6 ms·

I would love to read something about how the police didn't kill someone. It seems like most of the people that help other people are "strangers" - are there an

by glenda 12y ago

I would love to read something about how the police didn't kill someone. It seems like most of the people that help other people are "strangers" - are there any kinds of statistics on how often the police actually help? I'd imagine that situations like domestic abuse are cases when they're really successful but other than that it often seems like the police cause real problems that tear people apart.

mhurron 12y ago
That couldn't possibly be because bad news makes headlines a lot more than good news does, could it? Mundane things don't make the news so why would a cop not killing someone make the news?
- glenda 12y ago
  Well, for instance we heard about Charles Ramsey finding those three missing women. Also, today on the local news I saw a report about truckers saving a woman and child from a burning car on the freeway. The things that police are used for are things like 'the war on drugs' etc... not necessarily positive, helpful, community level things.
  - dandelany 12y ago
    But aren't you overlooking all the thousands of everyday things that policemen do, things that aren't newsworthy? Little things like giving people directions, explaining why your Metro card isn't working, or simply being someone to call and talk to and file a report with when someone steals your stuff; along with bigger things like stopping an abusive spouse or arresting assaulters, rapists and murderers; all of these are things that policemen do every day, which of course makes them non-newsworthy. IMHO the silent majority of cops are good people doing good things most of the time, but there's nothing to report there, so instead our perceptions of the police force are completely skewed by the reporting of rare, horrific actions.
    - glenda 12y ago
      Don't get me wrong, there are definitely good cops, but at the same time - they protect the bad ones, so it's hard to say. The same officer that helps someone with their Metro card can be the officer that 5 minutes later is "stopping and frisking" someone.
    - tedks 12y ago
      I would never ask a cop for directions or ask why my metro card isn't working. For all I know I could look at some roided-up armored highschool graduate funny and end up with a hole in my face. Police are horrible to rape and domestic assault survivors. They resent doing the paperwork for cases and often are totally unsympathetic. Police aren't trained well at all in how to relate to trauma survivors, so they end up causing vastly worse outcomes. This is why things like rape crisis centers exist, precisely because the police were not helping. In domestic violence cases, police will frequently side with the abuser and in states without mandatory arrest laws, often leave the survivor with the abuser, which obviously isn't a good thing to do. I think the majority of cops are people doing a job. They see themselves as good people, but they're part of a system that hurts and kills people. Regardless of the above, the primary job of police in the united states is to fight the drug war, which is really just a modern variant of jim crow.
      - dandelany 12y ago
        As an NYC resident, I see cops helping people with directions and MTA cards all the time, often unasked. RE: being "horrible" to abuse survivors, again, I think your perceptions have been skewed by all the stories you've heard about this happening, and all the stories you haven't heard about it not happening, because it's not newsworthy when it doesn't happen. Do you have any evidence this is occurring in a majority, or even a large minority of cases?
        tedks 12y ago
        My opinion about cops being horrible to rape and DV survivors comes from my work in the communities. I live in Washington DC and would never in a million years ask a metro cop for help. Nor do I typically see people doing so. The only thing I see metro cops doing are "randomly" searching black people or punk-looking kids' bags.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  Local news in the US is highly dependent on police sources, and therefore VERY reluctant to be critical of police. There is far more pro-police bias in reporting than the reverse.
- baddox 12y ago
  Things that are routine are by definition not usually published as news. "Cop drives patrol car all day without incident" is not a useful headline, and not only because it won't generate clicks (unless it's The Onion perhaps).
ganeumann 12y ago
Police don't kill people almost all the time. Police generally are a net good. I read this book once called Crisis Management. The main idea was to minimize the consequences of rare actions. So, even though train cars carrying lethal chemicals rarely derail, you build the train tracks so if one were to derail, say on a sharp curve, it derails far from populated areas. Or, even though nuclear reactors rarely release deadly radiocative gases, you don't allow people to build shanties nearby, where they would get lethal doses of radiation if there were an accident. You can't get rid of adverse cases completely in most real-world situations. But you can work to minimize the consequences when the adverse case shows up. There are times when improving the worst case is pretty cheap, if you think ahead. Policing is like this. The police very rarely need to use force ('rarely' in the sense of force used/interaction with civilian.) But when they do it makes sense to reduce the worst case: that the force will cause mortal injury. In the MOVE case, just wait them out. There is definitely increased cost, but it improves the expected value of the worst case by much more than the cost. Or, as I saw someone ask, speculatively I have to assume, on Twitter 'what would you do if some 6'4" guy was running at you threateningly?' The rational answer might be 'close your car window and call for backup.' It's never 'get out of the car and shoot him in the head.'
- glenda 12y ago
  Right, at a certain point it comes down to the officer's life versus the life of the civilian. This is a tough situation because you essentially saying "I am going to kill you before you kill me" - which is definitely not how police should operate. Unless the civilian is armed I see no reason why the police should even arrive at the scene with a gun, unless the situation is violent to begin with, or after being called in as backup.
- Russell91 12y ago
  Police are not supposed to be a net good. They are a classic solution to a game theoretic prisoner's dilemma. If there were no enforcement of laws by police, it would be in everyone's best interest to e.g. steal. Regardless of whether other people steal, you'd be better off doing it. So as a classic solution to the prisoners dilemma, you introduce a force that strictly decreases everyone's utility function. How can this be a good thing? Well, because it changes everyone's optimal strategy from stealing to not stealing, reaching a global optimum. Now you'll notice that this strategy only improves things if it actually changes people's behavior. If people continue stealing anyway at the same rates, then things have only gotten worse (unless you subscribe to punitive, rather than deterrent punishment). So the primary purpose of police is deterrence through the threat of negative reinforcement, not "helping people". Further, whenever police actually have to enforce laws, its a sign that something has gone wildly wrong. The deterrent didn't work, and things are worse off than if there were no police at all. Of course, in reality criminal behavior has a lot of motivators and it's not possible to change everyone's optimal strategy just by raising punishments, so you're going to have police enforcing laws. But there is no police department that is more successful than one where the police just sit around and do nothing.
quaffapint 12y ago
I believe it was Mayor Goode that called for the action.
bcoates 12y ago
It isn't their job to help people. They're bureaucrats, it's their job to show up after and take notes, give interviews and file paperwork. There is no reason to give these people guns, tanks, helicopters, or bombs -- giving them cars is a stretch (we have mass transit, after all). The US Postal Service has a better justification for being armed and having bombs and guns than the police do -- they at least have a positive mandate to defend the mail in their custody from robbery.
- varkson 12y ago
  So you won't complain if your family are killed in front of you and the police don't do anything? GG dude this is why everyone thinks anarchists and the like are fucking dumb.
  - glenda 12y ago
    So you won't complain if your family are killed by the police?

by glenda 12y ago

mhurron 12y ago

That couldn't possibly be because bad news makes headlines a lot more than good news does, could it? Mundane things don't make the news so why would a cop not killing someone make the news?

glenda 12y ago
Well, for instance we heard about Charles Ramsey finding those three missing women. Also, today on the local news I saw a report about truckers saving a woman and child from a burning car on the freeway. The things that police are used for are things like 'the war on drugs' etc... not necessarily positive, helpful, community level things.
- dandelany 12y ago
  But aren't you overlooking all the thousands of everyday things that policemen do, things that aren't newsworthy? Little things like giving people directions, explaining why your Metro card isn't working, or simply being someone to call and talk to and file a report with when someone steals your stuff; along with bigger things like stopping an abusive spouse or arresting assaulters, rapists and murderers; all of these are things that policemen do every day, which of course makes them non-newsworthy. IMHO the silent majority of cops are good people doing good things most of the time, but there's nothing to report there, so instead our perceptions of the police force are completely skewed by the reporting of rare, horrific actions.
  - glenda 12y ago
    Don't get me wrong, there are definitely good cops, but at the same time - they protect the bad ones, so it's hard to say. The same officer that helps someone with their Metro card can be the officer that 5 minutes later is "stopping and frisking" someone.
  - tedks 12y ago
    I would never ask a cop for directions or ask why my metro card isn't working. For all I know I could look at some roided-up armored highschool graduate funny and end up with a hole in my face. Police are horrible to rape and domestic assault survivors. They resent doing the paperwork for cases and often are totally unsympathetic. Police aren't trained well at all in how to relate to trauma survivors, so they end up causing vastly worse outcomes. This is why things like rape crisis centers exist, precisely because the police were not helping. In domestic violence cases, police will frequently side with the abuser and in states without mandatory arrest laws, often leave the survivor with the abuser, which obviously isn't a good thing to do. I think the majority of cops are people doing a job. They see themselves as good people, but they're part of a system that hurts and kills people. Regardless of the above, the primary job of police in the united states is to fight the drug war, which is really just a modern variant of jim crow.
    - dandelany 12y ago
      As an NYC resident, I see cops helping people with directions and MTA cards all the time, often unasked. RE: being "horrible" to abuse survivors, again, I think your perceptions have been skewed by all the stories you've heard about this happening, and all the stories you haven't heard about it not happening, because it's not newsworthy when it doesn't happen. Do you have any evidence this is occurring in a majority, or even a large minority of cases?
      - tedks 12y ago
        My opinion about cops being horrible to rape and DV survivors comes from my work in the communities. I live in Washington DC and would never in a million years ask a metro cop for help. Nor do I typically see people doing so. The only thing I see metro cops doing are "randomly" searching black people or punk-looking kids' bags.
Zigurd 12y ago
Local news in the US is highly dependent on police sources, and therefore VERY reluctant to be critical of police. There is far more pro-police bias in reporting than the reverse.
baddox 12y ago
Things that are routine are by definition not usually published as news. "Cop drives patrol car all day without incident" is not a useful headline, and not only because it won't generate clicks (unless it's The Onion perhaps).

ganeumann 12y ago

Police don't kill people almost all the time. Police generally are a net good. I read this book once called Crisis Management. The main idea was to minimize the consequences of rare actions. So, even though train cars carrying lethal chemicals rarely derail, you build the train tracks so if one were to derail, say on a sharp curve, it derails far from populated areas. Or, even though nuclear reactors rarely release deadly radiocative gases, you don't allow people to build shanties nearby, where they would get lethal doses of radiation if there were an accident. You can't get rid of adverse cases completely in most real-world situations. But you can work to minimize the consequences when the adverse case shows up. There are times when improving the worst case is pretty cheap, if you think ahead. Policing is like this. The police very rarely need to use force ('rarely' in the sense of force used/interaction with civilian.) But when they do it makes sense to reduce the worst case: that the force will cause mortal injury. In the MOVE case, just wait them out. There is definitely increased cost, but it improves the expected value of the worst case by much more than the cost. Or, as I saw someone ask, speculatively I have to assume, on Twitter 'what would you do if some 6'4" guy was running at you threateningly?' The rational answer might be 'close your car window and call for backup.' It's never 'get out of the car and shoot him in the head.'

glenda 12y ago
Right, at a certain point it comes down to the officer's life versus the life of the civilian. This is a tough situation because you essentially saying "I am going to kill you before you kill me" - which is definitely not how police should operate. Unless the civilian is armed I see no reason why the police should even arrive at the scene with a gun, unless the situation is violent to begin with, or after being called in as backup.
Russell91 12y ago
Police are not supposed to be a net good. They are a classic solution to a game theoretic prisoner's dilemma. If there were no enforcement of laws by police, it would be in everyone's best interest to e.g. steal. Regardless of whether other people steal, you'd be better off doing it. So as a classic solution to the prisoners dilemma, you introduce a force that strictly decreases everyone's utility function. How can this be a good thing? Well, because it changes everyone's optimal strategy from stealing to not stealing, reaching a global optimum. Now you'll notice that this strategy only improves things if it actually changes people's behavior. If people continue stealing anyway at the same rates, then things have only gotten worse (unless you subscribe to punitive, rather than deterrent punishment). So the primary purpose of police is deterrence through the threat of negative reinforcement, not "helping people". Further, whenever police actually have to enforce laws, its a sign that something has gone wildly wrong. The deterrent didn't work, and things are worse off than if there were no police at all. Of course, in reality criminal behavior has a lot of motivators and it's not possible to change everyone's optimal strategy just by raising punishments, so you're going to have police enforcing laws. But there is no police department that is more successful than one where the police just sit around and do nothing.

quaffapint 12y ago

I believe it was Mayor Goode that called for the action.

bcoates 12y ago

It isn't their job to help people. They're bureaucrats, it's their job to show up after and take notes, give interviews and file paperwork. There is no reason to give these people guns, tanks, helicopters, or bombs -- giving them cars is a stretch (we have mass transit, after all). The US Postal Service has a better justification for being armed and having bombs and guns than the police do -- they at least have a positive mandate to defend the mail in their custody from robbery.

varkson 12y ago
So you won't complain if your family are killed in front of you and the police don't do anything? GG dude this is why everyone thinks anarchists and the like are fucking dumb.
- glenda 12y ago
  So you won't complain if your family are killed by the police?