New Records Show the NYPD’s Favored Punishment: Less Vacation Time

It would be hard to apply Japanese policing styles to fundamentally different societies. That doesn't mean we can't learn good lessons from them, but we need to remember it's never an apples to apples comparison.

If folks intend it to mean "reduce funds" or "reallocate funds", then we should say that.

I once had an interesting discussion with someone about this who had obviously thought about it a fair bit. Their position was that the institution is set up in such a way that your own intentions, regardless of how good, are systemically constrained into a narrow channel and the function of the job is to be "a bastard".

In other words, it wasn't a commentary of the nature of the people in the job, rather the nature of the job.

That said... the cops who made the news for shoving other cops off from kneeling on protesters' necks? They were good cops in that moment. Even if they were doing it to protect their precinct from scandal.

It was equally clear that he expected that from them, and that this was not his first case of abuse. This was merely the time when it became incontrovertible, because somebody had a camera and was willing to take the risk of filming it.

If they aren't going to stand up against abuse even when it's literally a murder caught on video, there's no way to avoid the conclusion that there are indeed countless other abuse cases that have been covered up, with nobody willing to stand up to it. It doesn't show the extent of the abuse but it shows the extent of police willing to cover up and excuse that abuse: universal. That makes All of them Bastards.

That's like thinking someone might believe “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch” applies to police, or that the “broken windows” model of policing has the same cultural effect directed at the police that iats advocates say it has directed by the police at communities.

Or, more generally, that people’s ethics and conduct are responsive to the institutional incentives and cultural environment surrounding them.

Clearly, this is implausible; no one could believe any of that.

Have you even spoken to anyone or gone to an event? I live in a city with a lot of demonstrations and you quickly learn that isn't the phrases intent or ideology for nearly everyone except extreme outliers and agitators.

As some examples of things I agree with: I think prison should be used much more rarely. It is a terrible thing to imprison someone, and should only be done if someone is an immediate danger to others. Otherwise other punishments should be used. We should also dramatically improve conditions in prisons. But there will still be prisons.

I think crime would greatly go down if there was less inequality and more investment in marginalized groups of people, and if systems that oppress people like policing were fixed. But I think there will ~always be crime, and always be police.

I think the latter involves things that would be largely popular with people. The former is a tougher sell, but I think things are slowly moving in that direction. I'm not convinced calling these proposals "abolishing the police" is actually helping that cause.

No, as someone actually in the “abolish/disband” camp, I can confidently say it is a different (and smaller) segment of the movement than the “defund” camp (and even for the vast of the “abolish” camp, it doesn’t mean to eliminate the law enforcement, including armed response, functions served by the police from local government but to disband the existent monolithic centralized local paramilitary law enforcement agencies and reorganize local community services with law enforcement as an organizationally decentralized function distributed throughout local government.)

Of course, those of us who are in the abolish/disband camp tend to see the “defund” camp (who want to divert resources and some functions to other local service organizations and not make the police responsible for as much) as a better-than-nothing compromise position that can break the vicious “reform” cycle where every police problem that rises to the level where it is accepted than something needs to be done leads to more funding being dumped into police coffers at the expense of other agencies, necessitating an expanded police role, and leading to even more police problems.

And in Minneapolis just this week I had to wait on the phone 45 minutes to file a police report I've heard nothing back from after being attacked in a road rage incident. The person I did finally reach was definitely a decent human, but not trained to receive the kind of report I was giving and thought she shouldn't be taking it at all. (besides a sense of insecurity, lots of tiny glass pricks, a brief blood pressure spike, and a broken window I am well enough)

I have doubts that the state is doing enough to protect me or to address crimes that have happened, not because of some panicked sense of irrational fear, but because I had to spend an hour with shards of glass in my pants on hold on Wednesday along with the delightful experience of vacuuming glass out of my hair at a car wash. The last time I had the displeasure of talking with the city attorney, they declined to do anything about death threats I had received from a known source.

I'm thinking of buying a gun.

This happens to phrases a lot. Also consider: "pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" when the original purpose of that phrase was to mock the absurdity of the notion.

edit: Merriam-Webster did a blog post on it https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/one-bad-apple-...

The situation in Minneapolis is complex, but we're all confused by the fact that all the new developments are selling condos starting at $900,000 and you can get artisanal hand-made tacos from Nixta and stand in line for a block in this dystopian ghost town to spend $17 on a pizza from Boludo.... But hey, gotta serve the narrative, eh?

Edit: The list as a whole is horrific. Bullying, racism, sexism, corruption and incidents that resulted in death.

It is useful for police to have a gun (but not required!), and they should know how to use it. However that doesn't mean they should use one off the practice range.

What is this based on? Are you in HR? Do you know of examples of this happening?

Did you know that damage over $1000 would be considered felony vandalism in many states? The door alone probably costs over $1000, not to mention damage to the frame. Looking at prison time and a permanent record here, and in some states, lifetime disenfranchisement.

So yeah. Only 45 days pay is pretty sweet. And if it was a civilian vandalizing and terrorizing a precinct, bet your ass they'd prosecute all of these charges and more to the fullest. Given that this is a violent felony, it could trigger a three strikes law if the perp already had a record.

If you want to hold them to a higher standard, you have to pay them to a higher standard.