How Cops Really Want to Police
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com
“You want to really lower crime? Carl began.
Let cops enforce the rules. The whole way.
You ask any cop on the street and he’ll tell
you that he would love to dish out the punishment,
on the spot
They have a name for that sort of things - it's called Fascism. It was tried before and while they meant well the results were horrific.
It was tried before and while they meant well the results were horrific.
Sheesh, some people. ;)
By the time somebody went in front of the judge, everybody new who did it, and 99% of the time they were found guilty, and where shipped to jail.
Of course, there are many drawbacks to it. If you oposed the party, you will be swiftly send to jail.
Very effective, in a scary way. Then democracy came, and crime shot up. Still relatively low (compared to the US), but still much higher that it used to be.
In a democratic society, it will be problematic to have cops being judges too. The problem is that there will be always bad apples among the cops, and giving them such great power, makes a fertile ground for abuse, and with no real check and balances in place.
Another reason could be that everybody had enough - nobody was rich, but nobody was starving in the streets, either?
In the former Soviet States, crime of all sorts was very low. You'd of had to have been really desperate to brave the Soviet police; and the secret police.
Clear example, we had a troubled guy in our neighborhood (alcoholic father, poor and all). In my old house, we had three chikens (it was in the suburb). He stole one of them, from our house and cooked it with his friends, and ate it. Eventually his friends ratted him out, so the local cops, came with a van, and gave him a beating and made him buy my us a replacement one.
He asked for forgiveness, and never came close to our house. So, there you go, police justice in action.
Eventually this guy did more things in other places, and ended up in jail. Meanwhile, the neighboorhood was really calm, and basically nothing happens.
Democracy came, the police had much less controll on what was going, judges and prosecuters could get corrupted, etc.
This guy graduated in a super-criminal, and was unstopable. He could bribe his way out charges, initmidate witnesses, etc. Eventually he steped on the wrong feet, and got assasinated, (middle of the day, by a sniper).
So, there you go. Police actioning actually works and makes things a lot safer. But you have to give a lot of freedoms to reach that point. Is the extra safety really worth it when you can't voice your opinion without being afraid being roughed up by this super cops?
That is, where punishment is meted out on the spot, as described. Because the judgement and punishment happens out in the open, the members of the local community watching also keep the policemen in check.
The local community doesn't have the power to keep state-granted authority (as opposed to "we know you, and we respect and trust you" authority) in check.
And the alternative is ... "I'm the President, so I know what to do with schools(NCLB)" ?
Actually, you pretty much hit the nail on the head -- ask any soldier who's been involved boots on the ground in the American battlefronts in the middle east, and I betcha alot of them have a better idea of what's going on than your average news commentator or politician.
You may not like the analogy, but this very argument is the thesis of most Pres. Bush administration policy -- refusing the advice of those with what you call "internal incentives," which I'm loosely interpreting to mean -- on the ground with first-hand experience.
Perhaps a better one is to study similar situations, talk to all members of a system and get feedback, and then make a decision based on the feedback of all involved.
To use your example, asking soldiers what they want to do will result in one set of answers. Asking generals another. Politicians another (politicians certainly are incentivised/biased in this situation). Civilians in the affected regions another.
But to come up with the most objective judgment for the system as a whole, you should get people who are not in the system, but have access to all information available on it, including the desires of all involved.
|"Well, I hate taking that son-of-a-bitch to the station because those tests always fail and they get off (with little penalty). But these guys are a terror around here. Everyone drinks and drives - especially those guys who drive home after work. I’d love to give them a tattoo, right on their forehead - like one of those scarlet letters."
And here is another choice quote:
|"If a drug addict robbed somebody, we used to take his drugs away and give them to someone else. Then we used to make him watch his buddy smoke all his stuff. THAT was real pain!"
I'd like to leave the Judge Dredd act at the movies, please.
That would give us a lot more context into why you think what the cops were doing was wrong, and, maybe more importantly, what your solution is to improving the problem (if there is one, which, of course, you know all about).
As Prometheus said in the comments below, it's obviously sometimes a wise decision to allow those to have an objective look at a situation -- not those who are looking at the issue from two inches in front of their face -- figure out how the system will operate.
I would submit, however, that that model is very reminiscent of the "Twitter can't scale" debate, where everybody and their grandmother is offering gratuitous advice on how the team on the ground should scale their project when they don't even know how it's built, with what toolset, and what the core problems are.
You obviously have not had many dealings with the legal system in the United States or elsewhere. Having experiences with it both here and in third world countries, I can tell you that "empowering" a police officer to be judge, jury & executioner is just begging for corruption.
The system we have in the US is amazing. Certainly some people make it through the system without being punished as severely as they should, but that's the price you pay for having freedom.
There is no accountability when there isn't a paper trail; there is no way to appeal a faulty judgement. Just because a cop thinks someone is guilty does not make them guilty.
"If there are problems with the laws, then fix the laws."
This, of course, is much easier said than done. If we're not listening to the cops to tell us how and what laws are broken, how will they be fixed?
Accountability, is certainly a pressing issue ... but as you've been to third world countries, than you obviously know that a paper trail doesn't assure accountability or lack of corruption -- in fact, it is just that much harder to refute if there is a corrupt paper trail.
The examples given, were a perp caught in the act of beating his wife, known drug dealers, and a drunk driver ... not such ambiguous crimes.
I think we can agree there is a certain balance -- obviously the protectors and defenders need to be held to an accountable standard, but the cops brought up pertinent issues, and I just don't think you adequately addressed them with your comments.
More importantly, what a police officer is allowed to do has a much bigger effect on my life (and yours) than how Twitter handles their scaling problems.
Besides that, I don't think anyone thinks that outsiders always have the best solutions.
The problem is, paradoxically, that police officers are incredibly good at picking the good guys from the bad. I have seen cops walk in at raves and instantly spot the dealer. This gives them a tendency to see a black and white scenario where either you're the good guy or you're the bad guy - and if they have picked you out as the bad guy there's nothing you can do about it. Since they are right 90% of the time their faith in their ability is reinforced.
It's the last 10% that's the problem. I have seen innocent people being beaten up by police because they are presumed to be the bad guys because of their attitude, the way they dress or however the police sniff them out. These 10% are why we have courts to do the judging based on evidence, and not officers based on their back-bone reactions on whether you are in the good guy or bad guy category.
The reason for this is probably:
1) I live in a pretty peaceful country where people (generally) trust the police.
2) These people are 18 years old and basically just want to get the party on. Most of them have never talked to a lawyer, and probably couldn't be bothered to do so if they can avoid it.
There's a large difference between a community member as a judge and a cop who doesn't even live in the area and views those who do with contempt. This colors their judgement, and the punishment often has more to do with the perception of the "defendant" than the actual crime.
Is the justice system often worthless? Yes. Are the cops any better? Not really, and I'd find them much worse.
Fundamentally, the problem is that Johnny can't get a job because he can't do basic math or read. Jobs within their reach aren't enough to pay bills, and those who can get the jobs that pay the bills leave the community, sometimes even their own families. (Those who can are often expected to provide for those who can't, which gets really tiring.)
The role models are poor. Those who are raised in the inner city often speak with an accent that isn't accepted by those in business. And these things encourage those to get into markets that are less inhabited by convention --- grey markets and crime.
Which the police don't understand -- they just see a thug.
The solution is that the police should live in the neighborhood in which they're assigned, they should be from or previously lived in similar neighborhoods, and the judges that see cases should be similarly informed.
There is a very good reason why most cops don't live in the area that they are assigned to.
It's called pay back.
If a cop arrests a gang member and they happen to be neighbours how long do you think it will be before something happens to the cop's wife or children when he is at work?
Cops, by design, don't patrol area's where they live.
2. While I understand the concern about the gang members and payback, the fundamental piece missing is that there is no accountability to one's community if you are an outsider to it. It breeds contempt, and it leads to the abuses of power that we see.
There's a fundamental difference between "that gangbanger" and "Rosa's kid." (Reminding us of the recent XKCD comment.)
Of course, crack changes everything and makes this ideal much harder, but the comments in the article show how disconnected from the communities these cops were. They no longer saw criminals even as human!
As I said in another comment (oddly, about third world countries) what they need is opportunity.
When a good friend's brother had a baby, I've advised them -- get out of Camden. There is not enough opportunity, and too many people who will lead you down the wrong path.
Going to the root of the societal problems is discussing the prevention while this article was discussing the methods used for curing.
I heard somewhere an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I am not the poster you replied to, but anyway: has it even to be pointed out what is wrong? Tattoo people's foreheads for drunk driving? What is this, the dark ages? Why not chop of people's left foot for speeding, that way we can make sure they'll never do it again???
"Judge Dredd" was putting it mildly for that cops power fantasies. Why doesn't he just establish himself as a little drug dealing war lord in his neighborhood, that would be all his dreams fulfilled.
Cops can be wrong (gasp!). It might -seem- that such-and-such a person is doing something wrong, but your "gut" isn't a reliable source of evidence.
At best this is an argument for more creative punishments from the bench. I can buy that, or at least could be convinced of that. But vigilante justice? No thanks. "Embarrassing" a husband because you _think_ he beat his wife is not the same as embarrassing a husband because he was _convicted_ of beating his wife. If public shaming will deter/stop domestic violence more than time in jail, let's do it. But as much as possible, let's punish the guilty, not the people some random Jane or Joe _thinks_ is guilty.
(Sorry, just trying to preempt the inevitable "not hacker news" comment.)
Simply put: Police officers are not my peers. They do not represent a balanced cross-section of my geographic or socioconomic neighborhood. A single police officer cannot perform the duties of the jury afforded me by the constitution.
If we're going to have street justice, let's do it in style. A former colleague's idea was to allow any arbitrary group of 12 people to act as judge, jury, and executioner on the spot. The natural result would be armed groups of 12 people riding around in vans...
Could beat cops be given a budget of arbitrary punishment, enough to deliver on-the-spot 'justice' but not so much that any irreparable/irreversible damage is done?
Can there be a expedited appeals process and community or expert review to provide accountability and keep things from descending into a 'Training Day'-like scenario?
Would technology like public video of all cop interactions make such a system less prone to abuse?
It's the arbitrary informality of the process as described that scares me; delegating some snap judgment/punishment powers could be rights-preserving and welfare-promoting, with the right incentives and checks in place.
Plenty of sites exist that deal with urban crime outside the judicial system:
- ChicagoCrime.org (now EveryBlock.com)
- Map mashups using data from Megan's Law registries
- Some county traffic courts allow looking up offenses by the offender's name
- Some courts also publish names and even mug shots of prostitution offenders
I haven't seen this discussed in mainstream news beyond some worried mutterings about civil rights, and I think it's an interesting problem, so there you go. Now, hopefully, the discussion will focus on smart solutions instead of devolving into a collective rant about police.
http://www.amazon.com/Cop-Hood-Policing-Baltimores-District/...
An anarchistic community-based justice model might just work, especially if the police are already thinking this way.