The Little Cards That Tell Police 'Let's Forget This Ever Happened' (2020)
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I hate our current state of law enforcement (local and federal) that essentially lets "enforcers" pick which laws they enforce and who they enforce them against. The ability for police to utilize "discretion" might sound like a good thing but I think it's not. If they enforced the laws equally and universally we would see that some (perhaps many) laws need to be stricken from the books because of how many people are regularly breaking them. Instead the police get to pick so if you piss them off they might write you up for a minor infraction that they ignore 99% of the time. The police should not have this power.
Another example of police getting to decide if they want to do their jobs are not is what happened to the CA DA Chesa Boudin. He came in and tried to implement various criminal justice reform policies and the police didn't like that so what did they do? They stopped doing their jobs. They let crime rise to the point that civilians, incorrectly, assumed the DA wasn't doing his job and they recalled him. Let that sink in, a DA tried to make changes and the police decided to just not do their job in order to make him look bad so they could get him effectively "fired" and they didn't have to make any reforms/changes. That's absolutely disgusting. Just imagine trying to pull a stunt like that were you work and think about how well it would go over. Police are not a protected class, they should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us but instead they are held to almost no standard at all.
We need massive police reform in the US and it's becoming even more clear that there is little worth "saving" from our current system.
Or go do some research.
I'm a left-leaning grow-in-SF person who voted to recall Boudin. I've had Progressive friends tell me to my face that I was fooled by the police.
Okay, for the sake of discussion, let's say that your presentation of the story is roughly accurate. (Let's ignore what the Asian political bloc was saying, they were fooled by the police too, in this scenario; and let's ignore all the folks who worked for Boudin in the DA office and then came out against him. Ignoring all that...)
So the police don't want to work with this DA.
They say the rise in crime is due to him being soft on crime.
We vote him out.
Next, one of two things will happen: crime will go down, or it stays the same or goes up.
If crime goes down, great! That's what we want, yeah?
But if crime goes UP then-- Aha! --we then know that Chesa Boudin wasn't really the factor after all and the police were playing games with the data and enforcement, eh?
And that plays (back) into the hands of the Progressive bloc, no?
If DA exits, and crime increases, then it probably wasn’t the police artificially fiddling with things (because they would revert to norm after exit). But then whatever the DA was doing was apparently working, so his exiting isn’t so great.
If DA exits, and crime decreases, then:
1. If police were artificially meddling, and stopped meddling after exit, then this is what we’d expect
2. If police were not artificially meddling, and DA was the cause due to soft-on-crime, then this is what we’d expect
If DA exits, and crime stays the same, then artificial meddling and DA policy either didn’t occur, or had no impact.
Item 1 of crime decrease is not what “we” wanted. Item 2 is a good outcome. But I don’t see how you’d differentiate in this simplification.
The police said that they couldn't do their jobs because the DA wasn't prosecuting.
The Progressive bloc said that the police were fudging the reported numbers and shirking their duty just to make the DA look bad. (Pretty strong accusations IMO.)
But we don't really have the data. The Progressives claim is that the official figures are cooked. But anyone who has spent time here has seen the crime for themselves. So which is it? Are the cops doing their job but the DA lets the criminals walk? Or are the cops lying and shirking their duty to get rid of a DA who is willing to prosecute their misconduct?
In the event, we voted the DA out. The Asian-American political bloc and many Democrats went with the police version of the story, and the Progressives said that they (we) were all just bamboozled by the Republicans and the Police.
So now if crime does not go down after removing Boudin then the Progressive bloc will be handed a PR victory (not a real victory, because more crime is bad even if it helps your side politically, eh?)
Most counties I’ve been to permit police latitude (and in some cases way more than a little latitude) and there are places where a victim can decide on civil consequence (receive $$) or proceed with criminal case (potential jail time).
The problem is if you view the police as they actually act over time, the uncertainty and cruelty is basically designed in. They are part of a long term and slow motion terror campaign against the most vulnerable members of our society. Whatever they should be, that is consistently how they act, and any power we give them should be considered within that reality. There is no power they have ever been granted that they have not chosen to use for tremendous harm and personal gain.
That said, I don't see a usable alternative --even considering the abuse. It's a human system--and maybe a remote robotic AI assisted system would be worse-- so it suffers from human fallibility.
A system without police is worse. You will have gangs and vigilantes take over who will be worse than police forces (yes, I know police in Venezuela are indistinguishable from violent gangs --but I'm talking about most police forces in advanced economies). Without a police force you get what we saw in the Wild West and what they got in Somalia --gangs and warlords and outlaws and whatnot.
I'm not saying don't strive for improvement -what I am saying is we must allow discretion (an example of what happens with lack of discretion is what happens with mandatory sentencing)
Even in China, you want a police force over no police and the police in China are even less concerned with civil rights and offer more discretion to the "right" people. In Russia, I would say it's closer to a draw as they are pretty corrupt, but your gangs are still worse.
Thinking in idealistic fashion is an okay exercise but we also need to face reality and the reality is that people cannot "police themselves" adequately.
I can not see it this way, and I have earned that honestly. I have lived much of my life in poverty and addiction and across decades and dozens of interactions, not a single cop treated me with dignity and respect while I was homeless. Now I can code, can afford a dentist and $300 boots, and we get along fine! The violations are not the exception, they are build in to the system. The violations against people like you, against who I am now, those are exceptions. But in general? No.
I'm not arguing for lawlessness here. I am saying we should not be funding a hostile paramilitary force to harass the citizens we have already failed in other ways.
In large societies, the US, India, China, Panama, etc., with many strangers living among each other in large settlements, how do we, uhhh, "police" the population? Or how do we manage the population from infringing/violating each other's rights?
> Or how do we manage the population from infringing/violating each other's rights?
Do we manage it now? Do police do that? If they do the US should be one of if not the safest country in the world. Is it? The very clear evidence is that police don't accomplish this goal, or that this is not the goal of police.
My belief, earned through experience, is that keeping us safe, "preventing crime" is not what police do. And what they is do is not something we should want or endorse. Yes, we will need "policing" the norms of society, management of the boundaries between individual rights, reaction to transgressions against them. But what we have isn't effective at that anyway, so why are we so invested in keeping it? We can do better and the police themselves have no interest in helping us figure out how.
> as long as it’s not abused
That ship has long since sailed. The police have proven more times than I can count that they absolutely cannot be trusted not to abuse this.
I definitely would like to see better parking enforcement and more official cars get towed. I'd be all for that, no question.
I can't see a legitimate reason for PBA cards to be given out at all. If leeway is going to be given it should be given based on the situation (not the person). Friends/family of the police should not be given more leeway.
This would take needing discretion out of the question, and also provide better incentive to the driver than "I hope the same cop doesn't pull me over again and remember they already gave me a warning".
https://www.rpmlawca.com/blog/2020/january/how-to-handle-a-f...
I won't disagree with you on the point that we have numerous examples of police abusing this.
I will note that we are primed by our current medium to only see the examples of them abusing this.
The current policing system is non-functional without discretion because nearly everything is criminalized with overly harsh punishments.
Police are pretty terrible arbiters of discretion, but I would rather have that than the current laws enforced.
I am much more concerned about over enforcement than under enforcement.
The police are systemically biased toward selecting for members who favor authority and loyalty. It should come as no surprise that those values are reflected in behavior like this.
Personally, I'm curious to engage with and hear from those who hand out such favors. How is it justified?
1. Graham et al., 2013; https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2184440
2. Graham J., Haidt J., & Nosek B. (2009)
So this is really not that big of an issue in the grand scheme of things.
I mean, cops usually get free coffee and snacks. Is that an issue?
When I worked at a large corporation, HR gave us a lecture about not accepting any gifts over $25 or something. I would like to live in a world where police departments function with at least a similar level of integrity.
Right now most police pay is bad, but police get a basket of official and "unofficial" benefits to make up for it. We should eliminate the unofficial ones and offer real compensation in exchange.
* Although, yikes, I paid $7.50 with tax for 1/2 dozen donuts at Dunkin yesterday, so maybe this isn't trivial.
Paying them more won't bring them more in line with what we wish the police did though. They will just continue to terrorize the vulnerable and protect capital because that is their actual role.
Looking at my city, Most officers make more thank 300K. Sergeants and Lieutenant make more than 400K, and the chief makes more than 550k
Cops shouldn't accept free coffee and snacks. Just as politicians shouldn't accept gifts. That's corruption.
He wrote that check, and ended up pleading guilty to reckless/careless driving (can't remember which), which carries far fewer long term consequences than a DUI.
Now that we're all being dragged kicking and screaming into the fray, I suppose I'll have to form an opinion.
Until I do, the Peelian 9 Principles appear to be a good starting point. (Copypasta below.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles
--
Sir Robert Peel – Metropolitan Police of London – 1829
The Peelian principles summarize the ideas that Sir Robert Peel developed to define an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent. In this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. “Policing by consent” indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so.
3 CORE IDEAS
The goal is preventing crime, not catching criminals. If the police stop crime before it happens, we don’t have to punish citizens or suppress their rights. An effective police department doesn’t have high arrest stats; its community has low crime rates.
The key to preventing crime is earning public support. Every community member must share the responsibility of preventing crime, as if they were all volunteer members of the force. They will only accept this responsibility if the community supports and trusts the police.
The police earn public support by respecting community principles. Winning public approval requires hard work to build reputation: enforcing the laws impartially, hiring officers who represent and understand the community, and using force only as a last resort.
9 Policing Principles
To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing cooperation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.