If you calculate the odds, the odds that an interaction with the police is a desired one is fairly low. You're either getting stopped / questioned / arrested / whatevered by the police when you're suspected of a crime. Or, something terrible happen and you're reporting a crime. The only 5 star experience is the tourist asking for directions, and even that is stretching it. A restaurant provides a service in exchange for a payment. A police officer is taught to uphold the law, and interactions with the citizenry isn't like a hotelier interacting with a guest after a flight. I'm not justifying anything the police do, or excusing anything. The case I'm making is that the metaphor of Yelp and service are just wrong. In the U.S., at least. And certainly in big cities. It's no picnic being on either side of the police-citizen interaction.

dntrkv 5y ago

Would love to see the reaction from everyone here with an equivalent: RateOurEngineers.com John - Dicks around on HackerNews all day and doesn't get any work done. 1/5 stars, would not hire.

heartbreak 5y ago
You’re right. What we really need is GitHub for cops. Let’s see their “contributions.” Court records are almost always open. I’d like to see for any given cop, every case in which they were the arresting officer in an easily searchable format. Even better if it exposes suspect demographic information and charges.

WoahNoun 5y ago

Oh this is easy. Just rate ACAB. Anyone willing to actively participate in a racist and unjust system like American policing certainly deserves the ACAB badge.

black_13 5y ago

This is more information will make more freedom fallacy. Technology doesn’t solve bad ideas and bad philosophy.

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago

Interesting idea but this is very likely to be sued out of existence very quickly. And depending on the nature of the anonymous comments left on specific officers' records, the operators of the website could very easily be criminally prosecuted.

Roco_ 5y ago
n
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  no it wouldn't.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  Just to clarify. You need to have legal counsel right now. You can't wait until you've been served. At that point it will be too late.

sbussard 5y ago

There are way too many misuse cases for this product. For example - someone who wants to convert good cops into bad cops could use a system like this to target good cops.

ListenLinda 5y ago

The current model will not work. No way to fact check reviews, no way to prevent spam. Amazon has the same problem with their public reviews.

OminousWeapons 5y ago

I see what this is trying to do, but I'm not sure what the creators think this is going to achieve. Many if not most police interactions are going to leave someone unhappy; it is the nature of policing. Either an innocent party is confronted, a criminal is caught, or a victim does not receive justice. As we know, unhappy people are more likely to leave a review than happy ones, so if this site is actually used by people, most cops regardless of behavior will end up with poor ratings. There will also inevitably be heavy brigading whenever there is a controversy. As these ratings have no bearing on whether police keep their jobs, whether a civilian interacts with a given cop, whether a given cop is promoted, or anything else, all this really does is serve as a platform to shit talk the police. Now, there are definitely some police who deserve to be called out for inappropriate behavior, but doing it on the internet really won't do any good.

claymav 5y ago
Yeah, another issue I see with this is if people think this has any kind of sway with the police or their departments, they will be less likely to report bad police behavior to police departments. Really, if you want to increase accountability (without policy), advertising heavy usage of police department reporting mechanisms is the best you can do (and it ain’t much).
scotuswroteus 5y ago
I see what this comment is trying to do, but I'm not sure what the author thinks this comment is going to achieve. Many if not most hacker news links are going to leave someone unhappy; it is the nature of hacker news. Either a navel gazing techie is confronted, or a victim of tech myopia does not receive justice. As we know, unhappy people are more likely to leave a comment than happy ones, so if this comment is actually read by people, most people who read it, regardless of their IQ, will just dismiss it as written by someone who probably doesn't care about police accountability in any form. As this comment will have no bearing on whether the website will have its intended effect, whether anyone uses the website, whether public records of negative interactions will spur reform, or anything else, all this comment really does is serve as a platform to shit talk the website. Now, there are definitely some websites that deserve to be called out for not achieving the effect of full scale, immediate nationwide police reform, but commenting about it on Hacker News really won't do any good.

brailsafe 5y ago

I really don't want anyone to be rated publicly on the internet. I've good and bad interactions with cops, but all something like this would do is accumulate latent negative experiences probably until all cops have some. This is furthered by apparent social pressure to publicly deride cops in general, and I'd wager that even someone who's had good experiences with cops is much more likely to only publicly describe a bad experience. People don't only exist at one point in time, neither do interactions. I witnessed a woman start filming and getting in the officers faces long after it was evident that the person obviously needed to be taken out of the space. Maybe she posted it to her Instagram. Nobody's going to challenge that, even though she was more likely just trying to draw attention to herself and getting in the way.

cwkoss 5y ago
I bet the number of bad reviews would be correlated with bad cops though. Won't be perfect, but this seems worth trying.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  Idk, public shaming just seems like a shit way to run our world. It's hard to redeem yourself if some website has a negative description of you in writing. What recourse do you have, other than granting a company the ability to play arbiter in social disputes like this. Fuck that.

deleted 5y ago

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bredren 5y ago

I’d like to see this done for landlords.

deleted 5y ago

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