A Better Alternative to Police Force
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50 responses to “A Better Alternative to Police Force”
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Excellent, and thoughtful, post.
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Fairfax County also has a Diversion First program that tries to identify people with mental, emotional or substance abuse-related problems and move them towards treatment, rather than immediately to the criminal justice system.
I too don’t know the facts and believe everyone accused of a crime deserves due process. But I want to know what Timberlake’s previous record shows. I want to know whether he’s a Chauvin/Thao in the making. Is this an officer who should have been identified and removed earlier. I expect a helluva lot more from Bryan Hill and Jeff McKay than Minneapolis got from Jacob Frey.
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re: ” But I want to know what Timberlake’s previous record shows. ”
and good luck on that – that’s one of the things the protests are about.
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That is essential to any meaningful changes in the way the system operates. And we need more body-worn cameras.
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Given what’s been going on in this country, they need to add a charge of stupid in the first degree for that (soon to be former) officer.
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the thing is – they KNOW that there is a high likelihood that there ARE cameras… who does this?
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Cops that aren’t very bright, that’s who.
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Thoughtful piece. Mental illness is increasing and we have made the decision as a society not to institutionalize the mentally ill. Police need to develop protocols for dealing with these people if they do not represent an immediate danger to others or themselves. Perhaps police departments (at least the larger ones with more resources) need to field teams specially trained to deal with the situations like the one you described.
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The answer to the question “What are police supposed to do” may be a difficult one, but one thing I think we can all agree is they are not supposed to murder citizens by pressing their knee into someone’s neck for 9 minutes. Let’s not lose sight of the real issue here. As far as people who say “it’s just a few bad apples,” the real problem is the so-called “blue code,” by which “good” officers refuse to stand up to or rat out bad officers. The blue code is BS, and any officer who abides by it is just as guilty as the perpetrator. I heard a suggestion that I thought was worth exploring. Lawsuits and settlements for police misconduct could be paid out of police pension funds. You can bet good officers won’t be tolerating bad officers long after that. The police need to be held to a higher standard than most professions because, unlike most professions, they have the power to kill people.
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yep. The senior policeman put his knee on the man’s neck and the other three did not really know what to do and did not feel empowered to do anything other than “help” or stand by.
To a certain extent, it was the 3 standing by without any rules telling them to do anything otherwise – that killed Floyd.
Had they had in their training – a duty to intervene – even with a senior officer – Floyd would still be alive and no one would be charged with murder.
That’s the problem. It’s not just one bad actor… it’s a system.. that allows bad actors to do things while others feel helpless to intervene.
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Anybody want sign up to be a police officer?
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Must be how the haircut most of them sport got the nickname “idiot rug”.
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I’ve always wanted to be a detective, but you have to be patrol first, and since I had no interest in carrying a gun and sitting in a car all day I took my talents elsewhere.
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The idea of disbanding a police force is not new. It happened in 2012 in Camden NJ, a very high crime sort of place. The key? They did what any self-respecting management with any brains does: they closed up shop, then rehired the cops they wanted to keep. Most importantly, they went non-union, taking away the brain-dead defense of bad cops put forth by the union, very often the Teamsters after they lost the trucking industry in 1978. Management took a lot of heat but the results have been pretty good. See following, a recent repost of a 2018 followup story to what happened in 2012:
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Most importantly they went non-union…
Yeah, that was the most important part, not enhanced de-escalation training and exercises in community building like this:
But for the following week after the officer was shot, the police department held barbecues at the site of the shooting. The message was intended to show the neighborhood that the police weren’t going to retaliate.
They could have dissolved the union and still ended up exactly where they were.
Anti-labor bootlickers are tiresome.
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I guess Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is an “Anti-union bootlicker”.
Direct quote – “Unless we are willing to tackle the elephant in the room – which is the police union – there won’t be a culture shift in the department.”
https://www.fox9.com/news/minneapolis-mayor-sets-sights-on-police-union-in-search-of-culture-shift
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Also, the current Camden police force is unionized:
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CrazyJD comment makes great sense. He suggests that one primary reason for rot in some police departments is the inability of departments to fire or otherwise terminate bad cops, just like happens in public school systems and public workers of all sorts around the country on all levels. This is one reason why government in America has become so wasteful, inefficient and incompetent in so many institutions, agencies and departments on the state and federal level.
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Excellent, and thoughtful, post.
-
Fairfax County also has a Diversion First program that tries to identify people with mental, emotional or substance abuse-related problems and move them towards treatment, rather than immediately to the criminal justice system.
I too don’t know the facts and believe everyone accused of a crime deserves due process. But I want to know what Timberlake’s previous record shows. I want to know whether he’s a Chauvin/Thao in the making. Is this an officer who should have been identified and removed earlier. I expect a helluva lot more from Bryan Hill and Jeff McKay than Minneapolis got from Jacob Frey.
-
re: ” But I want to know what Timberlake’s previous record shows. ”
and good luck on that – that’s one of the things the protests are about.
-
That is essential to any meaningful changes in the way the system operates. And we need more body-worn cameras.
-
-
Given what’s been going on in this country, they need to add a charge of stupid in the first degree for that (soon to be former) officer.
-
the thing is – they KNOW that there is a high likelihood that there ARE cameras… who does this?
-
Cops that aren’t very bright, that’s who.
-
-
-
Thoughtful piece. Mental illness is increasing and we have made the decision as a society not to institutionalize the mentally ill. Police need to develop protocols for dealing with these people if they do not represent an immediate danger to others or themselves. Perhaps police departments (at least the larger ones with more resources) need to field teams specially trained to deal with the situations like the one you described.
-
The answer to the question “What are police supposed to do” may be a difficult one, but one thing I think we can all agree is they are not supposed to murder citizens by pressing their knee into someone’s neck for 9 minutes. Let’s not lose sight of the real issue here. As far as people who say “it’s just a few bad apples,” the real problem is the so-called “blue code,” by which “good” officers refuse to stand up to or rat out bad officers. The blue code is BS, and any officer who abides by it is just as guilty as the perpetrator. I heard a suggestion that I thought was worth exploring. Lawsuits and settlements for police misconduct could be paid out of police pension funds. You can bet good officers won’t be tolerating bad officers long after that. The police need to be held to a higher standard than most professions because, unlike most professions, they have the power to kill people.
-
yep. The senior policeman put his knee on the man’s neck and the other three did not really know what to do and did not feel empowered to do anything other than “help” or stand by.
To a certain extent, it was the 3 standing by without any rules telling them to do anything otherwise – that killed Floyd.
Had they had in their training – a duty to intervene – even with a senior officer – Floyd would still be alive and no one would be charged with murder.
That’s the problem. It’s not just one bad actor… it’s a system.. that allows bad actors to do things while others feel helpless to intervene.
-
-
Anybody want sign up to be a police officer?
-
-
Must be how the haircut most of them sport got the nickname “idiot rug”.
-
-
I’ve always wanted to be a detective, but you have to be patrol first, and since I had no interest in carrying a gun and sitting in a car all day I took my talents elsewhere.
-
-
The idea of disbanding a police force is not new. It happened in 2012 in Camden NJ, a very high crime sort of place. The key? They did what any self-respecting management with any brains does: they closed up shop, then rehired the cops they wanted to keep. Most importantly, they went non-union, taking away the brain-dead defense of bad cops put forth by the union, very often the Teamsters after they lost the trucking industry in 1978. Management took a lot of heat but the results have been pretty good. See following, a recent repost of a 2018 followup story to what happened in 2012:
-
Most importantly they went non-union…
Yeah, that was the most important part, not enhanced de-escalation training and exercises in community building like this:
But for the following week after the officer was shot, the police department held barbecues at the site of the shooting. The message was intended to show the neighborhood that the police weren’t going to retaliate.
They could have dissolved the union and still ended up exactly where they were.
Anti-labor bootlickers are tiresome.
-
I guess Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is an “Anti-union bootlicker”.
Direct quote – “Unless we are willing to tackle the elephant in the room – which is the police union – there won’t be a culture shift in the department.”
https://www.fox9.com/news/minneapolis-mayor-sets-sights-on-police-union-in-search-of-culture-shift
-
-
Also, the current Camden police force is unionized:
-
CrazyJD comment makes great sense. He suggests that one primary reason for rot in some police departments is the inability of departments to fire or otherwise terminate bad cops, just like happens in public school systems and public workers of all sorts around the country on all levels. This is one reason why government in America has become so wasteful, inefficient and incompetent in so many institutions, agencies and departments on the state and federal level.
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If you liked the Farfax story, you’re gonna love this ‘un!
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If you liked the Farfax story, you’re gonna love this ‘un!
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The DOJ estimates that about 50 percent of all crime is committed by about 2 to 5 percent of the population. They also note that proactively identifying this cohort is impossible. Further, severity of punishment isn’t a meaningful deterrent to crime, but certainty of being caught and swiftness of reasonable punishment are.
Given these realities, a rational restructuring of our police state would look like a 95 percent reduction in armed, militarized police with – more or less in order:
– Counselors
– Detectives
– Mediators
– Cuff and radio foot patrols based around something like Japan’s kobansWith the remaining, armed five percent on call to act as backup as needed and spending most of their time in training.
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence
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That would likely result in a failure. No one knows when and where a violent or potentially violent crime would happen. If only 5% of the police were capable of responding to these types of situations, the odds of successful violence increases. To survive in an environment, everyone would need to be armed and be able to respond to violence with violence.
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What you fail to understand is that police almost never stop a crime in progress. If an armed and violent crime or criminal is called in then sure, send in the armed response team. But the vast majority of crime doesn’t actually involve weapons. And if an encounter with an unarmed suspect turns violent at least the opportunity for a cop to get their gun taken from them falls to zero.
The other thing people struggle to understand is that unless you shoot first your gun will not save you. And a shoot first mentality is how we end up with 1,000 dead American citizens at the hands of cops every year.
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The DOJ estimates that about 50 percent of all crime is committed by about 2 to 5 percent of the population. They also note that proactively identifying this cohort is impossible. Further, severity of punishment isn’t a meaningful deterrent to crime, but certainty of being caught and swiftness of reasonable punishment are.
Given these realities, a rational restructuring of our police state would look like a 95 percent reduction in armed, militarized police with – more or less in order:
– Counselors
– Detectives
– Mediators
– Cuff and radio foot patrols based around something like Japan’s kobansWith the remaining, armed five percent on call to act as backup as needed and spending most of their time in training.
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence
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That would likely result in a failure. No one knows when and where a violent or potentially violent crime would happen. If only 5% of the police were capable of responding to these types of situations, the odds of successful violence increases. To survive in an environment, everyone would need to be armed and be able to respond to violence with violence.
-
What you fail to understand is that police almost never stop a crime in progress. If an armed and violent crime or criminal is called in then sure, send in the armed response team. But the vast majority of crime doesn’t actually involve weapons. And if an encounter with an unarmed suspect turns violent at least the opportunity for a cop to get their gun taken from them falls to zero.
The other thing people struggle to understand is that unless you shoot first your gun will not save you. And a shoot first mentality is how we end up with 1,000 dead American citizens at the hands of cops every year.
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Interesting story out of Philadelphia … a cop with what is supposedly a Nazi tattoo on his forearm. “Fatherland”. Defended on air by his police union rep.
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Any job more complex than installing the left spindle nut on a Ford Mustang rolling down the assembly line ought to NOT be a union job.
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Interesting story out of Philadelphia … a cop with what is supposedly a Nazi tattoo on his forearm. “Fatherland”. Defended on air by his police union rep.
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Any job more complex than installing the left spindle nut on a Ford Mustang rolling down the assembly line ought to NOT be a union job.
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