6 ms·

Outlier amateur detective wins are commendable, but also emblematic of a problem. Why aren't the real police revisiting these cases? Why are we arming them bet

Outlier amateur detective wins are commendable, but also emblematic of a problem. Why aren't the real police revisiting these cases? Why are we arming them better and better against our own people instead of spending some money on actual cops to solve crimes? Every time one of these is solved by amateurs, we should be asking why the system is failing.

jimbob45 2y ago
Why are we arming them better and better against our own people instead of spending some money on actual cops to solve crimes? The current party in power ran verbatim on a platform of "defund the police".
- LevGoldstein 2y ago
  You say that as though this is a brand new problem and not something that's been an issue for many, many decades regardless of what party has majority control at the federal level.
- hoten 2y ago
  That's hardly a supported policy you'd find in the Democratic party platform, or the position of the Biden administration. Don't confuse a few of the most left leaning members of the party with the whole. It's a big tent. https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_fa5dd2d9-baea-4f8c-bd53-7e9c70b1765d https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_fa5dd2d9-b...
- altruios 2y ago
  Sigh... Remove funding for the police to gather used and new military gear to use against the populace, while much more accurate - isn't as sticky... Sticky thoughts win over accurate ones. Truth needs a proper wrapping now a-days to even get looked at. How about this for a new phase: "pay for: effective Detectives; not toys." OR: "detectives solves cases: military toys melt faces."
  - munificent 2y ago
    "Demilitarize the police" would certainly have been a better slogan than "defund the police".
    - altruios 2y ago
      It was more accurate. I've heard that around the same time defund was going around... But humans don't select catch-phases and sound-bites by their truth value... Sticky truths: that's what we need.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rufus_foreman 2y ago
    >> Remove funding for the police to gather used and new military gear to use against the populace That's not what I remember. I remember calls in the most highly regarded news media to literally abolish the police. Do you remember those?
    - altruios 2y ago
      I remember what the media was saying was different from what the leftists were saying. I remember the twisting of the most offensive viral take to garner views for the news outlets, sure... Do you believe everything you see on TV?
- throwway_278314 2y ago
  That phrase was probably a bad choice of words; I believe the fuller intent was "Let's fund initiatives which build our community, like teachers and school lunch so our kids aren't hungry. That's more important than funding police who come from outside our community and have a reputation for extortion and murder of our citizens instead of protecting us." You may disagree with the read on the situation of the people involved, but I would be very surprised if you support the idea of you being taxed to support an armed force which was sent into your community and only ever acted in a hostile way towards you. By the way, the DOJ seems also to feel that the Minneapolis Police was hostile to the citizens Minneapolis Police Used Illegal, Abusive Practices for Years, DOJ Finds https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36917349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36917349 Minneapolis Police Use Force Against Black People at 7 Times the Rate of Whites https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23403891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23403891 At urging of Minneapolis police, EMS workers subdued dozens with ketamine https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17328770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17328770 And the slogan comes as part of a larger discussion of what the role of police should be in society, see i.e. Minneapolis City Council looking into disbanding police department https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23398910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23398910 > We can totally reimagine what public safety means, what skills we’re recruiting for, what tools we do and don’t need. We can invest in cultural competency and mental health training, de-escalation and conflict resolution. > We can resolve confusion over a $20 grocery transaction without drawing a weapon, or pulling out handcuffs. > The whole world is watching, and we can declare policing as we know it a thing of the past, and create a compassionate, non-violent future. It will be hard. But so is managing a dysfunctional relationship with an unaccountable armed force in our city.
  - banannaise 2y ago
    That phrase got so much traction precisely because it's a bad choice of words. It's easy to dismiss a movement if you latch onto the worst framing you can find, take it literally to the point of bad faith, and refuse to dig any deeper.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 2y ago
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  This is the kind of cultural literacy that comes from getting your politics from morons on Twitter.
leobg 2y ago
It’s not just the U.S.. Here in Germany, there are several multi million Euro fraud cases that have been going on for decades. They get picked up by the media every couple of years, with hidden camera footage and everything. But the authorities do nothing. I suspect they are all overworked - police, judges, prosecutors. They are all in reactive mode, trying to reduce the pile of paper on their desk. And, presumably, plan their next holiday. The days where a cop, judge or prosecutor identified as the function they render to society are over, I suspect. It’s work life balance all the way. And they may have a point. The woman who solved the Golden State Killer case, didn’t she die quite young because of the stress? If you look into the abyss for too long, the abyss looks back into you. To do good work means risking divorce, lowering your per hour wage, becoming a target for the bad guys, watching your lazier colleagues pass you by, and putting your health in jeopardy. This was seen as heroic in the 80s. Today it is seen as dumb, naïve and futile.
- extr 2y ago
  This is the exact same dilemma that you face in any other job. Working extremely hard and burning yourself out does nothing except cover up the problem that the function you are providing is under-resourced.
- linotype 2y ago
  > The days where a cop, judge or prosecutor identified as the function they render to society are over, I suspect. It’s work life balance all the way. This is terrifying and also true in many other industries, including software.
  - jayofdoom 2y ago
    I'm really confused as to why it's bad we identify people by their preferences and the content of their character instead of by the role they play in our capitalist economy.
    - blargey 2y ago
      People not giving a shit about their jobs means their jobs don’t get done well - if at all. We’re quite dependent on the fastidiousness and conscientiousness of our peers, at least if you want life to be pleasant. People don’t have the ability to contractually enforce and codify good work ethic (see: people just trying to define SLOs for machines). Especially with “public servant” type jobs which the comment was referring to.
dylan604 2y ago
There's not enough cops to handle crimes committed today, so why is it a question on why cold cases are just sitting there getting colder? How does the budget for that get approved when current cases aren't getting solved? It's really not a hard thing to understand when you compare it to software teams that get shuttered because managers are scared that it is not revenue positive.
paulpauper 2y ago
Better armed police act as a deterrent though . I don't think these are mutually exclusive: police are better-armed, yet more funding for the FBI for investigating more complex crimes.
- gambiting 2y ago
  >>Better armed police act as a deterrent though As a deterrent for what? US has some of the most well armed police forces in the world and that's not reflected in the crime rates at all(unless you believe that it's inverse corellation, then sure).
malcolmgreaves 2y ago
Detectives. You want more detectives. Cops do not solve crimes. They're the foot soldiers -- enforcers -- of domestic politics. Detectives have to get a college degree and actually know the law! At best, cops will cordon off a crime scene and protect it until detectives and CSI arrive.
- philwelch 2y ago
  Detectives are sworn law enforcement officers employed by a law enforcement agency such as a city police department, and in many places they are required to have prior experience as uniformed officers. They are cops.
  - underbiding 2y ago
    This is purely by convention though. There really isn't anything that all that unique about being a street general police officer that would lend itself to being a detective. It's all survivorship bias because criminal detectives were all cops so of course they all say you have to be one first. Reality is outside of criminal investigation you have plenty of professions and people who conduct the same thing. Everything from auditing, insurance fraud, to a financial analyst even actually does the same "thing" but just in different domains. It's a great example with the problem with our system. Why do detectives need to be gun-toting paramilitary and uniformed employees backed by use of force? They don't. We could just as easily have unarmed, non uniformed detectives who solve cases and then issue arrest warrants for specialized uniformed police officers to conduct arrests.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
levocardia 2y ago
Isn't the answer simple? Most cold cases have a very low probability of ever being solved. The rare exceptions make headlines, but I'd rather police dedicate finite resources to the hot cases with a better chance of getting solved. Those are also the ones where solving them actually helps protect public safety. Solving cold cases appeals to a more vague notion of justice, which is fine, but you're not likely to get robbed by the killer from a cold case in 1987.
rr808 2y ago
There are real recent "Hot" cases that dont have resources to solve. No need to use resources on old ones that are more difficult.
AlbertCory 2y ago
The wins are Saliency Bias. You don't read about all the cases where the detective, either pro or amateur, spends days looking and comes up empty. The amateur doesn't have anyone breathing down their neck for results. If you're the detective's boss, you have to tell them, at some point, "OK, let's spend our time where we can do some good." Because you have no assurance that the cold case is ever going to work out.

jimbob45 2y ago

Why are we arming them better and better against our own people instead of spending some money on actual cops to solve crimes? The current party in power ran verbatim on a platform of "defund the police".

LevGoldstein 2y ago
You say that as though this is a brand new problem and not something that's been an issue for many, many decades regardless of what party has majority control at the federal level.
hoten 2y ago
That's hardly a supported policy you'd find in the Democratic party platform, or the position of the Biden administration. Don't confuse a few of the most left leaning members of the party with the whole. It's a big tent. https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_fa5dd2d9-baea-4f8c-bd53-7e9c70b1765d https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_fa5dd2d9-b...
altruios 2y ago
Sigh... Remove funding for the police to gather used and new military gear to use against the populace, while much more accurate - isn't as sticky... Sticky thoughts win over accurate ones. Truth needs a proper wrapping now a-days to even get looked at. How about this for a new phase: "pay for: effective Detectives; not toys." OR: "detectives solves cases: military toys melt faces."
- munificent 2y ago
  "Demilitarize the police" would certainly have been a better slogan than "defund the police".
  - altruios 2y ago
    It was more accurate. I've heard that around the same time defund was going around... But humans don't select catch-phases and sound-bites by their truth value... Sticky truths: that's what we need.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  >> Remove funding for the police to gather used and new military gear to use against the populace That's not what I remember. I remember calls in the most highly regarded news media to literally abolish the police. Do you remember those?
  - altruios 2y ago
    I remember what the media was saying was different from what the leftists were saying. I remember the twisting of the most offensive viral take to garner views for the news outlets, sure... Do you believe everything you see on TV?
throwway_278314 2y ago
That phrase was probably a bad choice of words; I believe the fuller intent was "Let's fund initiatives which build our community, like teachers and school lunch so our kids aren't hungry. That's more important than funding police who come from outside our community and have a reputation for extortion and murder of our citizens instead of protecting us." You may disagree with the read on the situation of the people involved, but I would be very surprised if you support the idea of you being taxed to support an armed force which was sent into your community and only ever acted in a hostile way towards you. By the way, the DOJ seems also to feel that the Minneapolis Police was hostile to the citizens Minneapolis Police Used Illegal, Abusive Practices for Years, DOJ Finds https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36917349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36917349 Minneapolis Police Use Force Against Black People at 7 Times the Rate of Whites https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23403891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23403891 At urging of Minneapolis police, EMS workers subdued dozens with ketamine https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17328770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17328770 And the slogan comes as part of a larger discussion of what the role of police should be in society, see i.e. Minneapolis City Council looking into disbanding police department https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23398910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23398910 > We can totally reimagine what public safety means, what skills we’re recruiting for, what tools we do and don’t need. We can invest in cultural competency and mental health training, de-escalation and conflict resolution. > We can resolve confusion over a $20 grocery transaction without drawing a weapon, or pulling out handcuffs. > The whole world is watching, and we can declare policing as we know it a thing of the past, and create a compassionate, non-violent future. It will be hard. But so is managing a dysfunctional relationship with an unaccountable armed force in our city.
- banannaise 2y ago
  That phrase got so much traction precisely because it's a bad choice of words. It's easy to dismiss a movement if you latch onto the worst framing you can find, take it literally to the point of bad faith, and refuse to dig any deeper.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 2y ago
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
This is the kind of cultural literacy that comes from getting your politics from morons on Twitter.

leobg 2y ago

It’s not just the U.S.. Here in Germany, there are several multi million Euro fraud cases that have been going on for decades. They get picked up by the media every couple of years, with hidden camera footage and everything. But the authorities do nothing. I suspect they are all overworked - police, judges, prosecutors. They are all in reactive mode, trying to reduce the pile of paper on their desk. And, presumably, plan their next holiday. The days where a cop, judge or prosecutor identified as the function they render to society are over, I suspect. It’s work life balance all the way. And they may have a point. The woman who solved the Golden State Killer case, didn’t she die quite young because of the stress? If you look into the abyss for too long, the abyss looks back into you. To do good work means risking divorce, lowering your per hour wage, becoming a target for the bad guys, watching your lazier colleagues pass you by, and putting your health in jeopardy. This was seen as heroic in the 80s. Today it is seen as dumb, naïve and futile.

extr 2y ago
This is the exact same dilemma that you face in any other job. Working extremely hard and burning yourself out does nothing except cover up the problem that the function you are providing is under-resourced.
linotype 2y ago
> The days where a cop, judge or prosecutor identified as the function they render to society are over, I suspect. It’s work life balance all the way. This is terrifying and also true in many other industries, including software.
- jayofdoom 2y ago
  I'm really confused as to why it's bad we identify people by their preferences and the content of their character instead of by the role they play in our capitalist economy.
  - blargey 2y ago
    People not giving a shit about their jobs means their jobs don’t get done well - if at all. We’re quite dependent on the fastidiousness and conscientiousness of our peers, at least if you want life to be pleasant. People don’t have the ability to contractually enforce and codify good work ethic (see: people just trying to define SLOs for machines). Especially with “public servant” type jobs which the comment was referring to.

dylan604 2y ago

There's not enough cops to handle crimes committed today, so why is it a question on why cold cases are just sitting there getting colder? How does the budget for that get approved when current cases aren't getting solved? It's really not a hard thing to understand when you compare it to software teams that get shuttered because managers are scared that it is not revenue positive.

paulpauper 2y ago

Better armed police act as a deterrent though . I don't think these are mutually exclusive: police are better-armed, yet more funding for the FBI for investigating more complex crimes.

gambiting 2y ago
>>Better armed police act as a deterrent though As a deterrent for what? US has some of the most well armed police forces in the world and that's not reflected in the crime rates at all(unless you believe that it's inverse corellation, then sure).

malcolmgreaves 2y ago

Detectives. You want more detectives. Cops do not solve crimes. They're the foot soldiers -- enforcers -- of domestic politics. Detectives have to get a college degree and actually know the law! At best, cops will cordon off a crime scene and protect it until detectives and CSI arrive.

philwelch 2y ago
Detectives are sworn law enforcement officers employed by a law enforcement agency such as a city police department, and in many places they are required to have prior experience as uniformed officers. They are cops.
- underbiding 2y ago
  This is purely by convention though. There really isn't anything that all that unique about being a street general police officer that would lend itself to being a detective. It's all survivorship bias because criminal detectives were all cops so of course they all say you have to be one first. Reality is outside of criminal investigation you have plenty of professions and people who conduct the same thing. Everything from auditing, insurance fraud, to a financial analyst even actually does the same "thing" but just in different domains. It's a great example with the problem with our system. Why do detectives need to be gun-toting paramilitary and uniformed employees backed by use of force? They don't. We could just as easily have unarmed, non uniformed detectives who solve cases and then issue arrest warrants for specialized uniformed police officers to conduct arrests.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

levocardia 2y ago

Isn't the answer simple? Most cold cases have a very low probability of ever being solved. The rare exceptions make headlines, but I'd rather police dedicate finite resources to the hot cases with a better chance of getting solved. Those are also the ones where solving them actually helps protect public safety. Solving cold cases appeals to a more vague notion of justice, which is fine, but you're not likely to get robbed by the killer from a cold case in 1987.

rr808 2y ago

There are real recent "Hot" cases that dont have resources to solve. No need to use resources on old ones that are more difficult.

AlbertCory 2y ago

The wins are Saliency Bias. You don't read about all the cases where the detective, either pro or amateur, spends days looking and comes up empty. The amateur doesn't have anyone breathing down their neck for results. If you're the detective's boss, you have to tell them, at some point, "OK, let's spend our time where we can do some good." Because you have no assurance that the cold case is ever going to work out.