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It also gives police no leeway when it comes to enforcing unfair laws. Instead, even the most empathetic and genuinely helpful cop will have to enforce it to t
by Andys 13y ago
It also gives police no leeway when it comes to enforcing unfair laws. Instead, even the most empathetic and genuinely helpful cop will have to enforce it to the letter.
- codezero 13y agoDepends on the culture of the tech. If they only review videos after complaints or issues, they will still be able to enforce their own interpretation. If they are regularly reviewed for strict compliance then you are right. I find the latter to be unlikely. Mainly because it would be prohibitively costly and would go against current police culture which affords officers leeway.
- JulianMorrison 13y agoThey should be reviewed for strict compliance to equal protection. "Why did you arrest this (black) person when you did not arrest this (white) person?" should be a question that police officers hear much more often.
- arjie 13y agoIn practice, what this means is that everyone will be treated the same. With leeway, policemen will treat groups of people they like better than they treat others. This is not because they're particularly evil but because policemen are human and rely on instinct (which is easily corrupted). Then you get preferential treatment. Now, an unfair law is exposed as unfair because all will suffer.
- marklubi 13y agoSerious question, how well has the policy of treating everyone exactly the same to the letter of the law/rule worked for zero tolerance policies? Seems to me that with zero tolerance policies where there is no individual interpretation of the intent of the rule, too many people are unjustly punished for honest mistakes (e.g., forgetting about having a knife in their vehicle at school) or attempts to do well by someone else (e.g., taking a knife away from someone that was trying to hurt themselves).
- arjie 13y agoThat's a fair point, but our opposition to Zero Tolerance stems from the fact that punishment does not account for extenuating circumstances. Policemen are not judges, nor should they ever be. The problem with Zero Tolerance is that the judges are overly strict. We want policemen to enforce the letter. We want judges to consider the spirit of the law, and interpret it appropriately. Policemen lack the knowledge of the law and lack the time to make these decisions in a rational manner. They are forced to rely on poor heuristics. There is less immediacy to a judge's decision. So, yes, I think it fair that someone who forgets he has a knife in his car is removed from class pending an evaluation of the situation (with this taking place in a reasonable amount of time). Then I believe it only fair if the evaluation determines that if it was truly accidental, then he return.
- baddox 13y agoZero tolerance is reasonable if the law or rule itself is reasonable. The reason "zero tolerance" has a bad reputation is that it's usually applied to unreasonable rules. I'm fine with zero tolerance of elementary school children bringing actual firearms to school, but zero tolerance of children pretending a tree branch is a gun is just dumb.
- talmand 13y agoZero tolerance policies are not about "treating" everyone the same to the letter of the law/rule in question. It's about "punishing" everyone the same to the letter of the law/rule in question. Often without due process and common sense. Things would be better between the public and the police if they did treat everyone the same, but that's not zero tolerance policy.
- 6d0debc071 13y agoIf it could be managed, that may turn out to be a good thing. If laws produce significant social distress to a large number of people, then the law is more likely to be changed. Whereas if it's only ever enforced against black people, or people the policeman has decided to screw for whatever reason, then it could go on forever. # If you think of police action as being analogous to pain, then it's not clear that less pain is always the best thing for society in the long run.
- JshWright 13y agoThat's not true at all. Police discretion has a long and well documented history (including a significant amount of legal precedent).