4 ms·

I think it’s underappreciated the degree to which police and LEO have started behaving like political actors. NYC cops decided to “strike on the job” when the c

by roughly 10mo ago

I think it’s underappreciated the degree to which police and LEO have started behaving like political actors. NYC cops decided to “strike on the job” when the city started changing its stance in the mid-2010s, and in the Bay the cops responded similarly to Prop 47 by effectively not prosecuting shoplifting and other minor crimes anymore. Similarly, the recall of Pamela Price started almost the moment she took office and was accompanied by a work slowdown by the OPD in the interest of making the crime situation look worse. There’s other examples, but effectively the police have turned lax enforcement into a tool to preclude any shifts in policing policies. I’ve got my own feelings about those policies, but when you’ve got the cops acting like a political block that gets to set policies instead of a group of city employees tasked with enforcing them, I think that should concern the rest of us.

epistasis 10mo ago
It's not entirely new! In 1975 during labor negotiations the police detonated a bomb on the mayor's yard, partially damaging the front door, and left a note saying "Don't threaten us": https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19750820.2.20 https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19750820.2.20 Since then, the SFPF have always had a culture of being above the law. The monopoly on legal violence thing can be taken a bit too far.
bko 10mo ago
There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted? I don't think people are pushing police to arrest more people. > Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said. Some engage in shoplifting as a trade, while others are driven by addiction or mental illness; the police did not identify the 327 people in the analysis. Not clear if that's only in 1 year, but 6,000 arrests for the same 327 people means 18 arrests per person on average. Maybe if you see the same person shoplifting more than 5 times you put him away for some real time. 10 times? Hell even 20 strikes and you're out would make a real dent and serve as a deterrent. https://archive.is/VCKkk#selection-473.0-473.379 https://archive.is/VCKkk#selection-473.0-473.379
- porridgeraisin 10mo ago
  Yeah, I always wonder why we can't have an "n strikes and you get the electric chair" type of law, where n can be decided. Clearly at that point that person is better off not alive.
  - roughly 10mo ago
    That’s a hell of a take for shoplifting.
  - throaway123123 10mo ago
    Yeah I definitely want the person who costs Wal-mart a couple thousand bucks to face execution. great idea.
    - porridgeraisin 10mo ago
      It's not that walmart lost something, it's that it's a general menace to others, and if you do it once fine but if you do it 10 times you're out. Get them to leave the country, if execution is not your thing.
      - throaway123123 10mo ago
        I don't get how you could even consider execution to be a proper punishment for minor theft.
        porridgeraisin 10mo ago
        Stole something? No problem, just a telling off and compensation suffices. But repeat it 20-30 times? Then everyone's better off with you gone. Especially if it's the violent kind of theft (as opposed to something like pickpocketing) [Rhetoric "you" above]
- TimorousBestie 10mo ago
  > There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted? There’s plenty of desire to increase prosecution rates in American jurisdictions but little desire to raise taxes high enough to pay for lawyers, judges, courthouses, and humane incarceration—let alone assistance for the otherwise innocent families of criminals. The victims of petty crime are usually poor or middle-class and therefore lack the political power to meaningfully change policy.

by roughly 10mo ago

epistasis 10mo ago

It's not entirely new! In 1975 during labor negotiations the police detonated a bomb on the mayor's yard, partially damaging the front door, and left a note saying "Don't threaten us": https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19750820.2.20 https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19750820.2.20 Since then, the SFPF have always had a culture of being above the law. The monopoly on legal violence thing can be taken a bit too far.

bko 10mo ago

There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted? I don't think people are pushing police to arrest more people. > Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said. Some engage in shoplifting as a trade, while others are driven by addiction or mental illness; the police did not identify the 327 people in the analysis. Not clear if that's only in 1 year, but 6,000 arrests for the same 327 people means 18 arrests per person on average. Maybe if you see the same person shoplifting more than 5 times you put him away for some real time. 10 times? Hell even 20 strikes and you're out would make a real dent and serve as a deterrent. https://archive.is/VCKkk#selection-473.0-473.379 https://archive.is/VCKkk#selection-473.0-473.379

porridgeraisin 10mo ago
Yeah, I always wonder why we can't have an "n strikes and you get the electric chair" type of law, where n can be decided. Clearly at that point that person is better off not alive.
- roughly 10mo ago
  That’s a hell of a take for shoplifting.
- throaway123123 10mo ago
  Yeah I definitely want the person who costs Wal-mart a couple thousand bucks to face execution. great idea.
  - porridgeraisin 10mo ago
    It's not that walmart lost something, it's that it's a general menace to others, and if you do it once fine but if you do it 10 times you're out. Get them to leave the country, if execution is not your thing.
    - throaway123123 10mo ago
      I don't get how you could even consider execution to be a proper punishment for minor theft.
      - porridgeraisin 10mo ago
        Stole something? No problem, just a telling off and compensation suffices. But repeat it 20-30 times? Then everyone's better off with you gone. Especially if it's the violent kind of theft (as opposed to something like pickpocketing) [Rhetoric "you" above]
TimorousBestie 10mo ago
> There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted? There’s plenty of desire to increase prosecution rates in American jurisdictions but little desire to raise taxes high enough to pay for lawyers, judges, courthouses, and humane incarceration—let alone assistance for the otherwise innocent families of criminals. The victims of petty crime are usually poor or middle-class and therefore lack the political power to meaningfully change policy.