6 ms·

Get Out of Jail Cards, 2

98 points by impish9208 3y ago

karaterobot 3y ago
These certainly aren't new, I remember wanting one as a teenage heavyfoot in the 90s. Here's another not very new take: not everything unions do is positive and aboveboard, they often become corrupt, like every other group with power, and should not be trusted any more than other groups with power.
- happytoexplain 3y ago
  They should not be trusted more than other power groups (well, maybe a little more, arguably, but let's say they're all equal). However, they are the only significant power group regularly absent from a person's life. Religion, legislators, police, and businesses are almost always there, but unions are just as important a balancing entity as those others, and yet are frequently absent.
- chasing 3y ago
  > ...they often become corrupt... Unions are what protect significant chunks of the middle class and it's because they're so important that these flagrant abuses must be corrected.
  - downWidOutaFite 3y ago
    I don't get how people on both political sides are often split on supporting teachers unions vs police unions. Be consistent! Whatever problems you think the union you don't like has, the other union has similar issues. I say get rid of both of them, bosses don't like unions for a reason and we're supposed to be their bosses.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > bosses don't like unions for a reason Bosses don't like unions because they want to exploit their workers and treat them unfairly. This is why police will always need unions. Police shouldn't be expected to work overtime without compensation, they should be allowed to have breaks, they should make a living wage, they should get sick time, they should have safe working conditions and they should get family leave. These are the same reasons teachers should always have unions. The problems people have with police unions is their political influence which is nothing remotely like the situation we have with teachers. Elected officials agree to provisions that should never be allowed on the table. In the end, it's not the union that is the problem, but the people who agree to anything and everything that the police unions ask for. If a union is demanding things like the department limit or not allow officers to be interrogated, or the destruction of their disciplinary records, or the banning of body cameras/civilian oversight then it's up to our elected officials to draw the line and say "those terms are unacceptable" just like we'd expect if teacher's unions demanded limo rides to school every day, billion dollar paychecks and the right to abuse students. Some things are simply not acceptable. Our elected officials have zero problems with denying teacher's requests for a living wage, or for smaller classroom sizes, or for not being forced to pay for school supplies out of their own pockets, but they instantly give police whatever insane things they ask for. That's a problem that goes far beyond negotiations with the police unions. There's no police union that can prevent bad cops from being charged with a crime. Unions don't have that power. Police unions can't stop a judge from finding a police officer guilty of a crime either. Unions don't have that power. Unions can't stop that judge from sentencing a criminal police officer to decades behind bars. Police unions don't have that power either. So why is it that those things almost never happen when they should? A police union can ask for internal department policies that make it harder for everyone else to hold police accountable, but they can't stop it from happening. DAs and judges aren't soft on corrupt cops because they're forced to be by police unions. They choose to be. Usually for political reasons or out of fear of retaliation. When police are allowed to "resign" over something that would get any one else thrown in prison that's not the union's fault. There are many people in many positions of power who are regularly complicit in allowing bad cops to get away with their crimes. Police still need unions, same as teachers, our elected officials just need to say that enough is enough and show some backbone instead of giving in to every ridiculous demand that enables the corruption within police departments to continue. It's up to us to be willing to vote people out of office if they refuse to.
    - chasing 3y ago
      Some people are capable of thinking with a level of nuance deeper than "unions bad."
      - adastra22 3y ago
        Other people are able to fully consider all the relevant factors, history and circumstances, and still come away with the belief that unions are near-universally bad.
      - JackFr 3y ago
        Teacher's unions aren't there to improve student outcomes. They exist for he benefit of teachers. Police unions aren't there to improve public safety. They exist for the benefit of the police.
        acdha 3y ago
        Here’s the thing: both of those are good. Anywhere you have a large group of people doing a job, you will inevitably have issues where their bosses want to make decisions which will negatively impact life for a lot of working people, and collective bargaining helps counterbalance that. There are problems with certain unions, but that has to do with the framework around them. When a police union protests because one of their members is found guilty, that looks like a union problem but it’s really a symptom of a deeper leadership problem: you’re hiring a ton of cops who think they’re above the law!
        nothercastle 3y ago
        Most organizations are there to benefit the organization or leader not the members or public.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - xboxnolifes 3y ago
        Maybe some, but nearly every person I've ever heard even mention unions has held one of two (mutually exclusive) views: "unions good" or "unions bad". It's never "<specific union> is bad/good, because <specific reason>".
    - IshKebab 3y ago
      It's because teachers unions and police unions are different. Not rocket science.
    - pavel_lishin 3y ago
      > Bosses don't like unions for a reason and we're supposed to be their bosses. Because the "Bosses" in your example want to extract the maximum out of a worker, in exchange for giving them the absolute minimum. But I don't want to treat our teachers that way. I don't think of them as just another resource I can minmax my way through. Furthermore, I'm not my teacher's boss. They're not a public servant; they're hired by a school board, or a principal. Those folks are either elected, or hired by someone else. I can see, I guess, the reasoning that I'm the boss of anyone I can vote for - but that chain doesn't just keep going forever.
      - downWidOutaFite 3y ago
        Bosses is obviously not a perfect analogy. But the reason we pay for their services is not to create good jobs, it is to get good schools and police departments. We should be focused on getting the best outcomes for our tax dollars. The best outcomes would generally be produced by a happy workforce, so I'm not saying worker needs should be ignored. But taxpayer and employee interests are not perfectly aligned, employees will always be trying to maximize pay and reduce hours. Giving workers too much power moves us away from what should be our goals of providing a great education in a safe community.
  - sbierwagen 3y ago
    11.3% of US workers were in a union in 2022. Either the middle class is a hell of a lot smaller than I thought, or it's not a terribly significant chunk. (I am a union member, formerly IBEW local 46, now IAM district 751)
    - acdha 3y ago
      They’ve been shrinking, although recent growth suggests that trend might be reversing, but unions also help non-members. If you work at a non-union job, your compensation will still reflect the need to be competitive with other places which similar unionized positions. Where I live, there are a ton of charter schools but they tend to track the public school district’s union pay scale pretty closely. When they negotiated a pay raise, there were probably an equal number of non-union teachers who benefited within a couple of years.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  None of the other major labor unions consider police unions to be peers. When workers go on strike, police are across from them not with them. When strikers are harmed and killed, it is police doing the violence. Because of these things, I think it's wise to not generalize across the two types of union.
  - JackFr 3y ago
    > When strikers are harmed and killed, it is police doing the violence. Are there any examples of that in the United States post-WWII?
    - happytoexplain 3y ago
      I don't believe so - the parent is probably thinking of non-union protests.
- RobotToaster 3y ago
  Police "unions" are rather unique in that they represent the enforcers of capital, rather than workers.
- advael 3y ago
  Poiice unions are not the same as professional unions in almost any meaningful sense. They are not organizations independent from the leadership of the departments themselves. They are not similar in organization, function, or origin. The use of the word "union" to describe them is extremely misleading
bongripper 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. No one is saying you owe cops better, for example, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
oflannabhra 3y ago
I know another common pattern is for Fraternal Order of Police to solicit "donations" for mugs or stickers that people will display on their vehicles in the hope of currying favor with enforcement officers. This seems to be much less strictly enforced than this case in NYC, but some states even allow for optional license plates, with a portion of the fee going to local FOP lodges.
- AnarchismIsCool 3y ago
  They're a huge thing in Philly, I saw people go so far as to place the stickers over letters on their license plates. They looked quite worn so it didn't appear they were getting in trouble for it.
sjaak 3y ago
This sounds super insane, I thought stuff like this only happened in 3rd world countries. Is this applicable elsewhere in “developed” countries as far as anyone else knows?
- roughly 3y ago
  To paraphrase a commenter on the article: “you thought this was common only in tinpot dictatorships and failing states, and you were right.”
- sjaak 3y ago
  To answer my question for The Netherlands, it is my impression that cops are held to a higher standard and are punished equally—if not more harshly—than normal citizens when caught.
  - mckravchyk 3y ago
    I have recently heard about a case in Poland where a police officer was punished for not being professional. Something like a Ukrainian made a negative comment about "Polish police" when stopped for speeding or leaving his car or something and the officer responded with something like, "if you don't like it here, then get the fuck out to your country" and that got him some kind of punishment. I guess this would be unthinkable in the US.
- cfeduke 3y ago
  Corruption is everywhere, not just in big cities. The more rural the county in US, the greater the chance that "stuff like this only happened in 3rd world countries" is necessary to get anything done [permits especially]. Anecdotal personal experience - living ~30 years in rural Virginia versus ~15 years in a city in upstate NY.
303uru 3y ago
[flagged]
- nathanaldensr 3y ago
  It's not only minorities they're harassing and killing.
  - mikeyouse 3y ago
    Not only but certainly disproportionately.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - asylteltine 3y ago
      Disproportionately compared to what?
      - harimau777 3y ago
        The percentage of society those minorities make up?
        peterfirefly 3y ago
        Shouldn't the correct measure be relative to how criminal they are?
        harimau777 3y ago
        Assuming that some races aren't inherently more criminal than others, disproportionate differences in crime rates would still indicate systemic problems.
        asylteltine 3y ago
giraffe_lady 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
chasing 3y ago
For the most part, police officers need to be replaced with case workers. People who can take records of crimes, provide counseling, and give actual legal advice to people affected. Occasionally we need dudes with guns to bust something up, but very rarely.
- asylteltine 3y ago
  Oh yeah when I call the police because I got assaulted I would love a case worker to come and talk down to me about the sociology of crime. Just what we need!
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    This is funny to me because someone I'm close to called the cops after an assault and they literally just talked down to her and left. What's been your experience with this?
    - pengaru 3y ago
      > This is funny to me because someone I'm close to called the cops after an assault and they literally just talked down to her and left. What's been your experience with this? Police behavior is highly regional and subjective, with a sprinkling of just plain randomness (bad day? good day? roll the dice, armed and privileged either way!)
      - some_random 3y ago
        Somehow McDonalds is able to make the same burger everywhere in the country but getting cops to act in a way that makes bad situations better with any level of consistency is apparently impossible.
        pengaru 3y ago
        They certainly don't have uniform customer service across the country, and that's a much more appropriate comparison IMO.
sethammons 3y ago
When I was getting my teaching credential, one of the instructors was a VP of some school and a former police officer who changed careers as he realized he was getting jaded and "everyone was a suspect." He would have friends and acquaintances hand him a ticket and ask if he could "take care of it." He would take the ticket, pay it, and send them the paid receipt. People stopped asking him after that.
- metadat 3y ago
  Wow, what a sweet person, who also gently expresses boundaries. Seems like an increasingly rare quality these days :)
matricaria 3y ago
> tinpot dictatorships and flailing states > NYC Seems about right.
- asylteltine 3y ago
  What’s the difference?
  - adastra22 3y ago
    Dictatorships often have cleaner streets.
dang 3y ago
There have been a bunch of HN threads about this over the years, if anyone wants to try finding them. (I'd do it but am not free right now) Edit: here's a list so far - others? Traffic cop sues city for get-out-of-jail-free cards for NYPD friends and family - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36188406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36188406 - June 2023 (47 comments) The Little Cards That Tell Police 'Let's Forget This Ever Happened' (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33638962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33638962 - Nov 2022 (43 comments) NYC Police Union Reducing Number of “Get Out of Jail Free” Courtesy Cards (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742209 - March 2022 (32 comments) Police-issued "courtesy cards" help friends and family out of minor infractions - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24353003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24353003 - Sept 2020 (435 comments) Patrolmen's Benevolent Association “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913173 - Dec 2019 (1 comment) “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards in New York - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16207890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16207890 - Jan 2018 (207 comments) Police union slashes number of ‘get out of jail free’ cards issued - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16206177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16206177 - Jan 2018 (1 comment) “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203902 - Jan 2018 (1 comment) NYC Police union slashes number of ‘get out of jail free’ cards issued - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16201487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16201487 - Jan 2018 (2 comments)
- slater 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39027518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39027518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913173
  - dang 3y ago
    Thanks! Looks like the other large one was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24353003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24353003. I'll compile these into a list in the GP.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
curtis3389 3y ago
Any officer that honors these cards is a complete scumbag not fit to wear the uniform. Yes, I know what I'm implying.
pjdesno 3y ago
The best way to get rid of these would be for someone to counterfeit them and distribute the copies widely - they could change them, but they'd have to hand out new ones. Then repeat, etc.
- soupfordummies 3y ago
  For real, that was my first thought. Tangentially, what's up with everyone having "student driver" bumper sticker now?
  - nothercastle 3y ago
    Insurance discount I think
netsharc 3y ago
A great book about corruption is "Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security", reviewed in this article, that also discusses the concept of corruption: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-revolt https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-rev...

98 points by impish9208 3y ago

These certainly aren't new, I remember wanting one as a teenage heavyfoot in the 90s. Here's another not very new take: not everything unions do is positive and aboveboard, they often become corrupt, like every other group with power, and should not be trusted any more than other groups with power.

happytoexplain 3y ago
They should not be trusted more than other power groups (well, maybe a little more, arguably, but let's say they're all equal). However, they are the only significant power group regularly absent from a person's life. Religion, legislators, police, and businesses are almost always there, but unions are just as important a balancing entity as those others, and yet are frequently absent.
chasing 3y ago
> ...they often become corrupt... Unions are what protect significant chunks of the middle class and it's because they're so important that these flagrant abuses must be corrected.
- downWidOutaFite 3y ago
  I don't get how people on both political sides are often split on supporting teachers unions vs police unions. Be consistent! Whatever problems you think the union you don't like has, the other union has similar issues. I say get rid of both of them, bosses don't like unions for a reason and we're supposed to be their bosses.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > bosses don't like unions for a reason Bosses don't like unions because they want to exploit their workers and treat them unfairly. This is why police will always need unions. Police shouldn't be expected to work overtime without compensation, they should be allowed to have breaks, they should make a living wage, they should get sick time, they should have safe working conditions and they should get family leave. These are the same reasons teachers should always have unions. The problems people have with police unions is their political influence which is nothing remotely like the situation we have with teachers. Elected officials agree to provisions that should never be allowed on the table. In the end, it's not the union that is the problem, but the people who agree to anything and everything that the police unions ask for. If a union is demanding things like the department limit or not allow officers to be interrogated, or the destruction of their disciplinary records, or the banning of body cameras/civilian oversight then it's up to our elected officials to draw the line and say "those terms are unacceptable" just like we'd expect if teacher's unions demanded limo rides to school every day, billion dollar paychecks and the right to abuse students. Some things are simply not acceptable. Our elected officials have zero problems with denying teacher's requests for a living wage, or for smaller classroom sizes, or for not being forced to pay for school supplies out of their own pockets, but they instantly give police whatever insane things they ask for. That's a problem that goes far beyond negotiations with the police unions. There's no police union that can prevent bad cops from being charged with a crime. Unions don't have that power. Police unions can't stop a judge from finding a police officer guilty of a crime either. Unions don't have that power. Unions can't stop that judge from sentencing a criminal police officer to decades behind bars. Police unions don't have that power either. So why is it that those things almost never happen when they should? A police union can ask for internal department policies that make it harder for everyone else to hold police accountable, but they can't stop it from happening. DAs and judges aren't soft on corrupt cops because they're forced to be by police unions. They choose to be. Usually for political reasons or out of fear of retaliation. When police are allowed to "resign" over something that would get any one else thrown in prison that's not the union's fault. There are many people in many positions of power who are regularly complicit in allowing bad cops to get away with their crimes. Police still need unions, same as teachers, our elected officials just need to say that enough is enough and show some backbone instead of giving in to every ridiculous demand that enables the corruption within police departments to continue. It's up to us to be willing to vote people out of office if they refuse to.
  - chasing 3y ago
    Some people are capable of thinking with a level of nuance deeper than "unions bad."
    - adastra22 3y ago
      Other people are able to fully consider all the relevant factors, history and circumstances, and still come away with the belief that unions are near-universally bad.
    - JackFr 3y ago
      Teacher's unions aren't there to improve student outcomes. They exist for he benefit of teachers. Police unions aren't there to improve public safety. They exist for the benefit of the police.
      - acdha 3y ago
        Here’s the thing: both of those are good. Anywhere you have a large group of people doing a job, you will inevitably have issues where their bosses want to make decisions which will negatively impact life for a lot of working people, and collective bargaining helps counterbalance that. There are problems with certain unions, but that has to do with the framework around them. When a police union protests because one of their members is found guilty, that looks like a union problem but it’s really a symptom of a deeper leadership problem: you’re hiring a ton of cops who think they’re above the law!
      - nothercastle 3y ago
        Most organizations are there to benefit the organization or leader not the members or public.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - xboxnolifes 3y ago
      Maybe some, but nearly every person I've ever heard even mention unions has held one of two (mutually exclusive) views: "unions good" or "unions bad". It's never "<specific union> is bad/good, because <specific reason>".
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    It's because teachers unions and police unions are different. Not rocket science.
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    > Bosses don't like unions for a reason and we're supposed to be their bosses. Because the "Bosses" in your example want to extract the maximum out of a worker, in exchange for giving them the absolute minimum. But I don't want to treat our teachers that way. I don't think of them as just another resource I can minmax my way through. Furthermore, I'm not my teacher's boss. They're not a public servant; they're hired by a school board, or a principal. Those folks are either elected, or hired by someone else. I can see, I guess, the reasoning that I'm the boss of anyone I can vote for - but that chain doesn't just keep going forever.
    - downWidOutaFite 3y ago
      Bosses is obviously not a perfect analogy. But the reason we pay for their services is not to create good jobs, it is to get good schools and police departments. We should be focused on getting the best outcomes for our tax dollars. The best outcomes would generally be produced by a happy workforce, so I'm not saying worker needs should be ignored. But taxpayer and employee interests are not perfectly aligned, employees will always be trying to maximize pay and reduce hours. Giving workers too much power moves us away from what should be our goals of providing a great education in a safe community.
- sbierwagen 3y ago
  11.3% of US workers were in a union in 2022. Either the middle class is a hell of a lot smaller than I thought, or it's not a terribly significant chunk. (I am a union member, formerly IBEW local 46, now IAM district 751)
  - acdha 3y ago
    They’ve been shrinking, although recent growth suggests that trend might be reversing, but unions also help non-members. If you work at a non-union job, your compensation will still reflect the need to be competitive with other places which similar unionized positions. Where I live, there are a ton of charter schools but they tend to track the public school district’s union pay scale pretty closely. When they negotiated a pay raise, there were probably an equal number of non-union teachers who benefited within a couple of years.
giraffe_lady 3y ago
None of the other major labor unions consider police unions to be peers. When workers go on strike, police are across from them not with them. When strikers are harmed and killed, it is police doing the violence. Because of these things, I think it's wise to not generalize across the two types of union.
- JackFr 3y ago
  > When strikers are harmed and killed, it is police doing the violence. Are there any examples of that in the United States post-WWII?
  - happytoexplain 3y ago
    I don't believe so - the parent is probably thinking of non-union protests.
RobotToaster 3y ago
Police "unions" are rather unique in that they represent the enforcers of capital, rather than workers.
advael 3y ago
Poiice unions are not the same as professional unions in almost any meaningful sense. They are not organizations independent from the leadership of the departments themselves. They are not similar in organization, function, or origin. The use of the word "union" to describe them is extremely misleading

bongripper 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. No one is saying you owe cops better, for example, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

oflannabhra 3y ago

I know another common pattern is for Fraternal Order of Police to solicit "donations" for mugs or stickers that people will display on their vehicles in the hope of currying favor with enforcement officers. This seems to be much less strictly enforced than this case in NYC, but some states even allow for optional license plates, with a portion of the fee going to local FOP lodges.

AnarchismIsCool 3y ago
They're a huge thing in Philly, I saw people go so far as to place the stickers over letters on their license plates. They looked quite worn so it didn't appear they were getting in trouble for it.

sjaak 3y ago

This sounds super insane, I thought stuff like this only happened in 3rd world countries. Is this applicable elsewhere in “developed” countries as far as anyone else knows?

roughly 3y ago
To paraphrase a commenter on the article: “you thought this was common only in tinpot dictatorships and failing states, and you were right.”
sjaak 3y ago
To answer my question for The Netherlands, it is my impression that cops are held to a higher standard and are punished equally—if not more harshly—than normal citizens when caught.
- mckravchyk 3y ago
  I have recently heard about a case in Poland where a police officer was punished for not being professional. Something like a Ukrainian made a negative comment about "Polish police" when stopped for speeding or leaving his car or something and the officer responded with something like, "if you don't like it here, then get the fuck out to your country" and that got him some kind of punishment. I guess this would be unthinkable in the US.
cfeduke 3y ago
Corruption is everywhere, not just in big cities. The more rural the county in US, the greater the chance that "stuff like this only happened in 3rd world countries" is necessary to get anything done [permits especially]. Anecdotal personal experience - living ~30 years in rural Virginia versus ~15 years in a city in upstate NY.

303uru 3y ago

[flagged]

nathanaldensr 3y ago
It's not only minorities they're harassing and killing.
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  Not only but certainly disproportionately.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - asylteltine 3y ago
    Disproportionately compared to what?
    - harimau777 3y ago
      The percentage of society those minorities make up?
      - peterfirefly 3y ago
        Shouldn't the correct measure be relative to how criminal they are?
        harimau777 3y ago
        Assuming that some races aren't inherently more criminal than others, disproportionate differences in crime rates would still indicate systemic problems.
        asylteltine 3y ago

giraffe_lady 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

chasing 3y ago

For the most part, police officers need to be replaced with case workers. People who can take records of crimes, provide counseling, and give actual legal advice to people affected. Occasionally we need dudes with guns to bust something up, but very rarely.

asylteltine 3y ago
Oh yeah when I call the police because I got assaulted I would love a case worker to come and talk down to me about the sociology of crime. Just what we need!
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  This is funny to me because someone I'm close to called the cops after an assault and they literally just talked down to her and left. What's been your experience with this?
  - pengaru 3y ago
    > This is funny to me because someone I'm close to called the cops after an assault and they literally just talked down to her and left. What's been your experience with this? Police behavior is highly regional and subjective, with a sprinkling of just plain randomness (bad day? good day? roll the dice, armed and privileged either way!)
    - some_random 3y ago
      Somehow McDonalds is able to make the same burger everywhere in the country but getting cops to act in a way that makes bad situations better with any level of consistency is apparently impossible.
      - pengaru 3y ago
        They certainly don't have uniform customer service across the country, and that's a much more appropriate comparison IMO.

sethammons 3y ago

When I was getting my teaching credential, one of the instructors was a VP of some school and a former police officer who changed careers as he realized he was getting jaded and "everyone was a suspect." He would have friends and acquaintances hand him a ticket and ask if he could "take care of it." He would take the ticket, pay it, and send them the paid receipt. People stopped asking him after that.

metadat 3y ago
Wow, what a sweet person, who also gently expresses boundaries. Seems like an increasingly rare quality these days :)

matricaria 3y ago

> tinpot dictatorships and flailing states > NYC Seems about right.

asylteltine 3y ago
What’s the difference?
- adastra22 3y ago
  Dictatorships often have cleaner streets.

dang 3y ago

There have been a bunch of HN threads about this over the years, if anyone wants to try finding them. (I'd do it but am not free right now) Edit: here's a list so far - others? Traffic cop sues city for get-out-of-jail-free cards for NYPD friends and family - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36188406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36188406 - June 2023 (47 comments) The Little Cards That Tell Police 'Let's Forget This Ever Happened' (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33638962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33638962 - Nov 2022 (43 comments) NYC Police Union Reducing Number of “Get Out of Jail Free” Courtesy Cards (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742209 - March 2022 (32 comments) Police-issued "courtesy cards" help friends and family out of minor infractions - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24353003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24353003 - Sept 2020 (435 comments) Patrolmen's Benevolent Association “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913173 - Dec 2019 (1 comment) “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards in New York - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16207890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16207890 - Jan 2018 (207 comments) Police union slashes number of ‘get out of jail free’ cards issued - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16206177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16206177 - Jan 2018 (1 comment) “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203902 - Jan 2018 (1 comment) NYC Police union slashes number of ‘get out of jail free’ cards issued - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16201487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16201487 - Jan 2018 (2 comments)

slater 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39027518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39027518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16203902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913173
- dang 3y ago
  Thanks! Looks like the other large one was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24353003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24353003. I'll compile these into a list in the GP.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

curtis3389 3y ago

Any officer that honors these cards is a complete scumbag not fit to wear the uniform. Yes, I know what I'm implying.

pjdesno 3y ago

The best way to get rid of these would be for someone to counterfeit them and distribute the copies widely - they could change them, but they'd have to hand out new ones. Then repeat, etc.

soupfordummies 3y ago
For real, that was my first thought. Tangentially, what's up with everyone having "student driver" bumper sticker now?
- nothercastle 3y ago
  Insurance discount I think

netsharc 3y ago

A great book about corruption is "Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security", reviewed in this article, that also discusses the concept of corruption: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-revolt https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-rev...