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> If you watch pretty much any video upload to social media about officers harassing citizens you'll see intimidation by the threat of violence and from actual
by parineum 5y ago
> If you watch pretty much any video upload to social media about officers harassing citizens you'll see intimidation by the threat of violence and from actual violence
Everyone knows it happens. The claim that needs citation is that it is "widespread", happens "often" and "regularly". What that claim really needs is more specificity on what those words mean.
> The article is literally about the Police's failure to comply and submit documentation of all uses-of-force. In the vacuum of any official documentation, the only thing we have to go by are citizen reports.
Has someone compiled those citizen reports into a database?
The proportion of what media dedicates time to (this includes social media) is not proportional to how often those things happen. In fact, it's often the opposite. Sensational, rare and objectionable things get disproportionate coverage.
The topic database needs to exist. Instead of shutting it down for lack of compliance, it needs consequences or incentives attached to produce the desired behavior.
As it is now, there's literally nothing to gain for the police to voluntarily report these incidents. It can only hurt them. It'd be like asking you to publish how often and how much you drink alcohol and offering no incentive or consequences. Why would you do that? It'd only invite scrutiny.
- cptskippy 5y ago> The proportion of what media dedicates time to (this includes social media) is not proportional to how often those things happen. In fact, it's often the opposite. Sensational, rare and objectionable things get disproportionate coverage. That's historically been the case when it comes to mainstream media and often used to dismiss claims of excessive force by police as exceptional. However with social media we can see that it's not an isolate or exceptional thing but rather a common every day occurrence. Though I've never been arrested or accosted by the police, I have been on the receiving end of their abuse of power many times in my life. I know first hand that the police and legal system abuse their power to penalize individuals who do not offer full compliance and blindly accept their asserted authority.
- rednerrus 5y agoThis is the definition of anecdotal evidence.
- syki 5y agoIn the face of anecdotal evidence to support an assertion you don’t believe what do you do? Do you provide evidence that the anecdotes are inconsequential? Do you do your own research and look up studies by criminologists and others? Or do you just say “show me the evidence”? Isn’t it worth at least a little bit of effort to see if there is a policing problem? https://www.law.virginia.edu/system/files/faculty/hein/armacost/72geo_wash_l_rev453_2004.pdf https://www.law.virginia.edu/system/files/faculty/hein/armac...
- cptskippy 5y agoYes, my anecdotal experiences have biased me. And based on the abundance of reports on social media and the repeated failure by law enforcement to report on or provide any evidence to the contrary, I'm inclined to believe my experiences aren't isolated and that the experiences on social media aren't isolated but rather the tip of the iceberg.
- rednerrus 5y agoDoes this apply to people who use the same logic for things like not getting the vaccine?
- parineum 5y ago> However with social media we can see that it's not an isolate or exceptional thing but rather a common every day occurrence. I don't see that we can call it a "common, every day occurrence". We have no idea if it's common, that's what the database was/is for. Because of the amount of interactions, excessive force incidents could be and exceptional, every day occurrence. We simply have no idea. Social media hasn't clarified anything about the _rates_ of the incidents, it's only allowed insight into specific incidents that probably would have been swept under the rug in the past.
- GoodJokes 5y agoYou write like someone doing PR or astroturfing.