4 ms·

"Reform the police" Okay, we gave them hundreds of millions of dollars for body cams! body cam footage not available, officer turned off prior to incident Fo

by moate 5y ago

"Reform the police" Okay, we gave them hundreds of millions of dollars for body cams! body cam footage not available, officer turned off prior to incident For a pretty solid breakdown on why it's not likely to ever expect the cops to get on the side of checks notes taking funding and job security away from themselves: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapolis-kroll.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapo...

mixedCase 5y ago
> officer turned off prior to incident > it's not likely to ever expect the cops to get on the side of checks notes taking funding and job security away from themselves Then align the incentives. Harsher penalties for turning them off/disabling them/tampering with their wear protocol in any way. Weave into the salary a financial bonus for long periods of time without incidents. And since this is HN: Add some AI bullshit that reviews the tapes to make sure the cameras are not being covered or whatever with a secondary manual review by an outside entity to rule out false positives, make sure every police officer is aware of the automated review, and even if that system doesn't work perfectly I'm sure even a shitty government contractor can make it made good enough to put enough fear into enough corrupt cops so that camera shutdowns don't become routine.
- moate 5y ago
  I'm just going to go ahead and say that police unions wield outsized political power, which is why people who own the "abolish/defund the police" slogan think "reform" isn't enough. The reforms may get passed (or we might have another, more "important" political cause that sucks momentum away) but if the cops themselves are hostile to the reforms, they have plenty of ways to pull the teeth out of the regulations, or just get them overturned/taken out of the next CBA. Police "unions" are exceedingly well-funded, well-networked groups that can apply a TON of political and electoral pressure. They also provide (very good/expensive) lawyers for any cop found guilty of an infraction. On top of that, the very act of prosecuting cops is essentially biting the hand that feeds you for a DA/AG. The cops will always opposing things that make the job of being a cop harder. The same way a software developer does. You can't make the incentives align if the people who currently are police are the people you feel should not, under any circumstances, be the ones in charge of public safety. The number of low-grade thugs in the US police forces is pretty apparent when you look at the domestic violence numbers.1 Either abusive people are self-selecting into being cops, or being a cop makes you abusive. TL;dr- You want "reform" because you think there's inherent value created by the current system, and I don't because I think the value is an byproduct and not the goal. 1-https://sites.temple.edu/klugman/2020/07/20/do-40-of-police-families-experience-domestic-violence/ https://sites.temple.edu/klugman/2020/07/20/do-40-of-police-...

by moate 5y ago

mixedCase 5y ago

> officer turned off prior to incident > it's not likely to ever expect the cops to get on the side of checks notes taking funding and job security away from themselves Then align the incentives. Harsher penalties for turning them off/disabling them/tampering with their wear protocol in any way. Weave into the salary a financial bonus for long periods of time without incidents. And since this is HN: Add some AI bullshit that reviews the tapes to make sure the cameras are not being covered or whatever with a secondary manual review by an outside entity to rule out false positives, make sure every police officer is aware of the automated review, and even if that system doesn't work perfectly I'm sure even a shitty government contractor can make it made good enough to put enough fear into enough corrupt cops so that camera shutdowns don't become routine.

moate 5y ago
I'm just going to go ahead and say that police unions wield outsized political power, which is why people who own the "abolish/defund the police" slogan think "reform" isn't enough. The reforms may get passed (or we might have another, more "important" political cause that sucks momentum away) but if the cops themselves are hostile to the reforms, they have plenty of ways to pull the teeth out of the regulations, or just get them overturned/taken out of the next CBA. Police "unions" are exceedingly well-funded, well-networked groups that can apply a TON of political and electoral pressure. They also provide (very good/expensive) lawyers for any cop found guilty of an infraction. On top of that, the very act of prosecuting cops is essentially biting the hand that feeds you for a DA/AG. The cops will always opposing things that make the job of being a cop harder. The same way a software developer does. You can't make the incentives align if the people who currently are police are the people you feel should not, under any circumstances, be the ones in charge of public safety. The number of low-grade thugs in the US police forces is pretty apparent when you look at the domestic violence numbers.1 Either abusive people are self-selecting into being cops, or being a cop makes you abusive. TL;dr- You want "reform" because you think there's inherent value created by the current system, and I don't because I think the value is an byproduct and not the goal. 1-https://sites.temple.edu/klugman/2020/07/20/do-40-of-police-families-experience-domestic-violence/ https://sites.temple.edu/klugman/2020/07/20/do-40-of-police-...