6 ms·

IMHO you don't even need to remove/alter qualified immunity to make it happen. Instead: 1. make a policeman's professional licensing body and require all polic

by derefr 4y ago

IMHO you don't even need to remove/alter qualified immunity to make it happen. Instead: 1. make a policeman's professional licensing body and require all police to join it. (Take the police unions and turn them into that.) 2. Have the licensing body introduce the concept of professional malfeasance. 3. Make a simple regulatory statute where professional malfeasance as decided by that licensing body, creates civil/criminal liability. Y'know — just like engineers!

notch656a 4y ago
Honestly the details of licensing, while charitable and productive to mention, are nearly irrelevant. The government has no problem setting up licensing systems. The merits can be debated, but doing what you call for is pretty well oiled machinery at this point. The challenge is you're seeking to overturn the systems of violence with peaceful legislative action. This is a lofty goal with historically rare outcome.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  The police aren’t the arm of a ruling class abusing the less fortunate (much though some want to believe this). They’re just bad at their jobs. There are no incentives really to be good at their jobs, and very few people are motivated to get them to do high quality work. Nobody wants to understand the complexity of a police force, people are either mildly annoyed or can only grasp a message that fits on a protest sign. “Systems” should be a dirty word when it comes to discussing social issues, it’s just a catchall boogeyman for people who don’t want to understand complexity and often (as is done subtly here) an prelude to suggesting violence.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    They seem to be pretty effective at organizing and advocating for themselves.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      Only so effective because of the lack of competent opposition pushing them to be better, as I was trying to express. If you can do your job basically free of corrective feedback, it’s going to get progressively worse. Police are as good as society forces them to be, marching in the street to abolish them doesn’t put any pressure on them to be better.
      - emodendroket 4y ago
        Yeah actually I don't think that's true at all. They're extremely effective at shutting down polite opposition to them.
  - thewebcount 4y ago
    > They’re just bad at their jobs. This is incredibly naive. In Los Angeles County, for example, there are deputy gangs[0]. That is, the police have their own gang within the department. Often they come from less fortunate backgrounds, but they’re still out to use their power for their own gain. It’s not just being bad at their jobs. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County_Sheriff's_Department#Deputy_gangs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County_Sheriff's...
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      The gang problems of Los Angeles are not at all representative of the policing problems in the rest of the country.
  - boomlinde 4y ago
    > “Systems” should be a dirty word when it comes to discussing social issues Likewise, "complexity," as a reason that someone is wrong, yet completely unqualified by a less vague description of an actual error is a cop-out that should have no place in such discussions. > The police aren’t the arm of a ruling class abusing the less fortunate (much though some want to believe this). While I can't say for sure that there's a causal relationship between pay-to-win courts, rich people given an express lane to lawmakers and in general a society fundamentally built on the notion that wealth affords power, and the police bias against poor people, I believe that this is the level you have to consider the question at. That is, the problem can't fully be explained by looking at the police force only but is the result of the police interacting with other authorities and reacting to policy. Normally you would call these interacting bodies "systems" and say that the problem is "systemic" but I guess that's a foul word.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    >(as is done subtly here) an prelude to suggesting violence. What is this even supposed to mean? A prelude to suggesting violence? Is that when you don't actually suggest violence but the word 'prelude' is used to make someone fill in the blanks to reinterpret it that way? It's quite rich that pointing out state violence results in factually incorrect accusations (not to mention personal insult implying I'm not going to "understand complexity") as an attempt to turn the tables and make me sound the violent one instead of the systems that cause innocents to be maimed and killed by police actions. Yeah, police gangs in LA exist (including those showing police officers glorifying killing) 'but they're not representative' of the problem. No the real problem must be 'preludes' to non-existent suggestions of violence. >They’re just bad at their jobs. And it is ever so convenient that they are bad in their jobs in ways that result in the disfavor of the disadvantaged, poor, and certain minorities. I'm sure that does not result in relatively better treatment for those in elevated positions of power (such as high level elected officials, who we don't dare call the 'ruling class'). No these are just happy accidents that are not at all guided by those in elevated positions of power (but not the 'ruling class'!).
colechristensen 4y ago
The licensing body will quickly fill with people aligned with police and be entirely useless. This kind of thing works better with skilled professionals which police are not. Plus, nobody wants engineers to build bridges that fall down, plenty of people want police to be abusive and belligerent… to groups of people they don’t identify with.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  > The licensing body will quickly fill with people aligned with police and be entirely useless. This, 110%. It will be useless for the same reason Internal Affairs is useless. The line of "We investigated ourselves and found no wrong-doing" will continue. Police are buddies with the District Attorneys which are buddies with the judges. The result is nobody wants to prosecute police officers.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    This is why you have an ‘independent’ police complaints authority, and that then ends up between my stacked in much the same way. TIL.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  Make the licensing body pay out settlements against its members and you’ll get them to “manage out” the bad apples.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Changing tort law would be an enormous political fight, way bigger than Obamacare or abortion or environmental regulation or gun rights or any of the other big ticket items.
    - derefr 4y ago
      Not sure if I agree with the idea, but it wouldn’t necessarily require changing tort law. Just require that the licensing body also provide liability insurance, as hospitals do for doctors; and “disbar” any police officer who uses anything other than the group-plan insurance to pay out a settlement, or who goes to court. I believe unions already tend to kick out union members who don’t accept union-appointed lawyers and instead attempt to litigate their own cases. This wouldn’t be much of a stretch from that.
emodendroket 4y ago
You're basically reinventing internal affairs, aren't you?
- derefr 4y ago
  Internal affairs bodies are, as the name suggests, internal — i.e. invisible to the law; and as such, they don’t have the power to create civil/criminal liability. Whereas a professional licensing body is a separate legal entity from the people the body licenses; and the government can regulate (control, manipulate, coerce) the licensing body without getting tangled up in laws about what the government can or cannot do to protected classes of people.
anilakar 4y ago
Why would you need a quasi-official sanctioning body for a profession that should be sanctioned by the federal government or state in the first place? Is this yet again a case of Americanism that the rest of the world does just not understand?
- derefr 4y ago
  I’m not American, but yes, it’s a specific Americanism — in that American police regulation happens at the state level, and the federal government doesn’t really get a say in it, and so (as far as I understand) cannot impose such a sanctioning body as a part of federal policy. (The FBI, in its role of being external federal auditors for police corruption/malfeasance — but with no power over police departments, only the power to charge individual officers with federal criminal acts if that applies — is essentially the best the federal government can do.) But if there just happened to be a private-corporation licensing body operating in multiple states (and thus performing “interstate commerce”), which police officers in those states were already members of… well, then the federal government would be perfectly within its rights to regulate that corporation! As long as they kept it at arm’s length, and didn’t attempt to nationalize it.
Taek 4y ago
Need to make the licensing body act like insurance. Individual policemen receive qualified immunity but their licensing body will pay the fines. Police who are poorly trained or poorly behaved will be ejected by the licensing body because it will deem them too much of a liability. The result is cops who feel like they have the freedom to do what is necessary, and a licensing body that will only select quality cops.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  Or - the result is the body finds a way to have tax money fund the licensing body.
skissane 4y ago
Maybe a model worth copying would be the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) of the Australian state of New South Wales – https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/ https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/ The NSW state government appoints the Chief Commissioner of the LECC – but by law, they must appoint a (serving or retired) senior judge. The other Commissioner is also appointed by the government, but the Chief Commissioner has a veto over the government's appointment of the Commissioner, and by law cannot be a serving or retired police officer – http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/lecca2016353/s18.html http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/cons... It seems to be actually effective – at least sometimes – in going after police misbehaviour, for example: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/are-you-going-to-attack-a-magistrate-next-strike-force-raptor-intimidated-solicitor-report-finds-20210326-p57eiz.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/are-you-going-to-attack-... Although in other cases maybe it has not done as good a job: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-20/nsw-police-watchdog-knew-about-fuller-racehorse-co-ownership/100843062 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-20/nsw-police-watchdog-k... And some view it as overly lenient: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/06/nsw-policeman-touched-aboriginal-boys-nipple-while-laughing-with-officers-watchdog-finds https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/06/nsw-p... Still, I wonder what would have been the outcome in those kinds of cases if they had happened in the US?

by derefr 4y ago

notch656a 4y ago

Honestly the details of licensing, while charitable and productive to mention, are nearly irrelevant. The government has no problem setting up licensing systems. The merits can be debated, but doing what you call for is pretty well oiled machinery at this point. The challenge is you're seeking to overturn the systems of violence with peaceful legislative action. This is a lofty goal with historically rare outcome.

colechristensen 4y ago
The police aren’t the arm of a ruling class abusing the less fortunate (much though some want to believe this). They’re just bad at their jobs. There are no incentives really to be good at their jobs, and very few people are motivated to get them to do high quality work. Nobody wants to understand the complexity of a police force, people are either mildly annoyed or can only grasp a message that fits on a protest sign. “Systems” should be a dirty word when it comes to discussing social issues, it’s just a catchall boogeyman for people who don’t want to understand complexity and often (as is done subtly here) an prelude to suggesting violence.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  They seem to be pretty effective at organizing and advocating for themselves.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    Only so effective because of the lack of competent opposition pushing them to be better, as I was trying to express. If you can do your job basically free of corrective feedback, it’s going to get progressively worse. Police are as good as society forces them to be, marching in the street to abolish them doesn’t put any pressure on them to be better.
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      Yeah actually I don't think that's true at all. They're extremely effective at shutting down polite opposition to them.
- thewebcount 4y ago
  > They’re just bad at their jobs. This is incredibly naive. In Los Angeles County, for example, there are deputy gangs[0]. That is, the police have their own gang within the department. Often they come from less fortunate backgrounds, but they’re still out to use their power for their own gain. It’s not just being bad at their jobs. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County_Sheriff's_Department#Deputy_gangs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County_Sheriff's...
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    The gang problems of Los Angeles are not at all representative of the policing problems in the rest of the country.
- boomlinde 4y ago
  > “Systems” should be a dirty word when it comes to discussing social issues Likewise, "complexity," as a reason that someone is wrong, yet completely unqualified by a less vague description of an actual error is a cop-out that should have no place in such discussions. > The police aren’t the arm of a ruling class abusing the less fortunate (much though some want to believe this). While I can't say for sure that there's a causal relationship between pay-to-win courts, rich people given an express lane to lawmakers and in general a society fundamentally built on the notion that wealth affords power, and the police bias against poor people, I believe that this is the level you have to consider the question at. That is, the problem can't fully be explained by looking at the police force only but is the result of the police interacting with other authorities and reacting to policy. Normally you would call these interacting bodies "systems" and say that the problem is "systemic" but I guess that's a foul word.
- notch656a 4y ago
  >(as is done subtly here) an prelude to suggesting violence. What is this even supposed to mean? A prelude to suggesting violence? Is that when you don't actually suggest violence but the word 'prelude' is used to make someone fill in the blanks to reinterpret it that way? It's quite rich that pointing out state violence results in factually incorrect accusations (not to mention personal insult implying I'm not going to "understand complexity") as an attempt to turn the tables and make me sound the violent one instead of the systems that cause innocents to be maimed and killed by police actions. Yeah, police gangs in LA exist (including those showing police officers glorifying killing) 'but they're not representative' of the problem. No the real problem must be 'preludes' to non-existent suggestions of violence. >They’re just bad at their jobs. And it is ever so convenient that they are bad in their jobs in ways that result in the disfavor of the disadvantaged, poor, and certain minorities. I'm sure that does not result in relatively better treatment for those in elevated positions of power (such as high level elected officials, who we don't dare call the 'ruling class'). No these are just happy accidents that are not at all guided by those in elevated positions of power (but not the 'ruling class'!).

colechristensen 4y ago

The licensing body will quickly fill with people aligned with police and be entirely useless. This kind of thing works better with skilled professionals which police are not. Plus, nobody wants engineers to build bridges that fall down, plenty of people want police to be abusive and belligerent… to groups of people they don’t identify with.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> The licensing body will quickly fill with people aligned with police and be entirely useless. This, 110%. It will be useless for the same reason Internal Affairs is useless. The line of "We investigated ourselves and found no wrong-doing" will continue. Police are buddies with the District Attorneys which are buddies with the judges. The result is nobody wants to prosecute police officers.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  This is why you have an ‘independent’ police complaints authority, and that then ends up between my stacked in much the same way. TIL.
zmgsabst 4y ago
Make the licensing body pay out settlements against its members and you’ll get them to “manage out” the bad apples.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  Changing tort law would be an enormous political fight, way bigger than Obamacare or abortion or environmental regulation or gun rights or any of the other big ticket items.
  - derefr 4y ago
    Not sure if I agree with the idea, but it wouldn’t necessarily require changing tort law. Just require that the licensing body also provide liability insurance, as hospitals do for doctors; and “disbar” any police officer who uses anything other than the group-plan insurance to pay out a settlement, or who goes to court. I believe unions already tend to kick out union members who don’t accept union-appointed lawyers and instead attempt to litigate their own cases. This wouldn’t be much of a stretch from that.

emodendroket 4y ago

You're basically reinventing internal affairs, aren't you?

derefr 4y ago
Internal affairs bodies are, as the name suggests, internal — i.e. invisible to the law; and as such, they don’t have the power to create civil/criminal liability. Whereas a professional licensing body is a separate legal entity from the people the body licenses; and the government can regulate (control, manipulate, coerce) the licensing body without getting tangled up in laws about what the government can or cannot do to protected classes of people.

anilakar 4y ago

Why would you need a quasi-official sanctioning body for a profession that should be sanctioned by the federal government or state in the first place? Is this yet again a case of Americanism that the rest of the world does just not understand?

derefr 4y ago
I’m not American, but yes, it’s a specific Americanism — in that American police regulation happens at the state level, and the federal government doesn’t really get a say in it, and so (as far as I understand) cannot impose such a sanctioning body as a part of federal policy. (The FBI, in its role of being external federal auditors for police corruption/malfeasance — but with no power over police departments, only the power to charge individual officers with federal criminal acts if that applies — is essentially the best the federal government can do.) But if there just happened to be a private-corporation licensing body operating in multiple states (and thus performing “interstate commerce”), which police officers in those states were already members of… well, then the federal government would be perfectly within its rights to regulate that corporation! As long as they kept it at arm’s length, and didn’t attempt to nationalize it.

Taek 4y ago

Need to make the licensing body act like insurance. Individual policemen receive qualified immunity but their licensing body will pay the fines. Police who are poorly trained or poorly behaved will be ejected by the licensing body because it will deem them too much of a liability. The result is cops who feel like they have the freedom to do what is necessary, and a licensing body that will only select quality cops.

actionfromafar 4y ago
Or - the result is the body finds a way to have tax money fund the licensing body.

skissane 4y ago

Maybe a model worth copying would be the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) of the Australian state of New South Wales – https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/ https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/ The NSW state government appoints the Chief Commissioner of the LECC – but by law, they must appoint a (serving or retired) senior judge. The other Commissioner is also appointed by the government, but the Chief Commissioner has a veto over the government's appointment of the Commissioner, and by law cannot be a serving or retired police officer – http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/lecca2016353/s18.html http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/cons... It seems to be actually effective – at least sometimes – in going after police misbehaviour, for example: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/are-you-going-to-attack-a-magistrate-next-strike-force-raptor-intimidated-solicitor-report-finds-20210326-p57eiz.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/are-you-going-to-attack-... Although in other cases maybe it has not done as good a job: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-20/nsw-police-watchdog-knew-about-fuller-racehorse-co-ownership/100843062 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-20/nsw-police-watchdog-k... And some view it as overly lenient: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/06/nsw-policeman-touched-aboriginal-boys-nipple-while-laughing-with-officers-watchdog-finds https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/06/nsw-p... Still, I wonder what would have been the outcome in those kinds of cases if they had happened in the US?