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Comment by kaikai | Hacker News Reader

There needs to be insurance for police, just like there is for doctors. Once an individual cop has repeated judgements against them they won’t be insurable, instead of the current result of them moving to a different city.

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How about firing them and sending them to jail?

I like your way better. I like your way a lot better.

A: It’s actual justice, and

B: Otherwise it just becomes another way for insurance companies to make money - in this case by charging swingeing fees that will come out of public coffers.

> Otherwise it just becomes another way for insurance companies to make money - in this case by charging swingeing fees that will come out of public coffers.

I believe doctors pay out of pocket (At least the ones that setup their own private practice do), so it would incentivize them to keep costs low so they can pocket the money.

What’s the salary difference between doctors and cops of similar experience levels on average in the US?

I don't know and it's not the point of my comment? I'm only talking about how it aligns inscentives.

If there’s a big difference then it will certainly impact on willingness (and ability) to pay, depending on the cost of premiums, so I’d say it’s very relevant.

Good, I want them to have pressure to not get sued, so their premiums stay low. If we as a society decide this kind of policing is too expensive, then we can invest that money in other models.

Surprisingly on par, some of the guys are making more than faang engineers

https://cthrupayroll.mass.gov/#!/year/2022/full_time_employe...

Then no one would want to be a police officer.

Could also just give the death penalty for any attempted or successful swats (though finding the perpetrator might be difficult). And maybe improve legislation and technology related to it.

VPN service providers might be thrilled if using a VPN for gaming became mandated by law. Game developers less so if P2P becomes outlawed.

The kind of people who don’t want to become police officers because they’re worried about being held accountable for their actions? Those are exactly the kind of people who should never be allowed become police officers. If we were really interested in Justice we’d build the system specifically to eliminate those kinds of people before they got anywhere near badge and a gun.

> Could also just give the death penalty for any attempted or successful swats

Nope, because innocent people would then inevitably get framed for it.

Just fix the real problem which is the out-of-control police response

At this point with how the police use their unions to support the lawlessness and casual violence the police engage in repeatedly, I think most precincts would benefit from pulling a Camden and firing all the fuckers to replace with actual competent officers who aren’t toeing the line of rebelling against the state or oppression of the people.

For reference for anyone who hadn’t heard of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden_County_Police_Departmen...

I'd say that by the time you're considering jail, it's too late—these situations are better avoided than rectified.

Per the article, one of the officers was evidently particularly stupid—he failed police academy once and was disciplined for entering a women's restroom because of crimes he imagined could be happening in there. No one wanted to say "you're too stupid to be making high-stakes judgment calls", so they let him keep trying until he was running into an alleged emergency "with no plan," where he shot an innocent person eight times...and then handcuffed him...

I think actuaries have a way of employing statistical realities that would, in a legislative context, precipitate too much defensiveness and bickering to ever be the basis of a rule. Like I think it was quite a while before neuroscience could fully explain why insurance companies wouldn't cover rental car drivers under 25, instead of 16 or 18.

An insurance company would give departments a reason to say "anyone who has ever failed police academy gets pepper spray and that's it." Departments can decide how to deploy that person.

(Ideally that person wouldn't be a cop at all, but departments will probably always be pushing to hire. This way the argument is between departments and the comparatively highly-informed insurance market, and not voters)

Yeah I like that plan better, but it’s just not happening. Tax payers end up paying the lawsuits, and the cops get released once the attention dies down.

There should be a national license that can be revoked making officers ineligible to hold any position in law enforcement anywhere in the country.

I think judges are often overlooked, they are the barrier stopping an internet troll from sending a small military on to your property on a whim. Too many false swatting should lead to a judge mandatorily stepping down, especially if there are casualties.

Judges are not involved in a police response to a call.

You cannot swat someone without a warrant, they absolutely are in the loop. Every single time. Did you forget the third amendment exists?

If police are doing this without a warrant or hard evidence, then that's part of the problem.

Police generally do not need a warrant in exigent circumstances. If they get a call saying a shooting or similarly grave crime is going down right now at 123 ABC street, they don't start filling out paperwork for a warrant, they just despatch units there. Warrants are for investigations, not emergencies.

I've long promoted this idea as well. They should be insured, backed by the union's pension plan. They have zero skin in the game.

The other thing that would help immensely would be to revisit qualified immunity. Conceptually its perfectly understandable -- failures can happen that are not their fault and they should not be on the hook for that.

But in these times, it's just full immunity. They can do whatever they want and only in the most heinous crimes where they didn't have the opportunity to destroy the evidence they only then do time.

One last thing should be noted: the War on Drugs is designed to create crime and is weaponized against the citizenry. "Dangerous" drugs aren't illegal to protect you, they're there so they can fuck you over.

You mean QUALIFIED IMMUNITY isn’t enough? Give me a break. Their job is literally safer than being a garbage collector. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you look it up.

I know what qualified immunity is, and I think it’s a problem. Police don’t get any consequences for their bad actions, so they have no incentive to change. Their toxic culture and strong unions work directly against the safety to all of us that they’re allegedly supposed to provide. The legal system has proven itself incapable of policing itself, so let capitalism have a try.

The insurance I’m talking about is like malpractice insurance doctors are forced to carry, not health insurance. Individual police and departments pay for it, and insurance pays out (instead of the city) when the cops get sued.

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