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Imagining a society that isn't dominated by police
- omgtehblackbloc 12y agoSomeone had to say it.
- Zigurd 12y agoTwo more ideas: Bonding tip-of-the-spear employees of the criminal justice system: cops, prosecutors, parole officers, prison guards. That way you can do away with qualified immunity, municipalities are not on the hook for paying settlements, and thugs price themselves out of the system. Special prosecutors for police crimes.
- vutekst 12y agoI don't really understand the first proposal, can you expand on that? How would it do away with qualified immunity etc?
- Zigurd 12y agoQualified immunity protects the state against out of control claims. Bonding these employees up front means there can be no surprises about liability.
- jessriedel 12y agoI haven't heard anyone suggest the bonding idea, and it seems very sensible. Is this discussed/criticized anywhere?
- Zigurd 12y agoNot that I know of, though it seems like such a simple idea that someone must have thought of it.
- girvo 12y agoFascinating idea, do you mind expanding on it?
- Zigurd 12y agoThe idea is to protect governments from settlement costs while creating pricing signals for over-aggressive cops, prosecutors, etc. AND enabling victims to get compensation. There seem to be too many cases of bad prosecutions, and, as it is now, the victims usually get screwed.
- stevebot 12y agoThey recently created uniforms for the Seattle Police department here. Its nebulous what they hope to accomplish with the added surveillance and personally it freaks me out. I'm not saying were an Orwellian police state but at least we are headed that way.
- anigbrowl 12y agoMy impression is that most people want the police to wear cameras so they have something more objective than the officer's verbal assertion when disputes arise - where they've been deployed, such cameras seem to lead to a reduction in complaints because officers know their behavior is being recorded.
- lotharbot 12y agoIt's two sided -- officers behave better because they're on camera, and people make up fewer false accusations because they know they were on camera. My city (Denver) passed a law mandating body cameras for police during the last election. It'll probably be a year or two before we get data on how well it's worked.
- KevinEldon 12y agoAlso the person the officer is speaking with knows their behavior is being recorded.
- dllthomas 12y agoOne concern I have about cameras is if the police get the opportunity to review the footage before testifying, and others don't. I think that would be a significant shift of power toward the police, though it may still curtail some of the most extreme abuses.
- kuni-toko-tachi 12y agoImagine a society not dominated by main stream media. That is much more important. Control the ideas and dialogue, control the people.
- angersock 12y agoI think that that's a great talking point, but from a very practical perspective the solution is to get people to question their media (social, main stream, or otherwise) carefully. Simply removing the big channels won't fix anything. More importantly, though, it's still just a talking feel-good point: the fact of the matter is that if a cop can blow a hole in your baby with a flashbang during a no-knock warrant it doesn't matter a hoot in hell what news you subscribed to. I wouldn't put these on the same level at all.
- tormeh 12y ago>the solution is to get people to question their media That's contrary to human nature. The solution is to make the media independent of outside interests. The simplest would be to ban all media employees from outside commercial activity, ban investment in media from non-media companies and ban advertisement. Alternatively advertisement could be allowed as long as the money is paid equally to all media, and the ads are randomly allocated. Third alternative is to have a responsible government channel that competes with the commercial ones, funded by tax money and independent like a central bank. That, however, would require a reasonably decent government to begin with. This model actually works pretty well in many countries.
- anigbrowl 12y agoThis would run into huge legal obstacles in the US, since the government is largely prohibited from regulating the press.
- chc 12y ago> The simplest would be to ban all media employees from outside commercial activity What does this even mean? Media employees aren't allowed to buy groceries? Media employees aren't allowed to buy cars? Media employees aren't allowed to sell Girl Scout Cookies? > ban advertisement This kills the media.
- jessriedel 12y agoAnother one: Any time an agency of the government collects a fine to deter bad behavior, the money must be given to another agency that is significantly removed from the decision making process that sets the fine, or to charity. Likewise for seized goods, etc. If the county police department starts writing more tickets for rolling stops, the money just ends up with the parks department. (Obviously it is possible in principle for different agencies to collude, but the same can be said about all checks and balances. The point is to make coordinating the collusion difficult/dangerous.) People can complain all they want about individual instances of civil forfeiture or predatory red-light cameras, but those sorts of issues are all caused by the incentives induced when the agency that enacts the fine benefits from the money collected. (This does not apply to the separate penalties/restitution used to compensate victims, pay for fixing actual damage, etc..) If some agencies are currently dependent on revenue through fines, then this requires a one-time adjustment to their budget. But this is good as it just means that the cost of running their agencies becomes more transparent.
- ashark 12y agoI think traffic and parking fines should fund public transportation.
- chrishynes 12y agoThat sounds like a good idea on the surface but it doesn't actually discourage anything. If the revenue is getting into government at all it still has the same perverse incentives. Case in point: the many small towns that get a substantial chunk of their overall revenue from fines and police action --https://www.google.com/search?q=town+police+revenue https://www.google.com/search?q=town+police+revenue
- redacted 12y agoI think the better way would be that such fines are sent straight to a national/federal agency, which in turn disburses the fund across the entire country as needed. That would prevent any corrupt small-town police force from simply fining people to raise money because they may never see any of it themselves.
- tim333 12y agoThe article seems pretty US focused. There are a lot of countries out there that are less police dominated that could be used as examples. In the UK where I am the policing is fairly light. It would be hard to say society is dominated by it outside a few bad areas where gangs stab each other so the police have to intervene. I was last stopped by the police about 20 years ago for driving 130mph in a 70 limit and let off with a warning.
- kasbah 12y agoI have witnessed very heavy handed policing of peaceful protestors and squatters here in the UK. At the same time I know of cases of people being imprisoned that should be receiving psychiatric care instead; so point 6 in the article struck me especially.
- alextgordon 12y agoThe police seem to treat protestors much worse than anybody else, which makes me think such heavy-handed tactics are a response to pressure from above. The government(s) have shown a consistent disregard for freedom of assembly.
- username223 12y agoYeah, it's a bit different here. The last time I was stopped was a few years ago for having a burnt-out brake light in Nowheresville, Wyoming. The cop probably didn't like my dirty car and out-of-state plates, but my paperwork was in order, and I'm a harmless-looking white dude, so I got away with mild harassment and a warning.
- poulsbohemian 12y agoThis is really at the heart of the problem I have with the American approach to policing - everything becomes a police issue. Your tail light is out. Does the cop: a) tell you your tail light is out and to have a nice day and drive safe or b) demand license and registration, take 10 minutes to run a complete background check, insult you for having the tail light out, threaten to search the rest of your vehicle, and finally get around to giving you a ticket so that they can meet their quotas and fill their coffers. Drugs: we treat it like a policing issue, other countries treat it as a social and health issue. Immigration: we turn it into a policing deal when really its an economic and social system matter. Gangs: our cops talk tough on the nightly news and the newspaper, but really this is directly tied to the drug and immigration problem and is again, and economic problem of when you have disfranchised young men. Even a lot of the speeding and traffic problems are really cases of poor civil engineering and traffic management, but we "fix" them through a convenient policing trick that also generated revenue without raising anyone's taxes visibly. Homelessness, especially due to mental illness? Let's make laying on the sidewalk illegal so we can turn a social problem into a police issue. So in short, our US system turns things into policing issues because you know, fixing the real problems would be tough.
- enobrev 12y agoI'm not necessarily "anti-police" but I do agree that treating "criminal" behavior as a mental health issue rather than one to be handled by punitive measures is the best way forward.
- anigbrowl 12y agoThis is a huge problem in the US; lots of people have mental health problems but there are very few votes in trying to fix it. I've gone on at length about this before so I'll just offer these two links for people who want to get up to speed on the issue: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/what-happened-to-u-s-mental-health-care-after-deinstitutionalization/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/w... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/timeline-mental-health-america http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/timeline-mental-...
- tomp 12y agoNo need to "imagine" it. Just come to Europe. I can recommend either the UK or Slovenia based on personal experience, cops are completely domesticated. Portugal, Germany or Netherlands if you want decriminalization. Switzerland for direct democracy. Most EU countries for treating the mentally ill.
- tptacek 12y agoOne of two places in the world I've been searched intrusively outside an airport, without warrant or probable cause: Switzerland (my wife used to live there). The other place: also in Europe. I'm sure Europe is much nicer if it's evident that you're from whatever country you're in. (Not exactly on point, but, whatever: the TSA has nothing on Heathrow international terminal for intrusive, pointless, rude searches).
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- poulsbohemian 12y agoMy family came from Switzerland about 200 years ago, and our name is recognizably Swiss. I actually got my passport temporarily confiscated and went through an interrogation about 20 years ago (before 9/11/2001) because they didn't believe I was an American. The fact that I was speaking to them in German was used as evidence against me - because how on earth would an American know German? I giggle at the idea that my ancestral home interrogated me, but the border guards when I went to scary communist China or muslim Turkey barely opened the cover of my passport before they passed me through. But really the worst I've ever been treated was coming back into the US from Canada...
- te_platt 12y agoThere have been a lot of different ways to make and enforce laws through history, each with their particular costs and benefits. For a review of several I recommend this work (in progress) by David Friedman. http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_systems_very_different_12/LegalSystemsDraft.html http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_sy...
- mikerichards 12y agoAs long as we have a society dominated by government, we'll have a society dominated by its enforcement agents.
- krapp 12y agoThis brings up the inevitable question of what you would have society be dominated by, if not government?
- rayiner 12y agoI don't know why this is always posed as some sort of hypothetical or thought experiment, as if we don't have ample empirical evidence. Before modern nation-states emerged, we had feudal war lords in charge. When you overthrow nation-states, as in Afghanistan or Iraq, the feudal war lords return to power. Those are the two options.
- mikerichards 12y agoThose are the two options. You were already arguing a false dichotomy, and then ended up admitting it with that last sentence. Hopefully one of these days (probably in the far future, if ever), we'll have a society dominated by individuals cooperating and interacting with each other without the need for a top down autocracy, which the U.S. is moving towards now. But as long as you have government agents and those in the media actively trying to divide people and pit groups against each other in order to gain power, that will never happen. And as long as we have indoctrination of individuals into thinking that government should be involved in every aspect of their lives in order to promote fairness, there's no hope.
- rayiner 12y agoIt's only a false dichotomy if there's another choice, and in history we haven't seen one at any substantial scale. In any society where there's no centralized power, a small organized group skilled in violence can terrorize and dominate a large, disorganized population. That's how feudal warlords came into power over scattered tribes in the first place.
- anigbrowl 12y agoAnother suggestion: abolish the practice of 'perp walks' and police publication of mugshots. They badly prejudice the right to a fair trial, the government is under no particular obligation to release that information until someone comes up for trial, and they're a grotesque infringement on the privacy and dignity of arrestees, many of whom are never even charged with a crime.
- kenesom1 12y agoDisarming most police patrols would be an excellent start. Most of the violence committed against innocent civilians is perpetrated by the police. In major cities like Los Angeles, "no criminal organization kills as many people as the police.” [1] [1] http://www.fatalencounters.org/shocking-police-homicide-percentages/ http://www.fatalencounters.org/shocking-police-homicide-perc...
- kahirsch 12y ago> Most of the violence committed against innocent civilians is perpetrated by the police. That sentence is completely different from "no criminal organization kills as many people as the police." While it is shockingly high, 3 to 8 percent is not 50%. EDIT: Also, the majority of police victims are probably not "innocent" civilians, but armed, violent criminals.
- ChristianBundy 12y ago> ...the majority of police victims are probably not "innocent" civilians, but armed, violent criminals. Citation needed.
- andyl 12y agoI want to patrol my own streets like I want to grow my own food, or supply my own home energy. No thanks. People who provide these services do a better job than I ever will. I'm thankful that they are there, so I can focus all my energy on writing software.
- ossreality 12y agoRead the article you loser.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- SwellJoe 12y agoThe article makes several suggestions, and only one of them is "community patrols".
- akira2501 12y agoYes, but it starts with the premise that these are alternatives. If anything, I think these are things that are good in _addition_ to our current system, but as a replacement I think it's a bit of a pipe dream. Further, I take issue with the whole notion of the United States being a society "dominated by the police." It looks like we have just the right amount[1], so it seems to me that the issue is lack of training, accountability and open reporting combined with effective police review that are likely to be our problems. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
- SwellJoe 12y agoAnd, yet, our police seem to be extraordinarily effective at imprisoning people, comparatively speaking. If we have the right amount of police (at their current efficiency), does that mean we have the right amount of people in prison? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
- KevinEldon 12y agoIf you don't like police in your community elect officials (or get elected yourself) to stop paying for them. If you don't pay the cops they will not show up. I assume many of the commenters on this post have some advantages that would aide in persuading the local citizens of the benefits of transferring funds for police to education, mental health care, tax reduction, or whatever.
- simonmd 12y agoI don't have to imagine it, It's called Colombia, where the Police is at best ineffective, and it's fxxxxing anarchy. So let's imagine instead if the liberal media in the USA had global context instead of complaining because you have a functional police force with a few problems that need correcting. tl;dr First world problems boohoo.
- Zigurd 12y agohave you been to Columbia?
- simonmd 12y agoHave I? I live there. ColOmbia
- ende 12y agoA few problems? We have something between a state sanctioned fascist subculture that hates minorities and an organized crime syndicate. Burn it to the ground and start over.
- mieses 12y agoAre you talking about Colombia?
- mc32 12y agoI can certainly imagine the proposed alternatives. I personally don't think they'll solve the behavioral issues in society at large. They likely would reduce the amount of policing and supplement traditional policing, but I don't think it'll eliminate the need. It's not as if all countries conspired and said, let's all have a police force! I think the policing grows out of necessity. It's not as if there aren't lawless places where there is either little police or no police. Those places exist, for the most part, most people would choose to live in a different place where there are decently funded police. I'm not saying 'militarized' police are necessary or desired, but i think large societies need a force (people or robotic) which enforce the rules (reasonable/constitutionally sound) out by the population at large. Maybe a robotic force would be more impartial than people personafying the police force....