28 ms·

being a devils advocate, but who is going to enforce that?

by vincnetas 4y ago

Yoric 4y ago
Isn't this what Internal Affairs are for?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
badrequest 4y ago
Prosecutors, if they'd do their jobs.
- rtkwe 4y ago
  The issue is prosecutors rely on police a lot for their normal criminal cases so whenever one does get the courage to seriously pursue things like this they can get sabotaged or slow walked by the rest of the department in retaliation.
chewbacha 4y ago
Classic "Who watches the watchmen?"
jobs_throwaway 4y ago
DA's office. Its separate from the police for a reason
- whitemary 4y ago
  It still works for a government controlled by the ruling class. The problem is not some malfunction with "police departments" as though a department with a new name could reform it. "Checks and balances" is and always was a laughably naive and probably intentionally unserious response to overtly structural problems.
  - jobs_throwaway 4y ago
    What is your serious response to these structural problems then? How do we improve?
    - whitemary 4y ago
      Structural problems require structural solutions. A best first step would be reforming the brainwashed American conception of Marxist studies so we can someday conduct a serious discourse concerning the contradictions and consequences of capitalism, which belie the origins and effective purpose of our police departments as we know them. If anything is for sure, defunding the police was never a remotely serious proposal and it's not lost on Marxists why working people found it such a laughable phrase. Calling it a "proposal" or "strategy" would be giving far too much credit.
      - VancouverMan 4y ago
        In what ways are the existing police services "capitalist"? All of the police services that I'm familiar with in places like the US, Canada, and Europe lack the fundamental traits of capitalism. For example, they're the creations of centralized, monopolistic (and often quite socialist) governments, and funded with taxpayer money, rather than arising from the private sector. As such, there's no competition. Residents and visitors don't get to individually choose which, if any, police service(s) they'll voluntarily receive services from, and what compensation they'll provide, if any. They can't just switch to some other police service if they're dissatisfied with one they've already been choosing to use. They can't unilaterally opt out of dealing with a particular police service. Entry to the market is also extremely limited. An individual can't just declare himself to be a police officer, and then start offering policing services. An organization of such people can't declare themselves to be a police force. Unionization of police officers is quite common, as well. While private security may be available in some areas, it's typically very limited, with no real ability to intervene. They merely monitor an area for trouble, and alert the government's police service(s) if anything arises. The problems with policing today seem to me to be due to its highly-socialist nature.
- rtkwe 4y ago
  The issue with placing that in the DA's office is they work closely with police on basically all their other cases so they have an incentive to not antagonize the police by actually holding them accountable. The ideal situation is a separate body just charged with dealing with police misconduct so they don't have to worry about police torpedoing their day to day case load in retaliation.
  - TylerE 4y ago
    That’s a feature not a bug. Just because they work with the DA doesn’t mean they should be all buddy-buddy.
celtain 4y ago
With qualified immunity the only people allowed to enforce that are prosecutors, but they often can't afford to jeopardize their relationship with police. Federal prosecutors are further removed from local cops and have better incentives on that front, but they often run into issues around jurisdiction. The point of repealing qualified immunity is to let the victims sue as a means of enforcing checks on police.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  That lets criminals use the legal system as a DDOS attack on the police. I'm not sure that's a desirable outcome.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Not really. The courts should toss any frivolous claims fairly quickly. If it is still an issue, then perhaps we need wider ranging changes to the legal system as any abuse that could happen with these cases surely happen in other areas of the law too.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
TylerE 4y ago
Why couldn't the judge?' Just do things the normal way...and the sentence is announced... oh, you're a cop, and were on duty. Multiply any sentence/fine/community service by 1.5. The key, as I see it, is less about what the number is, or the details, but that's something very black and white. I'm normally really not a fan of "zero tolerance" type rules but I think this is a case where it makes sense.
FpUser 4y ago
Since we ( hopefully ) do not have an army of cops to arrest set up independent specialized task force just for that.
dwater 4y ago
In today's political climate (including the current Supreme Court which is pretty strongly political), the most likely answer is local jurisdictions who have been paying out millions in civil penalties for this behavior. They won't be able to enforce criminal liability, but they could start making changes to training, use of force policies, hiring, etc. If the jurisdictions start taking out insurance to pay these claims, then the insurance companies will probably start mandating changes as well.
- seretogis 4y ago
  I have no issue with your post, but what a ridiculous situation we find ourselves in. We can't get rid of bad apples because of police unions and the relationship between prosecutors and police. It's not politically viable for politicians to enforce standards for police. So, instead, we have to hire a for-profit intermediary to come up with profit-centered reasons to enforce these standards. Yikes.
bryanlarsen 4y ago
> who is going to enforce that? That's exactly why the penalties should be greater. The deterrence factor is a function of both the size of the penalty and the chance of being caught & prosecuted. If the chance of being caught and prosecuted is lower, then the penalty has to be higher for it to have a similar deterrence effect.
chrsig 4y ago
A few ideas I like: - Make police get individual insurance, similarly to doctors. Malpractice should have a monetary impact that doesn't hurt the taxpayer. - A mirror to the DA, exclusively for prosecuting crimes committed by police. Remove the conflict of interest with the current DA system. - Make police have some form of practitioners license, and have a board that can revoke it, similarly to the BAR association. - Mandatory N years of desk duty after being involved in a fatal shooting (regardless of justification)

being a devils advocate, but who is going to enforce that?

Yoric 4y ago

Isn't this what Internal Affairs are for?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

badrequest 4y ago

Prosecutors, if they'd do their jobs.

rtkwe 4y ago
The issue is prosecutors rely on police a lot for their normal criminal cases so whenever one does get the courage to seriously pursue things like this they can get sabotaged or slow walked by the rest of the department in retaliation.

chewbacha 4y ago

Classic "Who watches the watchmen?"

jobs_throwaway 4y ago

DA's office. Its separate from the police for a reason

whitemary 4y ago
It still works for a government controlled by the ruling class. The problem is not some malfunction with "police departments" as though a department with a new name could reform it. "Checks and balances" is and always was a laughably naive and probably intentionally unserious response to overtly structural problems.
- jobs_throwaway 4y ago
  What is your serious response to these structural problems then? How do we improve?
  - whitemary 4y ago
    Structural problems require structural solutions. A best first step would be reforming the brainwashed American conception of Marxist studies so we can someday conduct a serious discourse concerning the contradictions and consequences of capitalism, which belie the origins and effective purpose of our police departments as we know them. If anything is for sure, defunding the police was never a remotely serious proposal and it's not lost on Marxists why working people found it such a laughable phrase. Calling it a "proposal" or "strategy" would be giving far too much credit.
    - VancouverMan 4y ago
      In what ways are the existing police services "capitalist"? All of the police services that I'm familiar with in places like the US, Canada, and Europe lack the fundamental traits of capitalism. For example, they're the creations of centralized, monopolistic (and often quite socialist) governments, and funded with taxpayer money, rather than arising from the private sector. As such, there's no competition. Residents and visitors don't get to individually choose which, if any, police service(s) they'll voluntarily receive services from, and what compensation they'll provide, if any. They can't just switch to some other police service if they're dissatisfied with one they've already been choosing to use. They can't unilaterally opt out of dealing with a particular police service. Entry to the market is also extremely limited. An individual can't just declare himself to be a police officer, and then start offering policing services. An organization of such people can't declare themselves to be a police force. Unionization of police officers is quite common, as well. While private security may be available in some areas, it's typically very limited, with no real ability to intervene. They merely monitor an area for trouble, and alert the government's police service(s) if anything arises. The problems with policing today seem to me to be due to its highly-socialist nature.
rtkwe 4y ago
The issue with placing that in the DA's office is they work closely with police on basically all their other cases so they have an incentive to not antagonize the police by actually holding them accountable. The ideal situation is a separate body just charged with dealing with police misconduct so they don't have to worry about police torpedoing their day to day case load in retaliation.
- TylerE 4y ago
  That’s a feature not a bug. Just because they work with the DA doesn’t mean they should be all buddy-buddy.

celtain 4y ago

With qualified immunity the only people allowed to enforce that are prosecutors, but they often can't afford to jeopardize their relationship with police. Federal prosecutors are further removed from local cops and have better incentives on that front, but they often run into issues around jurisdiction. The point of repealing qualified immunity is to let the victims sue as a means of enforcing checks on police.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
That lets criminals use the legal system as a DDOS attack on the police. I'm not sure that's a desirable outcome.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Not really. The courts should toss any frivolous claims fairly quickly. If it is still an issue, then perhaps we need wider ranging changes to the legal system as any abuse that could happen with these cases surely happen in other areas of the law too.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

TylerE 4y ago

Why couldn't the judge?' Just do things the normal way...and the sentence is announced... oh, you're a cop, and were on duty. Multiply any sentence/fine/community service by 1.5. The key, as I see it, is less about what the number is, or the details, but that's something very black and white. I'm normally really not a fan of "zero tolerance" type rules but I think this is a case where it makes sense.

FpUser 4y ago

Since we ( hopefully ) do not have an army of cops to arrest set up independent specialized task force just for that.

dwater 4y ago

In today's political climate (including the current Supreme Court which is pretty strongly political), the most likely answer is local jurisdictions who have been paying out millions in civil penalties for this behavior. They won't be able to enforce criminal liability, but they could start making changes to training, use of force policies, hiring, etc. If the jurisdictions start taking out insurance to pay these claims, then the insurance companies will probably start mandating changes as well.

seretogis 4y ago
I have no issue with your post, but what a ridiculous situation we find ourselves in. We can't get rid of bad apples because of police unions and the relationship between prosecutors and police. It's not politically viable for politicians to enforce standards for police. So, instead, we have to hire a for-profit intermediary to come up with profit-centered reasons to enforce these standards. Yikes.

bryanlarsen 4y ago

> who is going to enforce that? That's exactly why the penalties should be greater. The deterrence factor is a function of both the size of the penalty and the chance of being caught & prosecuted. If the chance of being caught and prosecuted is lower, then the penalty has to be higher for it to have a similar deterrence effect.

chrsig 4y ago

A few ideas I like: - Make police get individual insurance, similarly to doctors. Malpractice should have a monetary impact that doesn't hurt the taxpayer. - A mirror to the DA, exclusively for prosecuting crimes committed by police. Remove the conflict of interest with the current DA system. - Make police have some form of practitioners license, and have a board that can revoke it, similarly to the BAR association. - Mandatory N years of desk duty after being involved in a fatal shooting (regardless of justification)