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You have pointed out the essential part of the policing problem. Anytime police are given genuine punishments for excessive force the entire department’s respo

You have pointed out the essential part of the policing problem. Anytime police are given genuine punishments for excessive force the entire department’s response is to stop doing their job. Another problem I see is that in some cities (mine) people see racism at any attempt to alleviate the crime problem in lower income areas. I used to use the public transit system but it is now filled with drug users and people who enjoy terrorizing others. Police do nothing about it partially out of a fear of being called racist. For whatever reason I get the sense that police are either extremely violent or extremely passive.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
Police say that's the reason, but as you noted in the first paragraph, they're willing to manipulate the public for their own ends: why trust them on this motivation? What consequences do they have from perceived racism that they fear it so much? Again as you noted, they are rarely punished for anything at all. They also do a lot of pretty unambiguous racism without apparent concern over this. > For whatever reason I get the sense that police are either extremely violent or extremely passive. It's both, and the reasons are interrelated. Passivity in some areas protects their right to do violence in others. Public fear of crime, avoidance of public spaces, these are results that benefit them institutionally. What incentives do they have for not working towards that result?
- syzarian 4y ago
  What consequences do they have from perceived racism that they fear it so much? When the white liberals (like me) of my city unite with poor people of color and decry an action of the police it does affect them. They are human and criticism does affect them. It especially affects them when the whole city is up in arms over something they do. Mostly white liberals in my city don’t think about policing issues until something egregious happens. My experience is that when the whole city is up in arms about their actions then police respond like a petulant child by refusing to enforce the law. Public fear of crime, avoidance of public spaces, these are results that benefit them institutionally. What incentives do they have for not working towards that result? I grew up in the Canal Zone in Panama and remember the time during Noriega when he and the U.S. were opposed to each other. I remember the way I had be when dealing with Panamanian police during that time. Even though I was a white American I had to be very careful when dealing with them. I feel the same way around American police as I did when I dealt with police of a dictatorship. My experience in America is that it is considered suspicious if a group of people are just hanging out outside. Four black kids walking together in my neighborhood would have the police called on them. We are, in essence, a nation of building dwellers who only go outside for the purpose of getting into a vehicle to drive to another building. It is as you say a situation that benefits police. We don’t really have civil rights in the U.S. because police can, with impunity, fuck you up for exercising them.
sshine 4y ago
> I get the sense that police are either extremely violent or extremely passive. My childhood friend's dad was a cop in a riot of historic significance in my country. Protesters greatly outnumbered the police, and they threw stones and pushed them into a corner. Shots were fired, nobody died. They really thought they were going to be stoned to death because of all the anger. The few dozen cops left the event with PTSD and a handful never worked again. As an individual policeman there is very little you can do about an agitated crowd who starts chanting. So while a harsh reaction to police brutality is understandable, every single policeman carries the recent collective history of violence and knows they could be the subject of retribution. So the healthy thing for them, as an individual, is to not engage, because previously only potential perpetrators would engage in violence, but with enough heat, even bystanders may. Maybe the non-racist cops can't hide behind a collective, when entering a public conflict, as well as they could before.
- syzarian 4y ago
  In the U.S. my sense is that police do not fear retribution by the public. They fear only being held accountable in the same way the public is held accountable. Police mete out non judicial punishment all the time and are almost never arrested for it. They fear being held to the same standard as non police.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Here's how it falls out to me: 1. Laws and adherence to laws are required for a society to function. 2. Policing is necessary to enforce the law. 3. Policing, as a job, sucks. It's the tedium of TSA + the rare but lethal risk of being in a combat zone. 4. Policing, as a job, is made worse by politicians abusing it as a panacea, where other, less politically- and financially-palatable solutions would be more appropriate. Trained mental health professional intervention, drug programs, etc. Instead, cops are put in situations they shouldn't be. The issue is thus not that police fear being accountable in the same way the public is held accountable. It's instead two-part: A. Police feel they are owed a different sort of accountability than the public, both in service to and as a reward for doing a job the public doesn't want to do. B. Effective police work requires a different sort of accountability than the public, as criminals doesn't operate in a vacuum and exploit known police limitations. C. The most effective police work, for both police and the community, is deterrence -- the prevention of crime from even happening, by simple virtue of police presence. Deterrence requires respect and/or fear, and impoverished people without economic opportunity and living in communities where might makes right aren't deterred by gentle policing. All of the above are contradictory with civil rights (and also with themselves). Ergo, the appropriate level of accountability for policing is "what gets the job done, with the resources the city/state/federal government are prepared to invest in it." Which makes it a multi-variable optimization problem. Clearly, SF's current values are not producing an acceptable result.
eric_cc 4y ago
> the entire department’s response is to stop doing their job. This is one hell of a claim. Can you share some good sources that verify it?
- syzarian 4y ago
  No. I live in the area and there are places near Lake Street that police simply won’t go to unless it’s a violent crime in progress. One councilman from south Minneapolis, before George Floyd, mentioned that in his district police took their time to respond to calls and when they did show up told people to thank their councilman. They didn’t like his calls for greater police accountability and this was done in retribution. There are links in the comments regarding how police hold cities hostage when they are held accountable.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

Police say that's the reason, but as you noted in the first paragraph, they're willing to manipulate the public for their own ends: why trust them on this motivation? What consequences do they have from perceived racism that they fear it so much? Again as you noted, they are rarely punished for anything at all. They also do a lot of pretty unambiguous racism without apparent concern over this. > For whatever reason I get the sense that police are either extremely violent or extremely passive. It's both, and the reasons are interrelated. Passivity in some areas protects their right to do violence in others. Public fear of crime, avoidance of public spaces, these are results that benefit them institutionally. What incentives do they have for not working towards that result?

syzarian 4y ago
What consequences do they have from perceived racism that they fear it so much? When the white liberals (like me) of my city unite with poor people of color and decry an action of the police it does affect them. They are human and criticism does affect them. It especially affects them when the whole city is up in arms over something they do. Mostly white liberals in my city don’t think about policing issues until something egregious happens. My experience is that when the whole city is up in arms about their actions then police respond like a petulant child by refusing to enforce the law. Public fear of crime, avoidance of public spaces, these are results that benefit them institutionally. What incentives do they have for not working towards that result? I grew up in the Canal Zone in Panama and remember the time during Noriega when he and the U.S. were opposed to each other. I remember the way I had be when dealing with Panamanian police during that time. Even though I was a white American I had to be very careful when dealing with them. I feel the same way around American police as I did when I dealt with police of a dictatorship. My experience in America is that it is considered suspicious if a group of people are just hanging out outside. Four black kids walking together in my neighborhood would have the police called on them. We are, in essence, a nation of building dwellers who only go outside for the purpose of getting into a vehicle to drive to another building. It is as you say a situation that benefits police. We don’t really have civil rights in the U.S. because police can, with impunity, fuck you up for exercising them.

sshine 4y ago

> I get the sense that police are either extremely violent or extremely passive. My childhood friend's dad was a cop in a riot of historic significance in my country. Protesters greatly outnumbered the police, and they threw stones and pushed them into a corner. Shots were fired, nobody died. They really thought they were going to be stoned to death because of all the anger. The few dozen cops left the event with PTSD and a handful never worked again. As an individual policeman there is very little you can do about an agitated crowd who starts chanting. So while a harsh reaction to police brutality is understandable, every single policeman carries the recent collective history of violence and knows they could be the subject of retribution. So the healthy thing for them, as an individual, is to not engage, because previously only potential perpetrators would engage in violence, but with enough heat, even bystanders may. Maybe the non-racist cops can't hide behind a collective, when entering a public conflict, as well as they could before.

syzarian 4y ago
In the U.S. my sense is that police do not fear retribution by the public. They fear only being held accountable in the same way the public is held accountable. Police mete out non judicial punishment all the time and are almost never arrested for it. They fear being held to the same standard as non police.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Here's how it falls out to me: 1. Laws and adherence to laws are required for a society to function. 2. Policing is necessary to enforce the law. 3. Policing, as a job, sucks. It's the tedium of TSA + the rare but lethal risk of being in a combat zone. 4. Policing, as a job, is made worse by politicians abusing it as a panacea, where other, less politically- and financially-palatable solutions would be more appropriate. Trained mental health professional intervention, drug programs, etc. Instead, cops are put in situations they shouldn't be. The issue is thus not that police fear being accountable in the same way the public is held accountable. It's instead two-part: A. Police feel they are owed a different sort of accountability than the public, both in service to and as a reward for doing a job the public doesn't want to do. B. Effective police work requires a different sort of accountability than the public, as criminals doesn't operate in a vacuum and exploit known police limitations. C. The most effective police work, for both police and the community, is deterrence -- the prevention of crime from even happening, by simple virtue of police presence. Deterrence requires respect and/or fear, and impoverished people without economic opportunity and living in communities where might makes right aren't deterred by gentle policing. All of the above are contradictory with civil rights (and also with themselves). Ergo, the appropriate level of accountability for policing is "what gets the job done, with the resources the city/state/federal government are prepared to invest in it." Which makes it a multi-variable optimization problem. Clearly, SF's current values are not producing an acceptable result.

eric_cc 4y ago

> the entire department’s response is to stop doing their job. This is one hell of a claim. Can you share some good sources that verify it?

syzarian 4y ago
No. I live in the area and there are places near Lake Street that police simply won’t go to unless it’s a violent crime in progress. One councilman from south Minneapolis, before George Floyd, mentioned that in his district police took their time to respond to calls and when they did show up told people to thank their councilman. They didn’t like his calls for greater police accountability and this was done in retribution. There are links in the comments regarding how police hold cities hostage when they are held accountable.