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I think your idea has many flaws, but I am very surprised and happy to see novel approaches here, and it absolutely represents my favorite part of HackerNews.

I think your idea has many flaws, but I am very surprised and happy to see novel approaches here, and it absolutely represents my favorite part of HackerNews. Probably the reason policing is sub optimal is due to the fact that it is funded by the city, so more prosperous areas can pay more, and recruit the best cops, while the areas with less income often can't pay as well, (or enough to offset the risks). Compare this to schooling, where it's largely funded through the county, so the county often pays less in the nicer areas, knowing the job is easier.

hollerith 3y ago
Are you sure? The one county I investigated has 14 law enforcement agencies and 12 school distrcts: https://www.marincountyda.org/local-links https://www.marincountyda.org/local-links https://www.marincounty.org/residents/community/school-districts https://www.marincounty.org/residents/community/school-distr...
- VirusNewbie 3y ago
  sorry I don't see what the links have to do with what I said. In my area of CA, school funding is provided by the county and police is funded through the city.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
> I think your idea has many flaws, but I am very surprised and happy to see novel approaches here, and it absolutely represents my favorite part of HackerNews. Really appreciate the words of encouragement here! If you want to encourage me further, you should give details about the flaws and challenge me to address them :-)
- VirusNewbie 3y ago
  sure. I'm not at all thinking my flaws are insurmountable, but I think the problem is you are unlikely to get enough data to draw many conclusions, at least in places that aren't incredibly dense and crime ridden. I'm thinking of the suburb outside of LA I live in. It's somewhat spread out, and some areas have small amounts of violent crime, while some neighborhoods are incredibly rich and most neighborhoods are gated or have private security etc. Having 3 departments be able to serve such a large land area to ensure that response types are evenly distributed seem challenging. But, maybe in a place like San Francisco (more dense, also more crime) this could work?
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
    Sure, if an area is low crime, I'd say your policing strategy doesn't matter a ton, assuming your cops don't engage in police brutality or corruption. Probably in a low crime neighborhood, competing departments would focus on friendly interactions with the public and making really sure that none of their officers look bad in viral videos. I know I mentioned randomization, but I don't think uneven distribution is necessarily a problem. Ultimately, a voter who looks at 3 different logos on the ballot is going to think back to interactions they had with the cops, and what their friends tell them about the cops, in order to figure out which logo to vote for. Different voters are going to see different distributions of police presence, but that's probably fine. In the same way people tend to vote for the incumbent candidate, I would guess that voters will tend to vote for the logo they see the most in their neighborhood, assuming that logo seems to be doing an OK job. Another way to approach it is that each competing department could have a different service area, and the service areas grow or shrink every election based on election results. This could be done algorithmically by splitting the city in to precincts and finding an assignment of precincts to departments that approximately conforms to the election results, while also keeping service areas for any given logo contiguous through time and space as much as possible (minimize travel and switching costs). All this stuff could work for schools too btw. It achieves the "skin in the game" aspect of charter schools while reducing the ability/incentive to shuttle problem students elsewhere in order to juice your school's numbers (potentially, depending on implementation).
phatskat 3y ago
> Compare this to schooling, where it's largely funded through the county, so the county often pays less in the nicer areas, knowing the job is easier. Most school funding comes through property taxes - it’s a nice way to avoid saying “we’re funding schools in poorer areas using fewer resources” while saying absolutely that.
- VirusNewbie 3y ago
  > it’s a nice way to avoid saying “we’re funding schools in poorer areas using fewer resources” while saying absolutely that. This is not true in California. Property taxes are collected by the county in CA, and then distributed to the cities most in need. Beverly Hills doesn't get more school funding than East LA just because their property tax revenue is 10x higher.

hollerith 3y ago

Are you sure? The one county I investigated has 14 law enforcement agencies and 12 school distrcts: https://www.marincountyda.org/local-links https://www.marincountyda.org/local-links https://www.marincounty.org/residents/community/school-districts https://www.marincounty.org/residents/community/school-distr...

VirusNewbie 3y ago
sorry I don't see what the links have to do with what I said. In my area of CA, school funding is provided by the county and police is funded through the city.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago

> I think your idea has many flaws, but I am very surprised and happy to see novel approaches here, and it absolutely represents my favorite part of HackerNews. Really appreciate the words of encouragement here! If you want to encourage me further, you should give details about the flaws and challenge me to address them :-)

VirusNewbie 3y ago
sure. I'm not at all thinking my flaws are insurmountable, but I think the problem is you are unlikely to get enough data to draw many conclusions, at least in places that aren't incredibly dense and crime ridden. I'm thinking of the suburb outside of LA I live in. It's somewhat spread out, and some areas have small amounts of violent crime, while some neighborhoods are incredibly rich and most neighborhoods are gated or have private security etc. Having 3 departments be able to serve such a large land area to ensure that response types are evenly distributed seem challenging. But, maybe in a place like San Francisco (more dense, also more crime) this could work?
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  Sure, if an area is low crime, I'd say your policing strategy doesn't matter a ton, assuming your cops don't engage in police brutality or corruption. Probably in a low crime neighborhood, competing departments would focus on friendly interactions with the public and making really sure that none of their officers look bad in viral videos. I know I mentioned randomization, but I don't think uneven distribution is necessarily a problem. Ultimately, a voter who looks at 3 different logos on the ballot is going to think back to interactions they had with the cops, and what their friends tell them about the cops, in order to figure out which logo to vote for. Different voters are going to see different distributions of police presence, but that's probably fine. In the same way people tend to vote for the incumbent candidate, I would guess that voters will tend to vote for the logo they see the most in their neighborhood, assuming that logo seems to be doing an OK job. Another way to approach it is that each competing department could have a different service area, and the service areas grow or shrink every election based on election results. This could be done algorithmically by splitting the city in to precincts and finding an assignment of precincts to departments that approximately conforms to the election results, while also keeping service areas for any given logo contiguous through time and space as much as possible (minimize travel and switching costs). All this stuff could work for schools too btw. It achieves the "skin in the game" aspect of charter schools while reducing the ability/incentive to shuttle problem students elsewhere in order to juice your school's numbers (potentially, depending on implementation).

phatskat 3y ago

> Compare this to schooling, where it's largely funded through the county, so the county often pays less in the nicer areas, knowing the job is easier. Most school funding comes through property taxes - it’s a nice way to avoid saying “we’re funding schools in poorer areas using fewer resources” while saying absolutely that.

VirusNewbie 3y ago
> it’s a nice way to avoid saying “we’re funding schools in poorer areas using fewer resources” while saying absolutely that. This is not true in California. Property taxes are collected by the county in CA, and then distributed to the cities most in need. Beverly Hills doesn't get more school funding than East LA just because their property tax revenue is 10x higher.