4 ms·

Police in the US are making their own true crime podcasts

21 points by 1659447091 3mo ago

pretzellogician 3mo ago
Good in theory, but having police with axes to grind airing inaccurate information seems ripe for abuse. From the article; >Chadwick had been charged and pleaded not guilty, but not tried - yet the podcast made no use of the word "alleged" and called the millionaire a "murderer". Yeah, like that.
- sublinear 3mo ago
  The abuse is far more likely to come from the audience than the police. The true crime fanbase tends to have mental health issues.
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    The police are the ones who can lock you in jail.
    - sublinear 3mo ago
      The audience will go on witch hunts. They will doxx anyone even tangentially related to a crime and commit Luigi-style assassinations. The police are very aware of the "street justice" they're encouraging. Just because they keep their hands clean doesn't mean I'm defending them either. This is mob rule.
  - victorbjorklund 3mo ago
    But the police are official represeatives of the government and it holds more weight when they say "they are guilty even if court said they are not" vs if a random private individual says it.
  - A_D_E_P_T 3mo ago
    On the one hand, it's one of the most popular genres out there. 84% of the U.S. population age 13+ are "True Crime consumers": > https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-true-crime-consumer-report-by-edison-research-and-audiochuck/ https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-true-crime-consumer-repor... But it's absolutely true that the internet-based tribe called the "TCC" -- the true crime community -- is a hotbed of severe mental illness and moral depravity. It's a very young-skewing demographic, too. You can think of it as Fandom for killers. I monitor my son's internet activity in large part to ensure that he's not exposing himself to it, and I would view any exposure to the TCC as the reddest of red flags.
    - chneu 3mo ago
      Not debating but those numbers seem wildly high. Then again, US folks are insanely paranoid and fearful of stuff, so maybe not.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  In several countries that would be illegal, but the police would never investigate themselves.
  - HPsquared 3mo ago
    Defamation is a civil thing though, isn't it?
  - embedding-shape 3mo ago
    > the police would never investigate themselves Makes sense, would be a huge conflict of interest. That's why most modern countries have separate independent investigative agencies whose purpose is to investigate the police. Sadly, some of the more police-horny countries tend to give these agencies faux power rather than something real, and in the worst ones, the police has qualified immunity anyway.
- dan_gee 3mo ago
  [dead]
kristopolous 3mo ago
Although I can't fully articulate this my intuition says this is an exceptionally bad idea. Something about the administrators of state power capitalizing on their execution of it for fame. I'd probably want that banned?
- bko 3mo ago
  > administrators of state power capitalizing on their execution of it for fame Aren't the administrators of state power the prosecutors? Police are more rank and file dealing with the issues. Then it gets kicked up to prosecutors and court system that indirectly drives police action. If crimes don't get prosecuted, police don't make arrests. That's why I pass by half a dozen people illegally selling weed or fake handbags on the streets every day. For instance, police can have a different perspective more in line with reality. They'll arrest the same person multiple times, know his story and the story of the victims. By the time it goes through the legal system (essentially upper management) and through all the layers of bureaucracy, it morphs into something else entirely. If body camera footage taught me anything is that overwhelming majority of the time I sympathize with the police. They're often very reasonable and act with restraint in a difficult situation. I see clips regularly where without a video the situation would appear very bad for police. This is so common, some commentators like John Oliver came out against police cameras because they're too sympathetic to police because I don't know, angles or something? Really broke the illusion that cops are mostly a group of bullies terrorizing neighborhoods and arresting people at random. Sure bad cops exist, but I trust their incentives and instinct a lot more than the judicial process, the true "administrators of state power" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP4_2soVZe0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP4_2soVZe0
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3mo ago
    The police have an enormous amount of power in the system. They can unilaterally decide to let people get away with something illegal, or arrest people for doing something fully legal because they felt like it. And even if prosecutors drop the charges in the latter case, being arrested, processed, and jailed until that happens is very much a punishment and an act of state violence in and of itself. The bad cops you mention, do exist and continue to exist because the police have so much power in the system that bad ones can't be fired for inexcusable behavior or even doing crimes themselves (exceptions exist, but are rare). They are as much as administrator of state power as the judges and prosecutors. I would even argue they are more so because of the directness of their actions.

21 points by 1659447091 3mo ago

Good in theory, but having police with axes to grind airing inaccurate information seems ripe for abuse. From the article; >Chadwick had been charged and pleaded not guilty, but not tried - yet the podcast made no use of the word "alleged" and called the millionaire a "murderer". Yeah, like that.

sublinear 3mo ago
The abuse is far more likely to come from the audience than the police. The true crime fanbase tends to have mental health issues.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  The police are the ones who can lock you in jail.
  - sublinear 3mo ago
    The audience will go on witch hunts. They will doxx anyone even tangentially related to a crime and commit Luigi-style assassinations. The police are very aware of the "street justice" they're encouraging. Just because they keep their hands clean doesn't mean I'm defending them either. This is mob rule.
- victorbjorklund 3mo ago
  But the police are official represeatives of the government and it holds more weight when they say "they are guilty even if court said they are not" vs if a random private individual says it.
- A_D_E_P_T 3mo ago
  On the one hand, it's one of the most popular genres out there. 84% of the U.S. population age 13+ are "True Crime consumers": > https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-true-crime-consumer-report-by-edison-research-and-audiochuck/ https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-true-crime-consumer-repor... But it's absolutely true that the internet-based tribe called the "TCC" -- the true crime community -- is a hotbed of severe mental illness and moral depravity. It's a very young-skewing demographic, too. You can think of it as Fandom for killers. I monitor my son's internet activity in large part to ensure that he's not exposing himself to it, and I would view any exposure to the TCC as the reddest of red flags.
  - chneu 3mo ago
    Not debating but those numbers seem wildly high. Then again, US folks are insanely paranoid and fearful of stuff, so maybe not.
inigyou 3mo ago
In several countries that would be illegal, but the police would never investigate themselves.
- HPsquared 3mo ago
  Defamation is a civil thing though, isn't it?
- embedding-shape 3mo ago
  > the police would never investigate themselves Makes sense, would be a huge conflict of interest. That's why most modern countries have separate independent investigative agencies whose purpose is to investigate the police. Sadly, some of the more police-horny countries tend to give these agencies faux power rather than something real, and in the worst ones, the police has qualified immunity anyway.
dan_gee 3mo ago
[dead]

kristopolous 3mo ago

Although I can't fully articulate this my intuition says this is an exceptionally bad idea. Something about the administrators of state power capitalizing on their execution of it for fame. I'd probably want that banned?

bko 3mo ago
> administrators of state power capitalizing on their execution of it for fame Aren't the administrators of state power the prosecutors? Police are more rank and file dealing with the issues. Then it gets kicked up to prosecutors and court system that indirectly drives police action. If crimes don't get prosecuted, police don't make arrests. That's why I pass by half a dozen people illegally selling weed or fake handbags on the streets every day. For instance, police can have a different perspective more in line with reality. They'll arrest the same person multiple times, know his story and the story of the victims. By the time it goes through the legal system (essentially upper management) and through all the layers of bureaucracy, it morphs into something else entirely. If body camera footage taught me anything is that overwhelming majority of the time I sympathize with the police. They're often very reasonable and act with restraint in a difficult situation. I see clips regularly where without a video the situation would appear very bad for police. This is so common, some commentators like John Oliver came out against police cameras because they're too sympathetic to police because I don't know, angles or something? Really broke the illusion that cops are mostly a group of bullies terrorizing neighborhoods and arresting people at random. Sure bad cops exist, but I trust their incentives and instinct a lot more than the judicial process, the true "administrators of state power" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP4_2soVZe0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP4_2soVZe0
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3mo ago
  The police have an enormous amount of power in the system. They can unilaterally decide to let people get away with something illegal, or arrest people for doing something fully legal because they felt like it. And even if prosecutors drop the charges in the latter case, being arrested, processed, and jailed until that happens is very much a punishment and an act of state violence in and of itself. The bad cops you mention, do exist and continue to exist because the police have so much power in the system that bad ones can't be fired for inexcusable behavior or even doing crimes themselves (exceptions exist, but are rare). They are as much as administrator of state power as the judges and prosecutors. I would even argue they are more so because of the directness of their actions.