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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

Great idea! Let's punish extra-judicial punishment with... extra-judicial punishment

Or, perhaps, judicial punishment. The official carve-outs for police misbehavior are unacceptable. And, unofficially, prosecutors are strongly disincentivized to prosecute cops: they're the DAs primary witnesses in many cases.

>Or, perhaps, judicial punishment

I don't think that's what the parent poster was advocating. see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28713675

>The official carve-outs for police misbehavior are unacceptable. And, unofficially, prosecutors are strongly disincentivized to prosecute cops: they're the DAs primary witnesses in many cases.

Don't disagree with you on any of those.

The carve outs make sense on paper and maybe more so at the time they were written. But now the mountain of evidence displaying how humans can not be trusted with that type of power/responsibility is overwhelming.

Should we not hold the people who are given a higher amount of power to a higher standard? I feel like the only way that it makes sense to have some sort of Leviathan-esque system is if we have assurances that the enforcers can be trusted.

>Should we not hold the people who are given a higher amount of power to a higher standard?

You don't need extra-judicial and/or cruel and unusual punishment to do that.

How is putting cops in prison extra-judicial or cruel and unusual? I do think cops should get harsher sentences for abusing their power because, again, they're given extra power. If we cannot trust the enforcers of the law, then I am skeptical of the concept of enforcers. But of course I think there should be a standard trial and whatnot, I'm not suggesting we go to Mad Max or anything like that.

I'm not saying we summarily execute every cop who has run a red light, but I'm saying that if a cop does a bad thing, then it shouldn't be an outlier case for them to go to prison for it.

>How is putting cops in prison extra-judicial or cruel and unusual?

It's not, but GP's exact words were (emphasis mine):

>Preferably by ending up in prison, among the general population.

Which I've taken to imply "...so they'd get beaten up by fellow inmates". I'm not sure why he'd bring up that detail other than to imply that.

As for the rest of the comment, I'm not disagreeing with you on those points.

> Which I've taken to imply

Unless you consider the interpretation "since they are part of the general population, they are picked from it, they are not outside the set of the "little people", they have a provisional mandate given under conditions, "equality" in modern societal systems means "all are the same in front of the law" and practical exceptions do not constitute substantial exceptions".

Fair enough! I misread your intent. I would be against cops being abused by the inmates (just as I would any other prisoner), though I would be in favor of cops getting increased sentences for equivalent crimes.

So, you're saying that putting cops in jail is cruel and unusual punishment... Probably means we shouldn't do that to anyone.

If general population is good enough for normal people illegally committing violence, it should be good enough for the police illegally committing violence.

Let’s do prison reform too then.

Great, now you made the reform 2x harder to pass because now you'd need to get voters on board with prison reform. I'm not sure what the point of "let's give corrupt cops extra-judicial punishment by putting them in dangerous situations, but that's fine because we'll also simultaneously fix the dangerous situation!"

1. Doesn’t have to be the same legislation or regulation effort. It’s okay to say “crime penalties shouldn’t be dangerous” as a response to “people who impose penalties on others should be subject to their own penalties” -> “those penalties are dangerous”.

2. Why should I care more about the extrajudicial punishment of cops more than the extrajudicial punishment of the people they abuse?

3. One of the best pieces of political advice I ever got was “demand the impossible”. Anything less is selling short whatever compromise you can achieve and reframing your next attempt. It doesn’t mean you stick to your demand, it just means you start from your principles and adjust from there.

>1. Doesn’t have to be the same legislation or regulation effort. It’s okay to say “crime penalties shouldn’t be dangerous” as a response to “people who impose penalties on others should be subject to their own penalties” -> “those penalties are dangerous”.

In other words, you're for extra-judicial punishment?

>2. Why should I care more about the extrajudicial punishment of cops more than the extrajudicial punishment of the people they abuse?

Because we as a society don't believe in "eye for an eye".

>3. One of the best pieces of political advice I ever got was “demand the impossible”. Anything less is selling short whatever compromise you can achieve and reframing your next attempt. It doesn’t mean you stick to your demand, it just means you start from your principles and adjust from there.

There's a limit to this, right? If you believe in a full communist revolution, "start from your principles" will get you absolutely nowhere, whereas advocating for some pro-social policies might actually do (eg. medicare expansion, free daycare).

> In other words, you're for extra-judicial punishment?

You’re being a jerk and there’s no reason for me to pretend otherwise for discussion. There’s no reasonable way you could conclude that from the quote you responded to.

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