zlacker

As far as I understand it[1], the state and the federal government have the ability to prosecute police misconduct, and their incentives are aligned to crack down on the bad police officers.

The problem is that they are dramatically limited in the types of charges they can press against officers of the law (charges that carry big penalties, and have a very high burden of proof). This is anachronistically because we as a society have decided that officers deserve benefit of the doubt in the lack of compelling evidence. These days, many instances of misconduct are recorded, and the rules should change.

In Eric Garner's case, for example, the govt attorneys declined to press charges, because they lacked sufficient evidence that the officer was knowingly violating the rights of Eric Garner. The burden of proof for any kind of misconduct charge is currently so high, that even an egregious misconduct case like this passes by untouched.

If the attorneys general had a wider range of misconduct charges in their arsenal, they could raise the average cost of police misconduct, and it might improve the situation.

[1] recently informed by https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/pushkin-industries/deep-bac...

>>gen220+(OP)
The NYPD kidnapped and involuntarily committed a whistleblowing officer who they learned had evidence of their stop-and-frisk quotas.

>>gen220+(OP)
Actually states do not have the ability to prosecute police to the extent we would think they do. Police chiefs cannot even fire police. Investigating a police officer for wrongDoing or firing a police officer for wrongdoing must follow specific protocols in Union contracts that are put in place specifically to make holding the police accountable a bureaucratic nightmare.

>>sonota+U5
Yeah, I mean it's a known thing that the NYPD is beyond help at this point. They need external help to change.

This is where the department of justice, and state-level attorneys general should be able to check and balance the system, but current laws render them unable to do so effectively.

Even during the Obama years (Eric Garner happened while Obama was POTUS), when a DoJ that wanted to do the right the thing was empowered to, these laws were a huge impediment to progress.

>>TeaDru+2B
I think there's a good argument to be made that the one of the most important steps to solve the US police brutality and unaccountability problem should be to declare Police Unions to be illegal.