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Perhaps this is all true in your country, but not mine. I used to regularly take photos of cops abusing the system. I even once followed a cop going well above

Perhaps this is all true in your country, but not mine. I used to regularly take photos of cops abusing the system. I even once followed a cop going well above the speed limit when their lights weren't flashing. 20km down the road I eventually caught up with them because they'd pulled over... to set up a speed trap! Naturally, my first words were, "'Allo, 'allo, 'allo, do you know what speed you were doing?" (I'm not in UK). I've caught them blocking traffic to book people getting around traffic jams in the other direction, after watching them speeding and going through a red light, & doing an illegal u-turn. Double parking. Forcing cars to cross double lines, to book minor infringements. Going almost double the speed limit through a retirement village (90km/hr in 50 zone). Blocking traffic to buy food... my list is pretty long! Police need to uphold one rule: serve the community by obeying the rules they enforce. In my country they give themselves almost free reign, to the point where they're almost terrorists. No amount of social and media propaganda, nor closed door review processes, will rectify the situation, unless atrocious behavior is stopped

jcrawfordor 4y ago
I'm in no way claiming that any of these measures are especially effective. Rather, I'm sharing the caution that this program is unlikely to result in any significant changes other than the availability of better data... including all of the negative outcomes people here predict. There is a long track record of police chain of command ignoring data, policy, and disciplinary recommendations, and that's an entirely separate problem to solve. > Police need to uphold one rule: serve the community. It's functionally impossible to enforce this rule without fairly significant community feedback obtained through a formalized mechanism like this. People have been trying for decades and you yourself have described the result. accountability of police officers is routinely defeated based mostly on the lack of objective evidence of significant wrongdoing (which is a requirement to take any action, often explicitly under CBAs but always in practice as a result of employment law, culture, etc). Improved mechanisms of collecting data on officer performance is an enabling step towards broader reform of departmental culture, not in the least by showing that a problem does exist. Right now, many departments evade action simply by denying that there is a problem and not collecting the information that would reveal it.

jcrawfordor 4y ago

I'm in no way claiming that any of these measures are especially effective. Rather, I'm sharing the caution that this program is unlikely to result in any significant changes other than the availability of better data... including all of the negative outcomes people here predict. There is a long track record of police chain of command ignoring data, policy, and disciplinary recommendations, and that's an entirely separate problem to solve. > Police need to uphold one rule: serve the community. It's functionally impossible to enforce this rule without fairly significant community feedback obtained through a formalized mechanism like this. People have been trying for decades and you yourself have described the result. accountability of police officers is routinely defeated based mostly on the lack of objective evidence of significant wrongdoing (which is a requirement to take any action, often explicitly under CBAs but always in practice as a result of employment law, culture, etc). Improved mechanisms of collecting data on officer performance is an enabling step towards broader reform of departmental culture, not in the least by showing that a problem does exist. Right now, many departments evade action simply by denying that there is a problem and not collecting the information that would reveal it.