Investigation:
> civilian investigators don’t have direct access to the [body cam] footage. They email requests to the NYPD, which decides which footage is relevant. The department takes its time.
Adjudication:
> [E]ven if the CCRB substantiates a case, the commissioner still has complete authority over what to do next. He can decide to simply ignore the recommended punishment. The commissioner can also let the case go before an internal NYPD judge (whose boss is the commissioner). If the judge decides punishment is merited, the commissioner can overturn or downgrade that, too.
Punishment:
>In 2018, the CCRB looked into about 3,000 allegations of misuse of force. It was able to substantiate 73 of those allegations. The biggest punishment? Nine officers who lost vacation days, according to CCRB records.
I am typically a pro-union person. I even think that police unions, as a concept, should exist.
But police unions, as implemented, are the reason that civilian oversight of police is impossible.
Typical unions consist of line workers - with maybe line managers. They are then overseen by professional managers, directors, etc, who are not part of the union. The union advocates for the line workers, in opposition to managers.
Police department unions are completely different. Every level of management, except for the very top (The mayor and city council) are part of the union. And, unsurprisingly, this leads to a huge conflict of interest, where the line workers aren't opposed by the managers - but are working together, against the civilian authorities.
To draw a parallel, it would be like the entirety of GM, including the CEO, being part of the UAW union. Do you think that would represent shareholder & board interests well? Or would it lead to a completely out of control company, that would operate without any care for board oversight?
If the ability to cover up criminal acts is a consequence of police unions, there’s no doubt in my mind that they should be abolished.
Unions make a lot of sense, unless they can negotiate impunity on behalf of their members.
EDIT: Interesting article on this subject: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-trou...
Quote from the article:
When it comes to advancing their interests, public-sector unions have significant advantages over traditional unions. For one thing, using the political process, they can exert far greater influence over their members' employers — that is, government — than private-sector unions can. Through their extensive political activity, these government-workers' unions help elect the very politicians who will act as "management" in their contract negotiations — in effect handpicking those who will sit across the bargaining table from them, in a way that workers in a private corporation (like, say, American Airlines or the Washington Post Company) cannot. Such power led Victor Gotbaum, the leader of District Council 37 of the AFSCME in New York City, to brag in 1975: "We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss."
2. There is no guarantee that the candidate you helped elect in your district will be the person responsible for negotiations. Other politicians are supposed to be a counterbalance to this, if they are doing their jobs, and actually give two figs about conflicts of interest.
This is largely a theoretical concern.
The concern I cited - that management is part of the union is not theoretical. It is one we've seen played out again and again.