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GROVER CURES HOUSE posted:Why isn't it? You're making the claim. No, the claim "It's not possible to simply lift parts of another justice system and implant them in our own" is not a positive one. Do you realize that we have the equivalent--many equivalents--of that Bureau? The FBI investigates things like that, as does the FDC, the Treasury, and Internal affairs. Are you saying that simply having a centralized bureau with a person who reported directly to the president would be good? I'd note that that department doesn't just investigate the police, but all public officials, and has quite a lot of power as a police unit itself, including, "The power to investigate not just the suspect, but also the suspect's family or agents and to examine their financial and other records." So, if I'm following you, the solution to police corruption is to have another group of police who investigate the police (and all other public officials) for corruption? One of the reasons I don't think that Singapore is an easy model to emulate is that it's a very small city-state, and we're a very large country with huge amounts of rural and suburban areas. In addition, Singapore has a really robust social services network that we don't. It's also a semi-authoritarian country, with a lot of repression of the press and civil dissent. Singapore gets brought up as an example a lot in many situations, and while I certainly think we can learn things from looking at Singapore, I think you need to be cautious when applying what works in one context to another, very different one. And because I apparently need to spell it out: I think that police oversight is great. I think that police oversight is also difficult to effectively achieve, and requires legislative and political stuff in order to make it happen effectively. An oversight board that's elected by the same voting pool that's electing the tough-on-time prosecutor seems very unlikely to reign in police abuse--if someone thinks otherwise, I'd be happy to listen to why. The Ender posted:I can't even parse this statement / question. I'm not disputing that Singapore has low corruption. I'm saying that Singapore also has other things, like a much more authoritarian government than we do, and that I don't think you can separate out the 'anti-corruption' bit from the rest of the bits very easily. It's not, like, modular. I'd also note that by that same corruption index that puts Singapore at number 5, the US is at number 17. That corruption index is not police corruption anyway, but general corruption, but to the extent it's valid at all the US comes off very well. I don't think that that index tracks police abuse of powers, though. Do you? Obdicut fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 03:55
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Jul 28, 2014 04:03
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quote:I don't think that that index tracks police abuse of powers, though. Do you? I think part of the reason people react so negatively to your posts is that you end them with that condescending, 'Do you?' which has the tone of a high school humanities teacher disciplining their unruly students. Yeah, I do think the index tracks police abuse of powers. It says so right up front. Also, this might just be me, but I wouldn't be cool with just settling for 17th place when it comes to things like a corruption index. Especially not given the wealth & prestige of the U.S.
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Jul 28, 2014 04:23
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The Ender posted:I think part of the reason people react so negatively to your posts is that you end them with that condescending, 'Do you?' which has the tone of a high school humanities teacher disciplining their unruly students. It's not meant in that way, and I can't discipline anyone. I do think that some of the arguments, like "just do what Singapore is doing" are not very fully thought out. quote:Yeah, I do think the index tracks police abuse of powers. It says so right up front. Can you point to where it says it tracks police abuse of powers? The Transparency project mostly focuses on the financial/bribery/criminal for profit end of things. If you read their report, that's what they mean by corruption: http://www.transparency.org/gcb2013/report/ They're not talking about using coercive means to get a confession, but about taking bribes to let someone go, or demanding payment not to arrest people--in general. And to be absolutely clear, I think that Transparency International does a great job, but I don't think their focus is on abuse of power that takes place outside a financial-reward realm. If it did, I think the US would rank lower than 19th place. quote:Also, this might just be me, but I wouldn't be cool with just settling for 17th place when it comes to things like a corruption index. Especially not given the wealth & prestige of the U.S. Again, I'm not 'settling' for it, I'm saying that on a global scale, according to that index, the US is doing relatively well. And again, I think this is because that index is tracking general corruption, and not putting a lot of emphasis on things like police abuse of powers and no-knock warrants and other serious problems with policing in the US. To be absolutely clear: I think the Transparency Index focuses on fiscal corruption, and so it has a lot of limitations as being useful to look at countries in terms of police corruption, which often involves stuff like lying about testimony in order to get a conviction, even though the cop doesn't actually fiscally benefit from that.
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Jul 28, 2014 04:37
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Obdicut posted:It's not meant in that way, and I can't discipline anyone. I do think that some of the arguments, like "just do what Singapore is doing" are not very fully thought out. Your posts are smug poo poo-and-runs. I will not think thoughts for you, just point out that There Exists A Thing and let you flail about why it's not possible in the US. America can't have a dedicated agency for investigating corruption. Why? America.
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Jul 28, 2014 05:13
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GROVER CURES HOUSE posted:Your posts are smug poo poo-and-runs. No, they're long and detailed, and I'm sticking around to continue the conversation. quote:I will not think thoughts for you, just point out that There Exists A Thing and let you flail about why it's not possible in the US. Sure, we can. I totally think that we could. Do you think that would be the solution, then, that having a centralized bureau to investigate private and public corruption, which is what that Singapore department does, would be the solution to problems with the police here in the US? Or part of a solution? I don't see any particular reason that a centralized bureau would do better than the combination of investigatory agencies we have now. Can you explain why you think it's better?
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Jul 28, 2014 05:16
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Obdicut posted:No, they're long and detailed, and I'm sticking around to continue the conversation.  There is a thing in this post, a thing that you are responding to and asking questions about, a thing that never existed outside your head. What is it? centralized
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Jul 28, 2014 05:18
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GROVER CURES HOUSE posted:
Okay, by 'centralized' I meant, 'dedicated', in the way that you did. Let me rephrase the question. How is one dedicated bureau that investigates private and public corruption going to be the solution to the problem of police abuse of powers in the US? Why is it better than having different bureaus that also have oversight on each other? From what I can read about that bureau, it mostly deals with corruption of the bribery kind, not of the 'slap the suspect around' kind. http://www.unafei.or.jp/english/pdf/RS_No86/No86_14VE_Hin1.pdf
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Jul 28, 2014 05:23
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The FBI *does* investigate local police corruption and abuse in the U.S., but it needs to be budgeted & assigned to do it more often.
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Jul 28, 2014 05:40
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meat sweats posted:The FBI *does* investigate local police corruption and abuse in the U.S., but it needs to be budgeted & assigned to do it more often. I would say that a better idea would be to create an entirely different organization whose sole purpose is to investigate police corruption. That's not the job of the FBI, I don't see the value in splitting their time / resources like that.
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Jul 28, 2014 05:46
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3 of the 8 statutory missions of the FBI are related to oversight of local police: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/what_we_investigate Corruption in and of itself is one of their areas of responsibility, as is civil rights (usually interpreted as investigating civil rights violations by state and local governments), and organized crime investigation always involves police corruption. It very much is their job, and they do reasonably well at it most of the time. There are certainly things to complain about with the FBI but even "doing reasonably well most of the time" is leaps and bounds better than any other method the U.S. has ever tried to reign in police abuse.
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Jul 28, 2014 05:52
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meat sweats posted:3 of the 8 statutory missions of the FBI are related to oversight of local police: Oh, okay. My mistake. (The FBI is honestly my favorite policing organization, mostly due to their transparency & the amount of public data they make available) What's the FBI's track record like as far as cleaning-up bad police departments go? (...and if it's any good, one wonders why the Hell they haven't cleaned-up the international joke / scandal that is the LAPD yet. That organization could have it's own special little thread)
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Jul 28, 2014 05:59
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Obdicut posted:Right. Which goes to the "How do you appoint people to them who are unlikely to rubberstamp police decisions" problem, and we're outside the police realm and into politics again. How are you going to do that in a town that elects Sherrif Joe, for example? Now in a town that elects Sheriff Joe you might never be able to do that, because it is the town that elects Sheriff Joe. But in New York? LA? Detroit? Then you might get somewhere. But as you said, this is all in the realm of politics. I can think up possible solutions to possible problems all day, but the boards would have to actually be created first. I think just the prospect of having to answer to someone who isn't a police officer would get some good results.
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Jul 28, 2014 07:18
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The FBI tried to disrupt the civil rights movement, they themselves aren't paragons. The lesson to learn here is that you can't just rely on 'another' agency or bureau to solve corruption: if it's not criminal corruption that's the problem, it's political suppression. The only group you can count on to serve the interests of the general public is the general public itself.
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Jul 28, 2014 08:27
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rudatron posted:The only group you can count on to serve the interests of the general public is the general public itself. We're well and truly hosed in that regard.
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Jul 28, 2014 14:25
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rudatron posted:The only group you can count on to serve the interests of the general public is the general public itself.
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Jul 28, 2014 14:27
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Obdicut posted:I think the biggest and most important part of police reform is making the prosecutor's office a non-political role. It's difficult to enact laws preventing people from running for office, but it's not impossible. I think that a push to bar prosecutors from seeking public office--as well as reforming the prosecutor's office so that they have a general duty to keep crime low in an area rather than to prosecute crimes, but that'd be much tricker. England & Wales has a better set-up - prosecutors are employed by a national service, so they can resist local political pressure, and appointments are made by a panel of career civil servants. It is not a stepping stone to greater things and there are very few former prosecutors in elected office.
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Jul 28, 2014 15:09
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rudatron posted:The FBI tried to disrupt the civil rights movement, they themselves aren't paragons. There's also the recurring matter of their lurking online to bate dumb kids and the mentally disabled into 'terror plots' they can then defuse, and their consistent attempts to harass and sabotatge peace activism since at least the Vietnam era--COINTELPRO et. al. Don't trust the FBI any more than the other three-letter mobs.
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Jul 28, 2014 16:56
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The FBI is only as good or as efficient as the US Attorney for the federal district is. There's some areas of the country where the FBI is really good at rooting out at public corruption due to the backing of the US attorney in that district. There's other areas where US attorneys almost never file public corruption charges, police or otherwise, so why would the FBI agents build a case that, if they're lucky, will result in a lenient plea bargain?
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Jul 28, 2014 17:34
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zeal posted:There's also the recurring matter of their lurking online to bate dumb kids and the mentally disabled into 'terror plots' they can then defuse, and their consistent attempts to harass and sabotatge peace activism since at least the Vietnam era--COINTELPRO et. al. Don't trust the FBI any more than the other three-letter mobs. As bad as the rest of these are, I don't see a problem with the terrorism stings. The point would appear to be finding these people first, before someone else does and actually uses them to cause harm.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:43
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Talmonis posted:As bad as the rest of these are, I don't see a problem with the terrorism stings. The point would appear to be finding these people first, before someone else does and actually uses them to cause harm. http://www.amazon.com/The-Terror-Factory-Manufactured-Terrorism/dp/1935439618 They are finding people that would never ever have the means of attacking anyone and finding ways to get them convicted of terrorism to boost numbers and get more funding. Feel free to read the book if you want to have your opinion changed. It's depressing, though.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:52
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The Ender posted:(The FBI is honestly my favorite policing organization, mostly due to their transparency & the amount of public data they make available) And the FBI hasn't made a shooting mistake in the last 20 years* *According to their oversight agency, the FBI.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:02
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Dum Cumpster posted:http://www.amazon.com/The-Terror-Factory-Manufactured-Terrorism/dp/1935439618 I'll have to give it a shot. Thanks.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:07
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I have a soft spot for the FBI because of Twin Peaks and X-Files but I know the actual org doesn't match that fantasy in any way.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:09
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Again, I'm not here to defend everything the FBI does, especially when the terrorism boogeyman comes up, but in terms of police oversight they do pretty well. It's not 1964 anymore, the FBI is much more likely to investigate a local PD for harassing blacks than wiretap a civil rights leader. I think some people are living in a particular kind of leftist mental place where grievances over things from 50 years ago are too central to their perception of the current world.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:30
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Well, it's precious that you think so but you're still wrong.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:41
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meat sweats posted:Again, I'm not here to defend everything the FBI does, especially when the terrorism boogeyman comes up America's paranoia about the largely nonexistent problem of "terrorism" needs to end, and too often, the agencies which are charged with investigating terrorism violate civil liberties. I don't know how much more clear I can be that I hold this opinion. Why allowing local police departments to abuse the citizenry is supposed to help achieve that goal is for you to explain.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:50
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You keep writing for some reason, but you're still loving wrong. You keep talking about their alleged roll in cracking down on dirty cops as though the things cops do that can get them arrested are the worst they do. Even the very best, cleanest cop is still obliged by their job to feed nonviolent offenders into the prison-industrial complex, where they can be used as labor for pennies an hour by private interests. The FBI happily supports those endeavors, joins with other security agencies to support lobbying against legal changes that would take away their most lucrative ventures, the seizures and forfeitures that come with their 'victories' in the drug war. When they're not ruining lives in their own interests they're entrapping 'terrorists' and surveilling activists whose dissent the feds would rather see ended. If you honestly think they're a benevolent force in this country, that they have any but their own and their parent institutions' interests in mind or at heart, then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you and some magic beans too.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:08
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There's also the fact that this poo poo is apparently just fine. http://gawker.com/police-seize-medical-records-of-woman-brutally-beaten-b-1606540366 quote:The California Highway Patrol has seized the medical records of Marlene Pinnock, the woman seen being held down and repeatedly punched by a CHP officer in the video above, the Associated Press reports[...]
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Jul 28, 2014 21:39
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Obdicut posted:I don't think you can separate out the 'anti-corruption' bit from the rest of the bits very easily. Why? The "anti corruption bits" are most likely laws and procedures that can be applied anywhere. The whole rest of that post is irrelevant bullshit to avoid addressing this.
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Jul 30, 2014 00:29
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ryonguy posted:Why? The "anti corruption bits" are most likely laws and procedures that can be applied anywhere. The whole rest of that post is irrelevant bullshit to avoid addressing this. So, again, the anti-corruption division there is not mostly a police corruption oversight thing, and to the extent they are, they go after financial corruption in the police department, not abuse of police power. You are suggesting that this department that investigates public and private fiscal corruption is a good solution for the problems we have with police in this country, and while fiscal stuff and bribery is among that I don't think it's anywhere near the most important problem with the police. This is why the US scores better on Transparency's corruption index than many countries in Europe, like France: they're not looking, as far as I can find, at police abuse of power for non-monetary gain. In addition, I have no idea why you think that 'laws and procedures' can be applied anywhere. You could apply the hate speech laws from the UK, or the Holocaust denial laws from Germany, in the US and they would be struck down as unconstitutional. I linked, above, a document from the Singapore department about how they were able to achieve success against corruption. Did you read it?
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Jul 30, 2014 00:42
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Did someone mention the FBI? http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...dc97_story.html quote:Nearly every criminal case reviewed by the FBI and the Justice Department as part of a massive investigation started in 2012 of problems at the FBI lab has included flawed forensic testimony from the agency, government officials said. That sounds bad, but how many cases are they reviewing? quote:The inquiry includes 2,600 convictions and 45 death-row cases from the 1980s and 1990s in which the FBI’s hair and fiber unit reported a match to a crime-scene sample before DNA testing of hair became common. The FBI had reviewed about 160 cases before it stopped, officials said. That's not good at all.... quote:According to a Justice Department spokesman, officials last August completed reviews and notified a first wave of defendants in 23 cases, including 14 death-penalty cases, that FBI examiners “exceeded the limits of science” when they linked hair to crime-scene evidence. Ah yes, "exceeded the limits of science". That makes lying sound hella futuristic. At least they're working on it... quote:However, concerned that errors were found in the “vast majority” of cases, the FBI restarted the review, grinding the process to a halt, said a government official who was briefed on the process. The Justice Department objected in January, but a standoff went unresolved until this month. Right.... quote:No crime lab performed more hair examinations for federal and state agencies than the 10-member FBI unit, which testified in cases nationwide involving murder, rape and other violent felonies. Well I'm sure this was just a rogue agent, just one bad apple? quote:This month, the inspector general reported that inattention and foot-dragging by the Justice Department and the FBI led them to ignore warnings 15 years ago that scientifically unsupported and misleading testimony could have come from more than a single hair examiner among agents discredited in a 1997 inspector general’s report on misconduct at the FBI lab. Since 1999 they've had the clues. If only someone at the FBI could put the clues together, if only they had hired someone with those skills....
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Jul 30, 2014 09:37
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The SF police department also had a nearly completely useless forensics lab, with one tech there who was addicted to cocaine and would just make poo poo up on a regular basis. This is a good example of how the systemic problems go far beyond the police: the FBI lab, the SF forensics lab delivered the 'proof' that the police and prosecutors wanted. They were, at the SF lab, doing tests faster than actually physically possible and reporting the results.
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Jul 30, 2014 11:11
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zeal posted:
This is true and if you think that it's a good idea to trust or like any US agency (and aren't obscenely wealthy) you are an idiot.
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Jul 30, 2014 11:45
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:This is true and if you think that it's a good idea to trust or like any US agency (and aren't obscenely wealthy) you are an idiot. I like the EPA and the FDA just fine, though they certainly need work. OSHA, DNR, the CDC and HUD are pretty positive agencies.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:56
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Talmonis posted:I like the EPA and the FDA just fine, though they certainly need work. OSHA, DNR, the CDC and HUD are pretty positive agencies. http://reimaginerpe.org/node/5951 http://inthesetimes.com/article/3504/first_came_katrina_then_came_hud
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Jul 30, 2014 15:16
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E-Tank posted:http://reimaginerpe.org/node/5951 Aren't the articles basically decrying the fact that HUD is being gutted?
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Jul 30, 2014 15:41
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Obdicut posted:The SF police department also had a nearly completely useless forensics lab, with one tech there who was addicted to cocaine and would just make poo poo up on a regular basis. So many investigative practices are junk science, it's no surprise even without the shortcuts.
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Jul 30, 2014 15:49
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E-Tank posted:http://reimaginerpe.org/node/5951 Starve the beast is a bitch.
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Jul 30, 2014 16:06
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I've never understood the logic of people who see the results of Starve the Beast and declare: "Surely this must mean we should eliminate this agency entirely and leave it up to the whims of a cruel and merciless God."
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Jul 30, 2014 16:46
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