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I'm sure there are law enforcement officers that disagree that there are perverse incentives. So the reporter has to quote somebody, he can't just state it as f

by guelo 12y ago

I'm sure there are law enforcement officers that disagree that there are perverse incentives. So the reporter has to quote somebody, he can't just state it as fact.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
> So the reporter has to quote somebody, he can't just state it as fact. Why not? Its economics 101 [1]. Incentives matter, and the existing rules create "perverse incentives." Or are we talking about offending law enforcement and government agencies? Because fact and ego are two different things. [1] http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/10_Principles_of_Economics http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/10_Principles_of_Economics
mikeash 12y ago
There are people who disagree that the world is round, but journalists don't generally have to pretend like there are multiple possibilities there. What's the threshold supposed to be?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
SilasX 12y ago
Those LEOs are deceiving themselves (to put it gently). They can plausibly believe that the perverse incentives aren't bad enough to be scrapped for other allocation policies, or that the police recruit only those who can resist those incentives, but there's no basis to object that the incentives themselves don't exist. The fact that downside X can be overcome does not mean X does not exist. Are the perverse incentives actually problematic in practice? Okay, that claim can be the sole province of "critics", but not the one about whether they exist.
jMyles 12y ago
I doubt this. I surmise (and I'm imagining my LEO friends talking to me in my head) that they might say, "there are safeguards in place" or "I didn't take this job to go around stealing things from honest people," but I think that they will acknowledge that these (and other similar) measures are just counter-incentives. Regardless of how well they work, and the success or failure of the policy generally, this particular configuration (law enforcement receiving the proceeds) is indeed an incentive for them to do the wrong thing (ie, "perverse"). I really don't think anybody disputes that.
specialist 12y ago
Superfluous quoting might even be an editorial policy.

by guelo 12y ago

I'm sure there are law enforcement officers that disagree that there are perverse incentives. So the reporter has to quote somebody, he can't just state it as fact.

toomuchtodo 12y ago

> So the reporter has to quote somebody, he can't just state it as fact. Why not? Its economics 101 [1]. Incentives matter, and the existing rules create "perverse incentives." Or are we talking about offending law enforcement and government agencies? Because fact and ego are two different things. [1] http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/10_Principles_of_Economics http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/10_Principles_of_Economics

mikeash 12y ago

There are people who disagree that the world is round, but journalists don't generally have to pretend like there are multiple possibilities there. What's the threshold supposed to be?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

SilasX 12y ago

Those LEOs are deceiving themselves (to put it gently). They can plausibly believe that the perverse incentives aren't bad enough to be scrapped for other allocation policies, or that the police recruit only those who can resist those incentives, but there's no basis to object that the incentives themselves don't exist. The fact that downside X can be overcome does not mean X does not exist. Are the perverse incentives actually problematic in practice? Okay, that claim can be the sole province of "critics", but not the one about whether they exist.

jMyles 12y ago

I doubt this. I surmise (and I'm imagining my LEO friends talking to me in my head) that they might say, "there are safeguards in place" or "I didn't take this job to go around stealing things from honest people," but I think that they will acknowledge that these (and other similar) measures are just counter-incentives. Regardless of how well they work, and the success or failure of the policy generally, this particular configuration (law enforcement receiving the proceeds) is indeed an incentive for them to do the wrong thing (ie, "perverse"). I really don't think anybody disputes that.

specialist 12y ago

Superfluous quoting might even be an editorial policy.