[ajmurmann]

I wonder why we aren't addressing the real problem which seems to be cops behaving completely unethically. Their job is about enforcing the system that codifies our societies agreed up and codified rules of ethics. They should be obsessed with this the same way people here obsess over system performance, correctness, etc! If we cannot trust them with the very basics of ethical behavior they are absolutely in the wrong job and there need to be very clear consequences.

[EthanHeilman]

Because finding people that are 100% ethical is extremely difficult. Even if we are wildly optimistic and say 20% of the population is 100% ethical. You aren't likely to weed out unethical people, so you are hiring people, training them, and then firing them 4 out of 5 of them. There are many cases where an experienced but occasionally unethical worker is better than an unexperienced but ethical worker. When faced with this dilemma it is likely that more police debts would simply cheat or cover up police abuses to retain valuable staff or staff at all.

The solution is not making humans more virtuous but reducing the capability and the harm done that unethical humans can do.

> If we cannot trust them with the very basics of ethical behavior they are absolutely in the wrong job and there need to be very clear consequences.

Police should not be trusted because they are police. There should be audits and controls that prevent abuse and unethical behavior. Small unethical behaviors should result in corrective measures but not termination, since when the punishment becomes too great you create incentives for cover ups or scapegoats. A small number of minor punishments, that catch people as soon as they step over the line, functions better as a deterrent than a large scale punishments that are unlikely to be actually enforced. Granted if a police officer does a major crime, they should face serious consequences, but the goal should be to creating a system that makes major crimes by police less likely. If they know they will get caught for minor crimes, they are less likely to commit bigger crimes.

[MichaelZuo]

So revealed preferences of voters is that they just dont care that much about weeding out bad apples?

From what it sounds like, it’s likely not on any sizable group’s top 10 priority list in LA.

[SoftTalker]

It's not possible. Whether it's a city government, judges, cops, schoolteachers, or clergy... some number of people are unethical. Trying to pretend otherwise is a source of a lot of problems. The best way to avoid it is to make it impossible, i.e. in this case don't collect the camera data in the first place. Once it is collected, it will eventually be abused no matter who has control of it.

[EthanHeilman]

Exactly! Assume that you will have bad apples and build a system that protects against them and minimizes the harm they do.

[MichaelZuo]

This seems to imply a vast expansion of paperwork…?

The LAPD doesnt operate in some fantasy legal environment, but in the real world.

[bauldursdev]

They do, but unethical people don't announce themselves. In fact an ethical person is probably more likely to admit their faults, which usually doesn't play well in elections.

[_DeadFred_]

Police are extended 'good faith' all the time simply for the fact that they are police. Including in situations such as loss of chain of custody for evidence, etc. We have the appearance of what you outline, with a blanket 'good faith' exemption that allows quite a bit of bad behavior/breaks the systems/rules the public believes to exist/be enforced.

[kmacdough]

The problem is simple: qualified immunity has become a blank check. The officer can simply claim they didn't know the law. They somehow can't be expected to understand basic constitutional protections.

[JamesSwift]

Qualified immunity is more nuanced. It allows the first offense to be absolved but it works like legal precedent where future offenses by _any law enforcement officer_ is not covered.

Now there’s plenty of loopholes where you can craft “unique defenses” based on nearly identical underlying offenses. But it’s important to have the distinction

[saghm]

How many instances of are there of qualified immunity actually resulting in an officer being found liable because of past precedent where someone else was considered to have had qualified immunity in the same circumstances? If it's not anywhere close to the number of times when they were found to be immune, then the distinction is theoretical only, and it's arguably more misleading to emphasize it as if it's a real limitation.

[JamesSwift]

Well, I didnt bring it up but the other element of qualified immunity is that its purely for civil suits. So it would only show up if an officer was basically sued personally. It doesnt apply to criminal prosecution. Thats another can of worms though.

[saghm]

Sure, the issues there are also not particularly nuanced; prosectors rely on cops to arrest people and provide evidence for them to do their job, so they're incentivized to keep a good working relationship with them (i.e. by not prosecuting them, especially for things that end up helping them secure convictions, even if they're illegal)

[JamesSwift]

I agree. The issues arent super nuanced (and are pretty "blatant")

But I do think the nuance of "who/what should we point our finger at" is important. Because like we see in this thread, the finger is being pointed at qualified immunity when it almost never is the actual issue for a given injustice, and fixing it will not get rid of the thing you are mad about. Fixing it would go a long way to resetting some cultural precedence though in my opinion.

[inahga]

If you hold police accountable, they respond by refusing to work. That's a problem that, at this time, has no solution.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If you hold police accountable, they respond by refusing to work. That's a problem that, at this time, has no solution

Of course it does. You dissolve the police department and create a new one. New York did it twice, first replacing the city-controlled Municipals with the state-controlled Metropolitans [1], and then in 1870 creating the NYPD [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_riot

[2] https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/about/history/history-timeline...

[kortex]

> they respond by refusing to work. That's a ~~problem~~ solution that, at this time, has no ~~solution~~ problem.

If a police department reuses to accept accountability, and dig in their heels by refusing to work, "just" dissolve it. And while at it, half the calls could be handled by folks without guns.

In practice that obviously would not go over well, people are too attached to the status quo. We just lack the political will to rethink and retool the system (despite most Americans favoring police reform).

[NoImmatureAdHom]

>half the calls could be handled by folks without guns.

Let me point out that you must know which half before the fact for this to be of any use.

Sometimes you might be 95% sure no guns are required. Is that good enough? What does that buy you? 10% of calls?

[pstuart]

> half the calls could be handled by folks without guns

This can't be emphasized enough. A lot of enforcement and "civil order" work does not require guns, and in many cases (e.g., mental health crises), they're the wrong people to be engaged to resolve.

I think one of the biggest issues with policing is that they are supported by the "law and order" crowd, which is a euphemism for keeping "others" in their place.

I swear to god that "Defund the police" was an inside job to discredit police reform by turning it into an all or nothing proposition and that's not gonna fly.

Oakland CA has serious crime problems because there's "not enough" policing and a lot of people are emboldened to do all the crime they want because nobody's there to stop them. One of many articles on this: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/oakland-business-o...

I believe there are some fundamental changes to the system that could correct a lot of this:

1. End the War on Drugs. It's literally designed to create crime and it's low hanging fruit for cops to focus on rather than real crime.

2. Legalize and regulate sex work. Like drugs, this is a moral issue and by driving it underground it's designed to create more crime. Regulate and monitor the fuck out of it to minimize opportunities for sex trafficking. It's also a favored low-hanging fruit for cops to bust.

3. Use social workers for mental health emergencies and have the cops notified for possible backup

4. Invest in housing/mental health/rehab services and get the homeless off the streets

5. Revisit the legal system to avoid catch and release scenarios (though most of it is #1 and #2). If the cops are busting the same people over and over again that disincentives them to even bother

6. Fix qualified immunity and put some teeth into it. We should never simply take the officer's word for anything without some sort of proof (like leaving their body cams on).

7. Make the police self-insured backed by their pension fund. They have no skin in the game and municipalities pay out vast sums of money for the misdeeds of officers.

Easy peasy!

[ajmurmann]

I like this general list and I would add a shift from harder punishment to increased likelihood of getting caught. This means more cops, more prosecutors, more judges, more public defenders, less jail. Studies have shown that higher likelihood of getting caught and getting punished is more significant than a harsher punishment. However, I understand that right now incentives and finances are misaligned for accomplishing this. Much of the catch and release happens because there are not enough public prosecutors or jails are full.

[pstuart]

Oh yeah that belongs too. The current "justice system" is really just a legal system that is designed to punish.

Prisons are expensive and we would be better served helping keep people out of prison in the first place. It doesn't help that the private prison industry has extensive influence with legislators (as do the police and prison guard unions).

More so, just shoving people out the gates after time served is almost like planned recidivism. Investing in rehabilitation, training, and guidance for those released would pay off for the public purse.

[pocksuppet]

In other countries, cops may carry guns, but if those guns are ever fired, there is an investigation to ensure it was fired for a very good reason. Those places still have cops.

They also have months or years of cop training, not weeks.

[mghackerlady]

They also teach the cops the law and ensure they're morally sound instead of unofficially endorsing breaking the law

[ajmurmann]

It's crazy to me that becoming a police officer almost everywhere in the US is quicker than becoming a licensed cosmetician.

[cucumber3732842]

Think about who's harmed by supply side constraints and artificially high prices.

The government isn't hiring cosmeticians or plumbers or whatever in bulk. It's hiring cops. So it wants them to be cheap. The fact that they're scary thugs who could potentially be dumb and hot headed is a feature. Scares the peasants into compliance. It's a force multiplier basically.

On the flip side the government is happy to enforce supply constraints for any random trade so long as it's not so absurd that it hurts the legitimacy of the government by making it look corrupt and making people resist it.

[saghm]

So you're saying that the solution is RICO, because they're operating as a protection racket?

[kridsdale1]

Robots!

[cliglot]

The government has had no qualms in the past using the army or national guard to break strikes.

[stackskipton]

They don't strike, they just respond really slowly, pretend they didn't see something or just take reports and barely solve anything.

Since they are all unionized and replacing them is crazy slow and expensive, nothing happens.

[g8oz]

Yup, we saw it happen after the George Floyd/BLM protests. An undeclared work to rule action.

[asdff]

There is so much rot in law enforcement. LASD still has deputy gangs.

[ses1984]

Police actually exist to protect capital. At least in the USA.

[hack1312]

When you get robbed who else are you going to call when you need someone to show up 7 hours later and shrug their shoulders.

[mghackerlady]

Hey now! If your black they might just shoot your dog

[pstuart]

Correct. There is no actual obligation to protect and to serve, according to SCOTUS.

[ARandomerDude]

Also to reduce capital murder...

[bflesch]

It's easy to say these anti-capitalistic platitudes, but do you really want to live in a society where the concept of private ownership is not supported by the state?

Society is not starting at zero right now, it has developed for 10.000 years with many genocidal wars. As a result, 1% of the population has achieved generational wealth due to some sort of "value creation" by their ancestors.

Through trial and error and a lot of violence, humanity has noticed that with free trade and free enterprise, the welfare of everyone else can significantly improve (toilets, food, entertainment), while the overall amount of violence significantly decreases.

Because when people put their money where their mouth is, capital can be allocated much more efficient than through other means (e.g. the King of England forcing a levy and centrally deciding what industry to invest it).

The only problem with this model is deflation, because if there is no incentive to deploy capital, then the overall pie shrinks and people start fighting about keeping their shares. That's why central banks talk about target inflation rates of 2%, because purchasing power of your hoarded capital needs to shrink in order to incentivize you to use your capital in a productive way, which also increases the overall pie for society.

The main thing one can criticize about generational wealth such as Trump, Epstein, Musk or Thiel is the fact that they have to lie about its existence, and keep up a charade of "I'm self-made" due to their low self esteem.

The alternatives are always worse for the common person. I'd rather have Trump, Epstein, Musk and Thiel than even bigger capital concentration like it was with the British crown and the Catholic church in their full bloom.

Ideally, those figures would also follow the moral code of the rest of society, but still it's much better than their parents who did crazy shit in Africa only 50 years ago, or the crown and the catholic inquisition a couple hundred years ago.

[ses1984]

It would be fine if they protected property rights if they also protected human rights.

[bflesch]

I agree. Society needs to be intolerant against intolerance.

But there is no better way to overcome old money than inflation.

Any violence is basically a struggle between different factions of old money, and it's overall impact is net negative for the majority of people. That's why certain factions of old money bring in their religious beliefs in order to justify violence - but in the end the normal people suffer from it.

[sobkas]

> It's easy to say these anti-capitalistic platitudes, but do you really want to live in a society where the concept of private ownership is not supported by the state? >

There is a country that allows police to just take your stuff and then demands you to prove it wasn't illegal. Also such property can be used/sold/spent by police force it was stolen by. Does it sound like private ownership is supported by the state? BTW. It's called civil forfeiture and country is named USA.

[bflesch]

I know. I'm not saying it is good, it is just the best system that humanity has found so far. Because back in the day any representative of the monarch could rob you blind at will.

Realistically civil forfeiture only affects small fish because old money first sets the tariffs, then uses their legal invincibility to circumvent them for maximum profit, all while flying in their product directly to US military bases because some racists think it's a good idea to feed drugs directly to black people in order to derail their civil rights movement. Profits are moved through offshore accounts in the financial system overseen by the British monarch and managed by people like Epstein.

That's the system, we won't be able to change it, our only option is to get a small slice of the pie by creating a win/win situation for an heir of old money who claims to be self-made billionaire.

[treis]

Cameras do address that problem. We live in a country where people go to jail for life because two witnesses they swear they saw pookie shoot dee dee. Where cops beat the hell out of citizens and say they were resisting arrest.

That Pookie can show a video from a flock camera showing him somewhere else is a massive boost to his civil liberties. Same with whatever poor sap gets beat by the cops.

[inahga]

> That Pookie can show a video from a flock camera showing him somewhere else is a massive boost to his civil liberties. Same with whatever poor sap gets beat by the cops.

Not even remotely. The US is already at the stage where citizens can be brutally murdered, have said murder filmed at multiple angles, and have the officers involved get away with it.

Your civil liberties are irrelevant when we can just redefine and expand what it means to endanger a police officer. Or have the officers bypass the judicial system entirely.

Camera footage will only be used against you, not for you.

[treis]

Of course that's not true.

[nickff]

It seems that making government union members accountable is an intractable problem in the current political landscape.