I believe it's the primary reason for the complete apathy law enforcement shows towards de-escalation and self-restraint in general.
Why bother behaving when the standard for prosecuting you is so high as to be laughable?
So a pretty reasonable question you'd ask in the rest of the world is: Why aren't these cops prosecuted for excessive violence? The use of civil rights lawsuits in the US was a workaround for an already broken legal system that doesn't punish wrong doing by certain people.
One of the big issues in law enforcement reform is have more police who actually live in the communities they serve and patrol. This (in theory) should address the idea that if you've had previous run-ins with a low level criminal, you're more apt to show compassion and understanding when you have your next contact with them. You take into account you know they're not harming anybody, and most issues can be handled with simple conversations.
I live in Minneapolis and there are so many reasons Chauvin shouldn't have ever been given a badge and gun. 15 complaints of police misconduct/brutality, his personal relationship with Floyd has been well documented (they worked in the same bar). He was put on Park Patrol after his last incident of brutality, yet was one of the first to respond to the call - which is perplexing. He also worked at a local bar and the managers and owners said he had a quick fuse and was quick to violence to end disputes in the club. He also lived in an upper middle class suburb, far away from the streets he patrolled in Minneapolis.
I would also point out a black Muslim cop was recently sentenced to 12.5 years for fatally shooting a white woman when she approached the squad car after she reported a sexual assault near her house. The charges in that case are almost identical to what they've charged Chauvin with. It will be interesting to see how this trial goes and what kind of a sentence he will end up with.
Nature had a great analysis on the data collection/analysis perspective last year: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02601-9
Our police force has had it's immune system stripped away.
Qualified immunity, lack of independent prosecutors and police unions make this a multi angle problem.
Imagine every place you've worked (if you've done that) and the larger the company the more likely you are to have one or two scary psychos that you just try to keep off their radar, now imagine that coworker has qualified immunity, a state issued gun, police union backing and a blue line to back him up... you aren't going to antagonize that guy, at best you'll avoid him, and he'll go out effectively unsupervised or with someone who won't stop them, we need external processes to get rid of bad cops so police have a better work environment.
Police reform is the most pro human thing I can think, whether your a cop or not.
https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/l...
The police and prosecutors need to work closely together to function. It's unreasonable to ask the prosecutors to then also prosecute police powers. It's biased and unjust—even when the actors are all doing their best to act in good faith.
- While the (especially Anglo-American) courtroom is adversarial, prosecutors shouldn't be at all compensated (money, promotion, etc.) by who they lock up. Something based on future crime rates would be much better.
- Rather than DA's needing the police, the police should need the DA. Arresting someone that isn't convicted should reflect very poorly on the police.
That side, both groups are badly in need of complete replacement, which makes it hard to talk how they ought to work together when the real "ought" goes so much further
The fact is, the relationship between unprivileged communities is such that:
- Crime rates to not reflect actual community grievances
- Community members do not want to rely on police even if they would like to bring in some sort of neutral authority / arbitrator to a dispute.
- The portion of would-be crime where the would-be victim is happy for the police presence is incredibly low.
- The portion of actual crime where the actual victim is sad for the police absence is incredibly low.
So it doesn't even matter if the statistics show the police kill extra in proportion to the neighborhoods the patrol and that in turn is proportional to the crime rate, because you haven't Baysianed deep enough to find the cycle. As exemplified by the latter two points, there is no way to find any value for the police as they currently with a democratic basis, and as such they must be defunded and replaced with something else.
Police should be self-insured, backed by their pension plan. They have to have skin in the game in order to care.
We currently allow PDs to investigate themselves, which is a mockery of justice.
It ends at subpoena and arresting power. The courts would mediate disputes as they already do.
Until the concept of "Internal Affairs" dies and we get an actual independent investigative arm or some other strategy that will continue
The only time an outside investigator is called in, normally is because someone dies AND the public is upset about that death.
In fact, the most effective way for prosecutors to improve their crime rate would be to persecute the high-crime racial demographics until they move out of town.
[1] edit: the non-organized-crime kind
I care very little about alleged dog whistles these days. You can only cry wolf so many times and all that.
> So it doesn't even matter if the statistics show the police kill extra in proportion to the neighborhoods the patrol and that in turn is proportional to the crime rate, because you haven't Baysianed deep enough to find the cycle.
Maybe you're right, but the conversation as far as I'm aware is still very much fixated on the former question. We are locked on this question and we can't meaningfully "baysian" our way to deeper questions without more authoritative data. If one actually cared about solving the problem, he ought to support this sort of data collection initiative.
Then you aren't the group I was referencing. :) Your feedback loop theory seems plausible. Hard to say conclusively without more data, which is my point.
This article collects a number of statistics: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/12/black-community-...
> Finally, Atlantic Media’s “State of the City” poll—published this past summer—shows an “urban minority” class that’s worried about crime, and skeptical toward law enforcement, but eager for a greater police presence if it means less crime. Just 22 percent of respondents say they feel “very safe” walking in their neighborhoods after dark, and only 35 percent say they have “a lot” of confidence in their local police. That said, 60 percent say hiring more police would have a “major impact” on improving safety in their neighborhoods.
In fact, even today, a slight majority of African Americans say that the criminal justice system in their area is “not harsh enough” on criminals: https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/documents/899/download (Table 2). At the height of the crime wave of the 1980s and 1990s, over 70% of black Americans felt we needed harsher punishment of criminals. Half of African Americans today say we are spending “too little” on law enforcement.
Hispanics are even more strongly in favor of policing. 53% of Hispanic people supported NYC’s controversial (and unconstitutional) stop-and-frisk policy: https://www.blackenterprise.com/nypd-stop-and-frisk-poll-rac....
Notions of “defunding the police” are an idea dreamed up by people who don’t actually live in these disadvantaged communities. Poll after poll shows that is not what disadvantaged communities actually want. They want the law to be enforced; they can’t criminals brought to justice; and they want all that done with due process protections, just like police manage to do for white neighborhoods.
It's not great to rely on intermediate performance, but it is often less worse than the alternative.
What? A prosecutor’s purpose is not to prevent other crime nor to reduce recidivism. It’s strictly to ensure that crimes that do happen meet justice.
“Unsolved crimes” might be closer, but the prosecutors would definitely need to absorb the detective arm of the police branch at that point.
- Despite worry about crime (something I never diminished), the police are not trusted. The distrust of the police while fearing crime is all the more damning.
- Attitudes towards punishment have changed since the 80s/90s as the incarceration rate has not fallen nearly as much as the crime rate.
- The slim 60% majority in favor of more policing among "urban minorities" is undercut by the huge difference between Hispanic and Black sentiment in NYC according to your source. Atlanta is significantly less Hispanic than NY, but the ratio looks like 5:1, which could well mean the Black Atlanta is closer to 50-50. Finally recall that the government of Atlanta is significantly more black than NY (including police chiefs), and that ~ slim majority is hardly a ringing endorsement.
I'll be first to admit White liberals underestimate Black conservativism, but the picture you paint is at best wary ambivalence towards the police. Thanks for doing my work for me.
People testify because they feel greater loyalty to society as a whole than to the defendants.
Neither of those things are going to work against cops.