Yikes. I understand the positive spin is the police care about the wellbeing of at-risk people with these visits. But wouldn't it also be true that anything and everything the police observe and believe as a result of such a visit could also be used against the resident or others in the home?
Summarizing:
1. There is no way it can help.
2. If your client is guilty (or even innocent), they might admit guilt with nothing in return.
3. If your client is innocent, they can still make some small mistake or tiny mistruth that can be used to convict by seeding doubt.
4. If your client is innocent, and does not make any small mistake or tiny mistruth, what is said can still be used in court to convict.
5. If your client is innocent, and tells the police absolutely nothing incriminating at all, the police can still mis-remember the conversation and result in a conviction.
6. If your client is innocent, and tells the police absolutely nothing incriminating at all, and the clients statements are videotaped so it cannot be mischaracterized, the police can still augment the conversation from their personal knowledge and result in a conviction.
There's more, it goes on and on and on. Don't talk to police if you are being questioned about something, whether you did it or not.
In Europe in particular, police officers are not such an enemy.
Also, in UK, refusing to talk to police at first contact can be used against you, for example it will be more difficult later to introduce exculpatory evidence that you were supposed to know of at the time you refused to speak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_an...
Fun fact: because of their French (and to a lesser degree, Spanish) influence, Louisiana's laws still follow a civil law system.
[1] https://www.apprendre-le-droit.fr/anglais-juridique/what-is-...
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incar...
Louisiana is one of the poorest states in the country and has one of the highest contracted private prison quotas in the country (96% occupancy).[1] And until recently, Louisiana had some of the harshest mandatory minimum drug sentencing requirements.[2] They still have harsh mandatory minimums for other offenses. If you're looking for an explanation for Louisiana's criminal justice issues those factors are the far more likely explanations than the existence of a civil law system.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Department_of_Publ...
[2] https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2018/03/pspp_louisi...
Everywhere in the world the police are your enemy. They exist as the manifestation of a state's domestic violence.
When they're talking to you, they're your enemy.
If you have read any of the anonymous blogs by those on the Job, they almost always tell you to either keep your mouth shut or say as little as possible ─ this was the wisdom imparted by 'Nightjack' before he got outed and had to delete his blog, subsequently going on to win accolades and the Orwell Prize.[1]
https://web.archive.org/web/20090426201221/http://nightjack....
The section on consenting to searches was the most interesting. E.g. you could consent to a search of your home thinking "I've done nothing wrong so come on in" only to find out someone (relative, maintenance person etc) left something illegal in your home without your knowledge.
I of course refused to give any kind of statement under video and instead just spoke privately with an officer and gave minimal details. However I fear that others less inclined about their rights or why they wanted to record would be screwing themselves.
Essentially I had a false report made against me and there was no evidence. If I said anything incriminating in a video statement by accident I would have just made evidence for them. No one advised me of this. It felt like I should have brought a lawyer with me.
Edit: This was in an Ontario based police department.
Realize too that a great many officers now don body cameras. If you aren't willing to say it on video, do not say it. No matter what they tell you, police officers are not capable of private conversations. Every conversation with a cop is a conversation between a person and a government. It might be recorded. The cop can take notes. They cop can get back to their car and relate the conversation to a camera, creating very powerful evidence. There is no concept of privacy when talking to police.
Me being in the police officers messy office just having a conversation about an incident is much different from giving them a video statement. I am referring to a case where the only evidence against myself would be what I say. As such there is not much to go on if it's just some notes the officer took while informally talking with me in their office. They have no one else with them to back up what was said or anything to prove what I said is accurate/true.
Since nothing was recorded not much could be done.
>> Since nothing was recorded not much could be done.
That's where you are incorrect. The cop was taking notes. The cop can take the stand to testify as to what you said. During that testimony he may refer to his notes. Hearsay rules are complicated but it is safe to say that anything said to a cop can, one way or another, be used in court.
How does the rule about not talking to police work? What about when police are canvassing the neighborhood and they are knocking on every door? Are you supposed to talk then? What about when you have info of a crime? What about when you want to report a crime? Any of these situations is potentially a way for police to twist your words.
The important bit is "if the police are asking questions with any level of suspicion at all". Every person has to do their own personal risk assessment, and maybe you don't always know whether you're under suspicion, but if the police want to talk to you and you have any reason whatsoever to think that you're under suspicion, you're rolling the dice by agreeing to talk to them without a lawyer.
The larger your surface area the more likely you will have problems.
It makes sense. Law enforcement is looking for someone to blame for crimes. You interact enough you might just fit a profile.
Police never lose pay for misjudging anyone.
This is an important point.
Police are a bureaucracy with all the same incentives and problems inherent to that structure.
They are seldom penalized for being wrong (even if someone gets shot/killed as a result) but they do miss out on promotions for not closing enough cases (or writing enough citations).
Detectives under pressure will absolutely name weak suspects to achieve these ends and let the courts sort it out.
Your local mafia clan are also nice people as long as you play by their rules (you can study organized crime in favelas where it is an ordering element similar to police).
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-...
I'm on your side. Please don't make our shared side weaker by using poor arguments.
A "sceptics" link is hardly refutation. These sites attract professional "minor detail pickers" and "technically-correct" pedants, who more often than not miss the forest for the trees.
The message is not the exact number of felonies per time period, it's that people can have all kind of laws broken and given causes to be arrested without them knowing it.
Even if it's 1 felony per month or 1 per year it's still more than enough, and that's the point of "thee felonies a day".
But in this scenario the police are unprompted at your door and their first ask is to come into your house.
If the police just want to talk to you because they're concerned about you personally they'll just ask to talk to you in a place they wouldn't otherwise need a search warrant signed by a judge to enter.
"Their first ask is to come into your house" is based on a quote Vice took out of context (and then blew up into a nice big sub-headline to give it a bit more 'emotional weight').
The second part .. if the police is concerned about you they ask to talk to you where they meet you. For the type of person where this intervention happens this will probably be their home most of the time.
I always wonder where people get this idea that the police (and law enforcement in general) are all crooks breaking/bending the law to get you, but will have a problem to get a warrant if that's really what they want. Maybe too many crime shows?
Bitter experience. Never underestimate the dishonesty of a cop.
Or rather, the lack of incentive for a person in a position of power, to not use that power for their own interests and at their whims.
No, police aren't all out to get you. But you'd be dumb even in Iceland not to have some basic situational awareness and consider how that interaction started out. You didn't come to them on the street, they sought you out at your home.
So if the police knock on your door open up and talk to them there. If they just want to talk you you they'll be happy to do that there. If they seem more interested in going inside your house than having a chat with you at the door perhaps they're really there for something else.
Hedging against that by doing something that costs you maybe 5 seconds ("let's just chat here") is just common sense.
The police can wait outside in case they’re needed.
Police are decidedly not mental healthcare professionals.
The police gets to do that kind of rather unpleasant jobs. Not their fault.
But some are. Some will plant drugs on you.
The one knocking on your door now, is it a good cop or a bad cop?
False in my experience. Maybe I haven't found the right countries.
[0] https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/19/canada-police-fail-indig...
From my experience in India, Unless you are rich, you should try to stay away from police as much as possible, cause they can really fuck your life up.
The police have immense power, you do not.
What do you have to gain from interacting with the police? Now, compare this to what you stand to lose by interacting with the police.
The rule is simple: don't interact with the police. They are not your friends, anything you do or say can and will be used against you at a whim.
Do not romanticize other countries, please.
It would make their job more difficult, it doesn't automatically follow that they would be less effective. They might be as effective with less data if most of the data was noise, or be more effective by concentrating their efforts on fewer interactions and getting much better results from that, or become as effective or better by having to work harder. Or it might push them to develop different and better techniques.
The job of the police is to help me. To do that effectively they have to sometimes talk to me. It is therefore in my interest to talk to them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...
You are in for a big, big surprise. Hope your naivety does not get you in too much trouble.
Policing means arbitrating in a dispute even when no laws have been broken, helping those in our community incapable of helping themselves (accident victims, people whose meds are off). It doesn't really mean the regular use of violent force or even the threat of an immediate death penalty to gain compliance with a personally conveyed order. Tht's not justice and it's arguably not even law enforcement.
This is the bottom line. 90% of police that I have personally interacted with (even when I've been in the wrong) have been absolute professionals and, I believe, genuinely good people. The other 10% are why I'm polite but cautious.
Maybe I've only seen the uglier parts of the world, but that statement is what seems to be the exception rather than the norm, and a dangerously naive assumption.
As for other things they want to talk about, that's fine, as long as you bear in mind the following. First, in many countries police has to investigate any suspicion of a criminal offence even if it is unrelated to the initial investigation. In many countries, police has no leeway about that even if they claim the opposite. Second, the police often investigate someone as a mere witness before formally charging the person for a crime, because that's easier to start with.
People rarely see themselves as the bad guys. To understand people's motivations it's usually helpful to understand that they are just trying to do what they think is is best.
It's just that the disconnect between what is best for you, and what is in the interest of a member of the police often enough doesn't align, and this is the case everywhere, not specific to the US.
IMHO, policing based on mass surveillance goes way too far.
You specified western Hemisphere, which includes only the eastmost edge of Europe, but still leaves (half) of the UK, France and also Canada and Ireland. US police is hardly going to beat those on many positive metrics.
Odd choice of geographic region for such a comparison in any case.
The latter is like competing with your college football team against a selection of mostly primary schoolers and declaring you're doing fine.
That's just not an aspirational goal or useful comparison.
The punishments can vary so much.
Private prisons create this profit incentive to jail more people.
Prisions should be a cost center not a profit center.
I wholeheartedly agree that 6% of the prison population (128,063 people!) is a situation worthwhile of positive change. But I remain skeptical that it's those damn private prisons that are ruining everything. Mostly I think it's debacles like the drug war that need real immediate attention and change before things will significantly improve.
[0]https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/11/u-s-private...
[1]https://www.bjs.gov/content/keystatistics/csv/Total_correcti...
[2]https://www.criminaljusticeprograms.com/articles/private-pri... again citing the BJS.
Nope. I can't agree with this, as much as I wish I could. It's an easy fallacy to think the U.S. is the exception when it comes to power mad, duplicitous and hostile bullies in the police force since they're the ones getting the bulk of the media coverage. We have them in Canada, too. Yes, they're fewer in numbers, but that's not to say we don't have them. It's easy to assume other countries or cultures are innocent of a problem just because they have a lower, or perhaps invisible, prevalence of that problem.
Source: I'm a Canadian (who used to think exactly this way) with family members in the emergency services, including one estranged, asshole bully of a cop who'd happily harass someone and construct a charge if they looked at him the wrong way.
In my opinion, a police that's feared rather than trusted, is a sign of a police state or totalitarian regime. If that's not what the country wants to be, then it's a problem that needs to be fixed.
> In my opinion, a police that's feared rather than trusted, is a sign of a police state or totalitarian regime. If that's not what the country wants to be, then it's a problem that needs to be fixed
The assumption is that if the police is feared / overly militaristic, then by definition that country must 'want' to be a police state. Given that Americans overwhelmingly, if asked, would not want to live in a totalitarian or a police state, then either we're not really a police state, or we're not capable of controlling how our police operates. I don't think the latter is true; we obviously have political control over our police. So is it possible that maybe we're not the jackbooted thugocratic police state that we're portrayed to be?
If you have control over your police, then please exercise it.
I think the problem that's holding Americans back, also evidenced in this discussion here, is that they've learned to accept this hostile relationship with the police as normal. It's not. It's harmful, and should be unacceptable.
> So is it possible that maybe we're not the jackbooted thugocratic police state that we're portrayed to be?
I certainly hope so. I've never been to the US; I'm just going by what Americans themselves are telling me about their country. And some of the things they're saying is that you should fear the police, not talk to the police, etc. It's not a single person claiming this; I hear this every single time this topic comes up. So I'm inclined to take it as true.
Ah, this makes sense then :)
Definitely visit the US...I can tell you that the Americans who travel tend to lean heavily "liberal" in their politics (in other words, anti-police), which would explain that your perception of American life is definitely skewed in favor of this view.
Note that yes, of course, we do have major problems with our police, especially with regard to militarization of the police and abuse of power, especially in poor communities. But the actual reality of the relationship between Americans and the police is nuanced and complicated, not as obvious as your well-traveled American friends would have you believe :)
I would love to, as soon as the situation in the US has become a bit more sane and less xenophobic. Again, too many stories of even US residents getting denied access or getting held for hours trying to enter the country legally.
However, I get my view about the US mostly from the internet. From discussions like these, from new stories, from even law enforcement experts telling people not to talk to the police.
I know different people have different views on the police, but on the whole, putting all those different perspectives together, the total picture doesn't look great. It's probably totally fine for a middle class white person from a decent neighbourhood, but the fact that it's good for some demographics but bad for other groups, that honestly doesn't make the big picture any better, even if I happen to fit in the demographic that's probably the safest.
For what it's worth, I've traveled to many, many countries, and I've never encountered in real life what I expected based on the internet or stories or anything else. Our country has problems like any other but I hope you get to form a fair impression.
My main complaint is that they are being used as tax collectors instead of counties solving their issues through other means.
Safest way to not give them any ideas is to minimize interaction.
As a Canadian, I disagree with this sentiment.
There are unfortunately situations in which "already gone wrong" may include your genetics at conception. As a society we acknowledge that is not a valid criteria for police intervention, but we're still working on some of the implementation details.
Who is "we"? I know it doesn't include me, because I was never consulted on the matter.
-No!
-How many laws and regulations are there currently to follow?
-???
-Then how can you be sure you follow them all?
The police are not your friends and unsolicited interaction with the Police can only harm you, not help. Their priority is not to help or protect anyone but the government system.
* Gleefully wear masks and remove their name tags during the G20 summit and harass me for daring to work on a Saturday - friends of mine were arrested for being in the area and kept in cages (later there was a large lawsuit involved).
* They've happily accepted carding minorities in this city for a decade, ignored the cries of a community where a serial killer (Bruce McArthur) was preying on them and in fact had him in custody but let him go.
* Persecuted the LGBTQ community for decades with bathhouse and related arrests
And on a personal note the several times I've needed their assistance they have gone out of their way to victim-shame and victim-blame me. I was assaulted and robbed and the police on the phone laughed out loud at me asking if I should go in to a station or come to me. This is just the recent-most experience, my entire 20 years of adult life in Ontario has been peppered by experiences like this. And full disclosure I'm a white straight male, I cannot imagine what it would be like to be an underrepresented group dealing with the police.
So TLDR they are 100% neutral. I'm not sure after all these years what their actual guiding mission or statement is but it sure fucking isn't protecting and serving and I would never speak to them or open my door to them without a warrant and a call to a lawyer.
This is a massive problem in itself. The police should be your friend. When it's not, that in itself is a massive condemnation of the way the police functions.
The point of police is not to give untrained regular people unchecked power over others.
"I would have zero problem". "Based on my interactions". "I would describe them".
That's the phrasing I used, very specifically and on purpose in fact. Is that a problem?
If you just meant to say that the police are your personal friends, that's fine I guess, but the comment you replied to didn't really rule that out in the first place.
The part where you're a drug addict and they've come to see if you want to go to rehab is a big potential upside.
"The police are not your friends"
Yes, the absolutely are. Despite the potential downsides.
I live in a shifty neighbourhood and visibly recognize the police staffers (I see them often, they come into the cafe etc.), there's a clinic across the street from me that deals with 'all kinds' ... in my view, a lot of policing is basically social work. That said I live in Canada.
My rule of thumb built up over years of annoyance & bullshit is: if you don't know who it is, or aren't expecting anything, ignore it; 99.9% of the time someone unexpected/unknown on the phone or at your door are just going to be wasting your time and attention. (trying to sell you something/con you/religious recruitment/generally be weird/mad etc)
My friend decided to move there. Maybe you should too. You do gain a certain peace of mind from being able to open your door without risk or trouble.
I'm genuinely confused. If you read this, maybe you'd like to elaborate. Cheers!
Agree with the program or not, this is not spam.
And there’s a really thin line between having the choice to answer your door, and being compelled to for no legitimate reason.
I'd let concerned EMTs into my house, but I'd rather keep concerned cops out.
It's something that I also communicate to my friends (although I would never not open the door for them, for obvious reasons). My reasoning is kind of like "I've been fulfilling my societal duties all week goddammit, if I want to be alone in my cave for a few hours just leave me be!"
I get maybe 4 sales knocks a year, I just say not interested and close the door!
I always answer the door and the phone.
Wtf? Yes of course I do. Do you not have a doorbell?
Someone selling is remarkably rare, JW show up trying to sell religion every couple of years - we try and scare them off claiming devout satanism or spaghetti based religion. :)
That's about it. Maybe police if some had an accident, or something in the local area happened.
Random person knocking at the door at 1am results in me answering the door with one of the USSR's most prolific exports within arms reach in case anybody needs the ol' East Houston treatment. They might be having an emergency and need help but it's also wise to be conscious of who's knocking. If there's three dudes on my porch and a fourth sitting in a running car then I'll ask them what they heck they want without opening the door.
I don't answer the door for anyone in a uniform unless I'm expecting them. If the government needs to tell me something or interact with me in any legitimate capacity they'll send a letter.
I also pick up the phone. 99% of the time it's a recruiter. Less enthusiastic about those odds, but it's occasionally useful.
If you live in an area that regularly has people literally trying to con you door to door, that's an issue with where you live. It's not normal for many people.
I certainly wouldn't want that kind of visit from police officers whose primary concern is to find a reason to arrest or shoot you, but if police is honestly trying to help and prevent problems, it's an entirely different matter.
Police culture, policy and accountability matters a lot in a case like this.
[1] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-canadian-police-are...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/30/football_player_...
https://globalnews.ca/news/1608030/new-video-shows-another-c...
https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2014/07/30/toronto_cop_ch...
I'm not denying these incidents are terrible; they are. And even if you do address them and punish the perpetrators, you'll still occasionally have police officers that do the wrong thing. But that doesn't mean it's pointless to hold police accountable, or to train them better.
My goal is not merely to not get fucked by the police, my goal is a better, safer society.
Police have power. You can't have functional police that don't have power, so fundamentally police are dangerous.
[1]https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/19/canada-police-fail-indig...
[2]https://aptnnews.ca/2019/05/13/were-you-turned-on-by-this-at...
[3]http://www.mondaq.com/canada/x/808540/Constitutional+Adminis...
My brothers an OPP constable in rural Ontario (and incidentally married to a teacher). They were not happy with the messing about, especially the Taverner case. From what I understand Blair was a highly respected officer as well and is generally considered to have fallen on his sword to prevent the insertion of a corrupt top official.
Anyway I forgot about the SIU stuff. I’m going to have to pick his brain about it.
I'm torn on the article. The Canadian government isn't China and we have had quite a few pretty public cases here in Germany where lack of inter-agency coordination led to serious harm in the context of our CPS equivalent. OTOH, at least from that article, this program doesn't seem to get the oversight required for such a task.
At any rate, the lack of transparency and contractually forbidding people from talking about the program is a weird and all to common move these days.
In my experience with the RCMP at least, yes. They might give you attitude about it, though. I have received a veiled threat or two though (which materialized to nothing).