4 ms·

> "Local law enforcement is at the front lines of trafficking and missing persons cases, yet these departments are often behind in technology adoption," Broderi

> "Local law enforcement is at the front lines of trafficking and missing persons cases, yet these departments are often behind in technology adoption," Broderick told AP. "We fill a gap for underfunded and understaffed departments." So if they had a near-unlimited budget, they would have even scarier tools. Obviously law enforcement isn't the NSA, but that part made me think. Just how far does LE want to go with technology if money is not an object?

pjc50 4y ago
This is why "defund the police" became a slogan: operational control against abuse just doesn't work, so the blunt instrument of reducing the amount of money for toys is the only one left.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  But it's exactly the same mistake as the supposed "starve the beast" policy. If someone really doesn't trust the government to spend money on the right programs, then they shouldn't expect that reducing tax revenue will make the government prioritize the same things they would. Besides, governments can produce very bad outcomes with almost no budget at all, since some of the worst things in life are free. If cops like spending money on toys rather than doing the hard work of solving or preventing crimes, then giving them less money won't suddenly make them stop brutalizing vulnerable people (and potentially might make them more likely to do so, out of boredom or revenge).
  - kcplate 4y ago
    This speaks to my ongoing crusade to try inject pragmatism into the political conversation. There are far too many unintended consequences to this sloganeering that is used to stir up the populace. We need to get away from focusing on intent of a change and look at the practical effects of the change.
    - dane-pgp 4y ago
      Perhaps you are familiar with (or would support) the idea behind futarchy, which is sometimes expressed as "Vote on Values, Bet on Beliefs": http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
      - kcplate 4y ago
        I could get behind it, but would add a wrinkle that full random sortition from the populace should be used for the elected representatives. I kind of feel like an elected government service notice should be viewed the same way as a jury summons—an understanding that it is a serious and important duty, but one that comes with an “oh crap” attitude. For me, with our current political system in the US, every candidate disqualifies themselves be simply having the level of narcissism needed to believe that they belong in office because they are the most qualified person for that office. Especially at the level of POTUS.
    - pjc50 4y ago
      Bit of a prisoner's dilemma situation here: you'd have to demonstrate that pragmatism can win against glib liars.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    I live in a city that's been defunded by economic circumstance. There are simply not enough blue bodies to harass people over the petty stuff. The cops focus on violent crime and drug trafficking because staffing levels are low enough that there is a sufficient amount of "resume enhancing" crime like that to satisfy the needs of the department. Playing with MRAPs, harassing the citizenry on a hunch and perving through people's location data for no good reason is what departments that are well staffed enough to have idle hours do. Make no mistake, this is not a great environment to be a cop. You look at the department demographics and it's basically the young guys who will be up and out and being managed by a few old guys who are fresh out of fucks to give. I'm sure for people wrongly targeted by them there is little recourse but it doesn't seem like they spend a lot of time going off on people who've done little wrong. The caveat is that you are on your own for securing your property and the department basically laughs at the "standards of polite behavior and endangering the public" crimes that the HN crowd tend to take very seriously. Overall I'd give it a 9/10. I'm very happy with my department's performance so far as I can see it.
  - banannaise 4y ago
    It may not be a particularly good lever, but it's the one we have. Police departments will ignore all oversight, but they still can't spend money that doesn't exist. They will absolutely spend their crumbs on the most aggressive and vengeful policing strategies and tech they can find, and that will be an improvement over where we are today, where they spend a vast majority of their budget on that anyway.
  - krapp 4y ago
    What people often forget about "defund the police" is where it came from, or in what context it was originally framed. It didn't mean simply paying the police less, or reprioritizing funding away from guns and violence, it meant defunding and dismantling the justice system entirely, and then rebuilding it around explicitly antiracist principles, if at all. Read the list of demands from the Seattle protestors who created CHAZ[0] in the midst of the BLM riots. Their very first point was not to "starve the beast" in small government terms, but abolition of the police in its entirety. That's what "defund the police" is supposed to be. Not a reasonable compromise but a revolutionary ideal. Obviously what defund became after white liberals appropriated it, watered it down and used it for clout wouldn't work because the teeth were taken out of the concept so that it couldn't actually pose a threat to the status quo. [0]https://medium.com/@seattleblmanon3/the-demands-of-the-collective-black-voices-at-free-capitol-hill-to-the-government-of-seattle-ddaee51d3e47 https://medium.com/@seattleblmanon3/the-demands-of-the-colle...
  - icehawk 4y ago
    The point isn't to make cops work better by giving them less money, the point is to take that money and spend it on things like affordable housing, vocational programs, cheaper college classes, grief counseling,drug prevention programs, daycare vouchers, etc. Things that are outside of the purview of police forces.

pjc50 4y ago

This is why "defund the police" became a slogan: operational control against abuse just doesn't work, so the blunt instrument of reducing the amount of money for toys is the only one left.

dane-pgp 4y ago
But it's exactly the same mistake as the supposed "starve the beast" policy. If someone really doesn't trust the government to spend money on the right programs, then they shouldn't expect that reducing tax revenue will make the government prioritize the same things they would. Besides, governments can produce very bad outcomes with almost no budget at all, since some of the worst things in life are free. If cops like spending money on toys rather than doing the hard work of solving or preventing crimes, then giving them less money won't suddenly make them stop brutalizing vulnerable people (and potentially might make them more likely to do so, out of boredom or revenge).
- kcplate 4y ago
  This speaks to my ongoing crusade to try inject pragmatism into the political conversation. There are far too many unintended consequences to this sloganeering that is used to stir up the populace. We need to get away from focusing on intent of a change and look at the practical effects of the change.
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    Perhaps you are familiar with (or would support) the idea behind futarchy, which is sometimes expressed as "Vote on Values, Bet on Beliefs": http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
    - kcplate 4y ago
      I could get behind it, but would add a wrinkle that full random sortition from the populace should be used for the elected representatives. I kind of feel like an elected government service notice should be viewed the same way as a jury summons—an understanding that it is a serious and important duty, but one that comes with an “oh crap” attitude. For me, with our current political system in the US, every candidate disqualifies themselves be simply having the level of narcissism needed to believe that they belong in office because they are the most qualified person for that office. Especially at the level of POTUS.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Bit of a prisoner's dilemma situation here: you'd have to demonstrate that pragmatism can win against glib liars.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  I live in a city that's been defunded by economic circumstance. There are simply not enough blue bodies to harass people over the petty stuff. The cops focus on violent crime and drug trafficking because staffing levels are low enough that there is a sufficient amount of "resume enhancing" crime like that to satisfy the needs of the department. Playing with MRAPs, harassing the citizenry on a hunch and perving through people's location data for no good reason is what departments that are well staffed enough to have idle hours do. Make no mistake, this is not a great environment to be a cop. You look at the department demographics and it's basically the young guys who will be up and out and being managed by a few old guys who are fresh out of fucks to give. I'm sure for people wrongly targeted by them there is little recourse but it doesn't seem like they spend a lot of time going off on people who've done little wrong. The caveat is that you are on your own for securing your property and the department basically laughs at the "standards of polite behavior and endangering the public" crimes that the HN crowd tend to take very seriously. Overall I'd give it a 9/10. I'm very happy with my department's performance so far as I can see it.
- banannaise 4y ago
  It may not be a particularly good lever, but it's the one we have. Police departments will ignore all oversight, but they still can't spend money that doesn't exist. They will absolutely spend their crumbs on the most aggressive and vengeful policing strategies and tech they can find, and that will be an improvement over where we are today, where they spend a vast majority of their budget on that anyway.
- krapp 4y ago
  What people often forget about "defund the police" is where it came from, or in what context it was originally framed. It didn't mean simply paying the police less, or reprioritizing funding away from guns and violence, it meant defunding and dismantling the justice system entirely, and then rebuilding it around explicitly antiracist principles, if at all. Read the list of demands from the Seattle protestors who created CHAZ[0] in the midst of the BLM riots. Their very first point was not to "starve the beast" in small government terms, but abolition of the police in its entirety. That's what "defund the police" is supposed to be. Not a reasonable compromise but a revolutionary ideal. Obviously what defund became after white liberals appropriated it, watered it down and used it for clout wouldn't work because the teeth were taken out of the concept so that it couldn't actually pose a threat to the status quo. [0]https://medium.com/@seattleblmanon3/the-demands-of-the-collective-black-voices-at-free-capitol-hill-to-the-government-of-seattle-ddaee51d3e47 https://medium.com/@seattleblmanon3/the-demands-of-the-colle...
- icehawk 4y ago
  The point isn't to make cops work better by giving them less money, the point is to take that money and spend it on things like affordable housing, vocational programs, cheaper college classes, grief counseling,drug prevention programs, daycare vouchers, etc. Things that are outside of the purview of police forces.