7 ms·

Part of the irony here is that Nick is one of the most respectable, least threatening, most "establishment" people I know -- he's worked in banking/gov security

by rdl 13y ago

Part of the irony here is that Nick is one of the most respectable, least threatening, most "establishment" people I know -- he's worked in banking/gov security, and his goal in life is to be a CPA for startups. If someone like that is getting fucked with by the biggest gang in NYC, you know there's a problem.

o0-0o 13y ago
There are already too many cops, and they have to keep going back to the same trough to feed themselves. Solving murders, rapes, and robberies doesn't pay. Ticketing people for jaywalking, curfew, and traffic violations does. Also, to further the problem, the police have cash bonuses paid to them for exceeding their quotas with these tickets. The police are there to preserve disorder, but they have lost sight of this. Now, there are two types of cops; the protect and serve kind, and the us against them kind. Sadly, the latter seems to be taking over. I'm afraid this doesn't end well. The nightmare scenario is some kid walking up to a cop on the 4th of July and asking for baseball cards with a toy in his hand that is mistaken for a gun. The real question here is what are we going to do about it?
- harryh 13y ago
  Empirical research disputes your assertion that there are too many cops: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/12/police-crime-and-the-usefulness-of-economics.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/12/pol...
  - rdl 13y ago
    NYPD is 10x too big. NYC is really a special case of infinite budget, powerful union, and external events (1970s/1980s crime wave, followed by 9/11) to justify it. Other places have too few (Oakland PD should be at least 2x and really 5x what it has). The fundamental problem is poor places have less budget and also higher need for policing. Various transit agencies, universities, etc. should probably not operate their own substandard police forces, but use non-sworn security and have a decent working relationship with the local PD.
    - harryh 13y ago
      It looks like NYC has ~40 police officers per 10k people(1). If you cut that by 90% to ~4 per 10k then NYC would have, by far, the smallest per capita police force for any American city. So really you're asserting that police forces are too large almost everywhere in the US? EDIT: ~4 officers per 10k would also be lower than essentially any other country in the world(2). 1. http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforcement-police-department-employee-totals-for-cities.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforce... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
      - rdl 13y ago
        Oh, I think you're correct; I was using the population of Manhattan only. Oops.
      - Glyptodon 13y ago
        But how many do they have per square mile?
        harryh 13y ago
        35k officers / 468 square miles ~= 75 officers per square mile.
        Glyptodon 13y ago
        Just as a comparison, Albuquerque has ~8 police per sq. mile, and Tucson has ~4.5 police per sq. mile. However, New York has ~27000 people/sq. mile, while Tucson has ~2800 and Albuquerque about ~3000. So NY has about ~9x the population density, but ~12x the police. Now what I'm also curious about - would you expect high population density to increase or decrease the number of police needed per capita? Off hand, I would be inclined to think lower population density would need higher police per capita, but here it seems to be the reverse (possibly reflecting the coffers rather than the needs, though).

by rdl 13y ago

o0-0o 13y ago

There are already too many cops, and they have to keep going back to the same trough to feed themselves. Solving murders, rapes, and robberies doesn't pay. Ticketing people for jaywalking, curfew, and traffic violations does. Also, to further the problem, the police have cash bonuses paid to them for exceeding their quotas with these tickets. The police are there to preserve disorder, but they have lost sight of this. Now, there are two types of cops; the protect and serve kind, and the us against them kind. Sadly, the latter seems to be taking over. I'm afraid this doesn't end well. The nightmare scenario is some kid walking up to a cop on the 4th of July and asking for baseball cards with a toy in his hand that is mistaken for a gun. The real question here is what are we going to do about it?

harryh 13y ago
Empirical research disputes your assertion that there are too many cops: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/12/police-crime-and-the-usefulness-of-economics.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/12/pol...
- rdl 13y ago
  NYPD is 10x too big. NYC is really a special case of infinite budget, powerful union, and external events (1970s/1980s crime wave, followed by 9/11) to justify it. Other places have too few (Oakland PD should be at least 2x and really 5x what it has). The fundamental problem is poor places have less budget and also higher need for policing. Various transit agencies, universities, etc. should probably not operate their own substandard police forces, but use non-sworn security and have a decent working relationship with the local PD.
  - harryh 13y ago
    It looks like NYC has ~40 police officers per 10k people(1). If you cut that by 90% to ~4 per 10k then NYC would have, by far, the smallest per capita police force for any American city. So really you're asserting that police forces are too large almost everywhere in the US? EDIT: ~4 officers per 10k would also be lower than essentially any other country in the world(2). 1. http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforcement-police-department-employee-totals-for-cities.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforce... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
    - rdl 13y ago
      Oh, I think you're correct; I was using the population of Manhattan only. Oops.
    - Glyptodon 13y ago
      But how many do they have per square mile?
      - harryh 13y ago
        35k officers / 468 square miles ~= 75 officers per square mile.
        Glyptodon 13y ago
        Just as a comparison, Albuquerque has ~8 police per sq. mile, and Tucson has ~4.5 police per sq. mile. However, New York has ~27000 people/sq. mile, while Tucson has ~2800 and Albuquerque about ~3000. So NY has about ~9x the population density, but ~12x the police. Now what I'm also curious about - would you expect high population density to increase or decrease the number of police needed per capita? Off hand, I would be inclined to think lower population density would need higher police per capita, but here it seems to be the reverse (possibly reflecting the coffers rather than the needs, though).