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Harold Fjord posted:Politicians who say "reform" do not do the things you are now defining as reform, but they have been patting themselves on the back for their "incremental improvements" for decades. That is what is meant by "we already tried that" Body Cams. More resources (money). Fister Roboto posted:You're correct that "true reform" hasn't been tried yet. But then what you should be asking is, given how often people have been lied to that we're going to reform the police, why should they be satisfied once again with "we're going to reform the police THIS TIME, just trust us dude"? All this. Others are correct that we have not had true reform, but we've had reform movements and politicians working on things they throw under the umbrella of reform. They all just get painted over with a bandaid. Things like body cams in the name of "incremental improvements." We are disagreeing about the usage and context of the word reform. This thread uses Reform in a way that mainstream politicians do not. When the thread talks reform, its about systemwide restructuring, when politicians and normal people talk about reform, its incremental change. eSporks fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Jul 11, 2021 |
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Jul 11, 2021 18:39
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This is exactly why it’s important to say “defund” and not “reform.” “Reform” is vague; it can be interpreted to mean body cameras, more training, and more money for police. “Defund” is concrete; it means take away their money.
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Jul 11, 2021 20:57
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eSporks posted:Training programs. Does more training help the training office not "accidentally" use her gun instead of taser?
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Jul 12, 2021 00:52
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devicenull posted:Does more training help the training office not "accidentally" use her gun instead of taser?
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Jul 12, 2021 01:03
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devicenull posted:Does more training help the training office not "accidentally" use her gun instead of taser? Theoretically yes - BUT the police are notoriously undertrained for their job duties, especially horrifyingly considering they have the ability to use lethal force. Most police do not have to recertify their arms training and don't get adequate training in the first place. You mix that with the ability to fall back on "my life was in danger" excuses for almost every cop shooting situation and you have a powder keg on your hands leading to a ton of explosive police encounters that never should have happened. Most police will never see super high stress and dangerous situation in their career and are woefully untrained for that moment! There traditionally has been little to no punishment for any officers who do poorly under this situation, as restitution comes from local governments and not directly from the police or their union funds. Unfortunately, this specific situation was a SENIOR officer, and the better question is why do beat cops have lethal firearms in the first place? They are extremely lovely first responders, and introducing the element of deadly force is almost always the wrong thing to do. We have specialized and well-trained folks that can do that function, and it should be an absolute last resort. Can we train officers to not utilize aggression when encountering situations with citizens if they are to continue to be armed? That answer is more complex because the culture of policing is one of terrorism, aggression, and power. They do not protect and serve citizens, they protect the State's interest. As FoolofSound eluded to, the issue is that there are no reforms that will work for the police as they currently are constructed - they are working as intended. Yuzenn fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jul 12, 2021 |
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Jul 12, 2021 21:20
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Cops are doing the job powerful people want them too. Training is irrelevant.
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Jul 13, 2021 00:45
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All of the above. We wanted police to use lethal force less, so we gave them tasers. Now, they use lethal force about as much as they did, and also use tasers (which can still be lethal a decent amount of the time) in situations where they shouldn't be using force at all. We wanted accountability, so we made them wear body cameras. Sometimes they don't wear them, but apparently that's ok. Sometimes they turn them off, and apparently that's ok, too. SOMETIMES the cameras even catch them doing stuff we wanted to hold them accountable for, like planting evidence or assaulting people, and then, once we have video evidence, we get to... well, do nothing, actually, but it feels nice to know the cameras are "working." Some departments banned choke holds, which seems fine, but either there are no repercussions for using the banned holds or police will just kill you some other way. These are the reforms we get when we ask for "reform". Just like how people say that racism is over and we all just need to stop talking about race, people will say "look, we already told the cops to stop shooting you, what more do you want?"
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Jul 13, 2021 17:52
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CellBlock posted:We wanted police to use lethal force less, so we gave them tasers. Now, they use lethal force about as much as they did, and also use tasers (which can still be lethal a decent amount of the time) in situations where they shouldn't be using force at all. Do you have any sources for this? I've only been able to find decently reliable data on shootings by officers for the past ~10-15 ish years. It would be great to see reliable data for this prior to when tasers started being introduced (~90s, I believe?). Kalit fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Jul 13, 2021 |
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Jul 13, 2021 18:58
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CellBlock posted:
This is a super important point. We watched Derek Chauvin murder George Floyd ON VIDEO as clear as loving day and no lie I had held my breath all the way from before being charged through final sentencing - I was not sure, and actually doubtful that he was to receive any sort of punishment. There was still a campaign to call him a "bad apple" but there was NO one in near him that day who even attempted to stop him from doing what the police do - terrorize and control. I'm echoing most people's sentiments at this point but I don't care if it's throwing the baby out with the bath water, the entire system has to be stripped down and rebuilt.
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Jul 14, 2021 17:54
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Yuzenn posted:I'm echoing most people's sentiments at this point but I don't care if it's throwing the baby out with the bath water, the entire system has to be stripped down and rebuilt.
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Jul 14, 2021 22:38
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So a friend linked this, and my first reaction was "this isn't going to do anything". https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-illinois-bans-deceptive-interrogations-minors-20210715-rttpzxchqbed5ewlbrhtbfbbau-story.html Specifically this part: quote:The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, bars police from knowingly providing false information about evidence or making unauthorized statements about leniency while questioning those 17 and younger. Any confession made under those circumstances will be inadmissible in court unless prosecutors can prove “by a preponderance of the evidence that the confession was voluntarily given.” More specifically, my issue with it is that it's not going to stop police from using coercion and deception to secure confessions from minors. There are no penalties upon the officers or departments that do so, the only thing is that it becomes inadmissible in court. Personally, I feel that they will continue to use these tactics and either refuse to release or fail to mention what was done to hide the fact the law was violated, or since there's an exemption, provide boilerplate reasons that judges will simply accept the confessions. There's also the fact that many of these problems are only discovered AFTER the fact, meaning the confessor could face prison/fines/marks on their records for years to come. The example the article provides is a man that spent 15 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence; nothing is mentioned about proving the confession was coerced. Plus, it'd be nice if this was for everyone, not just people 17 and under. I looked up SB2122 the law that was signed, and confirmed that only its inadmissibility in court is the penalty. Who's to say the cops won't fabricate evidence for guilt to secure a conviction despite the lack of confession, or hide evidence that proves the suspect's innocence like Arthur Jones who spent 8 months in jail on a murder charge despite the detective having video evidence he was 70 miles away in another city and using the logic that he could've drove there and back in that time? (This was in Mississippi, not Illinois, and he wasn't a minor and it didn't involve a confession, but it's for the sake of example) I think this is my biggest problem with pushing only for reform: it's not enough, it's often heavily restricted/avoidable (see: civilian review boards that are both barred from certain evidence/records and can only make suggestions that police chiefs can ignore with no punishment) and the little that's done the police fight tooth and nail against. The issues with the police are so deep and systemic, they know how to game the system, exploit the loopholes, and rarely face any lasting consequences so why not continue to do the things that are illegal? And, no surprise, the House Republican leader Jim Durkin spoke out against the Dems for attempting police reform despite co-sponsoring this interrogation bill. I know my attitude is echoed in the thread, but I thought you all might like a new example of "reform" and to see if any of you have thoughts that it might be better than my cynical take.
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Jul 16, 2021 10:04
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:This is exactly why it’s important to say “defund” and not “reform.” “Reform” is vague; it can be interpreted to mean body cameras, more training, and more money for police. “Defund” is concrete; it means take away their money. Exactly. That's why I say "well come up with something better" when people complain about "defund" and almost never get any sort of answer from anyone on it.
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Aug 4, 2021 21:54
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I suspect that what would happen if you were really to defund the police would depend on the location. Relatively quiet and safe areas would remain mostly safe and quiet, areas with a lot of gang activity would be safe or dangerous depending on whether one gang was enough in charge to enforce a monopoly on violence. That was broadly the experience in Brazil, anyway, when the Rio local government got into serious financial trouble.
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Aug 5, 2021 14:12
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:This is exactly why it’s important to say “defund” and not “reform.” “Reform” is vague; it can be interpreted to mean body cameras, more training, and more money for police. “Defund” is concrete; it means take away their money. I have a question for the thread regarding defund/reform. If a police department currently does not have body cameras, are you for or against spending money to mandate body cameras for all officers? First, let's start with the premise: police currently exist in our society and we aren't getting rid of them in the short term future. Some might disagree with that premise, but for the sake of this question, let's pretend it's an accurate statement. Let's also assume the mandate is there are actual repercussions occur if an officer does not start recording at the start of any call/incident (e.g. week suspension without pay). Another assumption I want to lay out is that the number of officers would not increase or decrease based on this decision. As far as access to these videos/etc, that can be left up to how it's handled in general, since there are a lot of body camera programs that already exist. I bring this up for a couple reasons. I saw that Portland is finally starting a body camera program (I was shocked they didn't have one). I don't live there, but I'm wondering if people who are for defunding the police are against this, since In addition, I ask because the Minneapolis mayor and police chief were trying a to implement an Early Intervention System, which assigns a "risk score" to every officer based on a multitiude of factors, for a few million dollars (out of a ~180 million dollar police budget). The defund the police movement seems to be why this system got rejected by the city council (I could get more into this if anyone is interested, but I'll leave it out for now). Overall, I'm curious if people who are for defunding/abolishing the police want to reject any increase in a budget, even if it's for a system we know helps charge/convict some cops to some degree (e.g. Chauvin, Moreno, Finch, etc)? Or is it still a bad idea? If so, for what reason(s)? I could think of a few reasons against this, but I don't want to lead the answer to this question. *Clarified my thought process/question Kalit fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Aug 5, 2021 |
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Aug 5, 2021 15:16
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Beefeater1980 posted:I suspect that what would happen if you were really In most areas, the only meaningful 'gangs' are the ones with badges.
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Aug 5, 2021 15:21
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Portland isn't technically starting a body cam program yet, it's just on the table in the current police contract negotiations and the police commissioner/mayor is behaving as though it's a done deal. This article has more, and some background: https://www.wweek.com/news/2021/05/...or-the-footage/ quote:Portland is an outlier in another sense. It’s the city’s police union pushing for the cameras—and it’s progressive elected officials who remain skeptical.
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Aug 5, 2021 15:31
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Kalit posted:I have a question for the thread regarding defund/reform. If a police department currently does not have body cameras, are you for or against spending money to mandate body cameras for all officers? Why do they need a budget increase of a few million dollars if they already spend 180 a year. If you've come up with a new idea that costs 2% of the budget, you reallocate some fund from elsewhere. (Maybe take it from the military equipment budget, or benefits packages, or pensions. (I'm not actually for raiding pensions like that, but if for example a school wanted 2% more money to better gauge effectiveness and remove high-risk teachers, they'd be told to pound sand.)) I don't think I'm just automatically against the money going to the police for something like that, but what's to stop them from taking $4 million for this risk score program, then spending it on tanks or something and come back next year going "whoops, we ran out of money in the risk score program, can we have more now?" Body cameras should be an absolute minimum; the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ should be distributing cash for them, as well as anything else supposedly intended to oversee police conduct.
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Aug 5, 2021 15:42
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wizzardstaff posted:Portland isn't technically starting a body cam program yet, it's just on the table in the current police contract negotiations and the police commissioner/mayor is behaving as though it's a done deal. That's the old story, the city has been moving forward with it: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/08/03/portland-mayor-tells-police-to-prepare-for-body-cameras/ And as far as who "owns" the body camera footage, isn't it typically the police department? I think that's typically the case (old source here), which is of course absurd, but not any different than other cities/charged officers I mentioned. Kalit fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Aug 5, 2021 |
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Aug 5, 2021 15:43
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Take it out of their tank budget. Serious post. The goal is always going to be to reduce the size and scope of police departments, that will never in any way be accomplished through increased budgets. I'd rather see the money for body cams come from a separate fund, so in a few years down the line, the increased budget to get new body cams doesn't set a precedent for the now higher budget that is being used to buy surplus military equipment. If you increase their budget, for whatever reason, that is just going to be the new expected budget going forward. If its a small department that really can't afford body cams, don't increase their budget. Create a new separate "Police accountability and public safety fund" and pull the money from that. It would prevent it from being a continuous budget increase, and also send the appropriate public message that police misconduct is costing tax payers extra money, instead of the messaging that police need more money to do their job and keep you safe. Increasing their budget is also in essence, always a means of taking money away from social services. The budget has to be balanced, so if police are getting more, it means other services are getting less. eSporks fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Aug 5, 2021 |
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Aug 5, 2021 15:54
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CellBlock posted:Why do they need a budget increase of a few million dollars if they already spend 180 a year. If you've come up with a new idea that costs 2% of the budget, you reallocate some fund from elsewhere. (Maybe take it from the military equipment budget, or benefits packages, or pensions. (I'm not actually for raiding pensions like that, but if for example a school wanted 2% more money to better gauge effectiveness and remove high-risk teachers, they'd be told to pound sand.)) I realized I mis-spoke when I said a few million for that EIS system. I think that was an estimate I had in my head for the overall costs of a full EIS system including ongoing costs? This was for ~$230,000. For your point specifically, it's a little confusing and I don't know all of the details. But basically the city council line-item vetoed certain items that the mayor proposed (we have a weak mayor system). So, for this program to start up, it needs approval from the mayor/city council to be in the budget. It's not as simple as "move money around within the department". They still have to have approval for the program overall. So, even if this $230,000 program would have been funded, the MPD budget was still millions of dollars less than the previous year. You can see the rejection of the mayor's proposal here on page 2. Now, to be fair, the city council did want the EIS program to be under a proposal they were putting forward for shuffling around who the police report to (mentioned here). Basically, they wanted the program to be managed by someone who is not the police themselves (I'm sure it cannot be an outside department, for civilian confidentiality reasons since case specific information would be entered into the program), which is fair. However, that proposal didn't move forward and they seemed happy to not have the EIS system at all. eSporks posted:Take it out of their tank budget. Do you know if most police departments have an overall budget that they can use for whatever? As I mentioned above, for MPD, these things are typically not an "overall" budget increase that can be used as desired, it's earmarked decently well. Of course, as far as compliancy, I don't know how well their financial records are audited. As far as the "perception", I understand your point. Kalit fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Aug 5, 2021 |
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Aug 5, 2021 16:09
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Kalit posted:Do you know if most police departments have an overall budget that they can use for whatever? As I mentioned above, for MPD, these things are typically not an "overall" budget increase that can be used as desired, it's earmarked decently well. Of course, as far as compliancy, I don't know how well their financial records are audited. When things improve and police start abusing their power less, I want the optics to be "Police were held accountable by an outside force and got better" and not "We gave them more money to spend on technology and training and it got better." It is a lot about perception for me, and what kind of implications it will have in the future. Again, increasing the budget in any capacity will always equate to an increase in size and power down the line. I think most leftist see the need for reducing the size, scope and power of police, and that will never be accomplished by increasing their budget.
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Aug 5, 2021 16:21
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Kalit posted:That's the old story, the city has been moving forward with it: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/08/03/portland-mayor-tells-police-to-prepare-for-body-cameras/ In Oregon, police departments (and sheriff's offices, etc.) don't have a separate legal existence from the municipality that they serve. So PPB is a department of the City of Portland, Multnomah County Sheriff's Office is a department of Multnomah County, etc. Its a legal absurdity for PPB (but not the City) to "own" body camera footage.
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Aug 5, 2021 17:33
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Beefeater1980 posted:I suspect that what would happen if you were really This is already the case in many large cities, including Los Angeles. The gangs are the police. And not even with any exaggeration, the Sheriff of LA is literally a gang member and his sheriffs dept has at least 18 separate gangs within it. Jaxyon fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Aug 5, 2021 |
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Aug 5, 2021 17:58
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The idea that less police funding means more gang territory presupposes so many things about gangs and police that aren’t backed by evidence that police have any effect on gangs or that root causes of gangs are actually effected by police budget or activities. Also that the police aren’t sometimes effectively gang members
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Aug 5, 2021 19:26
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:The idea that less police funding means more gang territory presupposes so many things about gangs and police that aren’t backed by evidence that police have any effect on gangs or that root causes of gangs are actually effected by police budget or activities. Again, LA police are literally and actually gang members. Even aside from the standard "all police are a gang", which is also true. They even have gang tattoos and initiations. And yes, gangs essentially exist because of the police. If police didn't treat poor areas like poo poo, gangs would never get a foothold. They are a direct result of the nature of US policing.
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Aug 5, 2021 19:37
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Yeah a tremendous number of gangs form and are sustained because of a need for community defense, either because that community doesn't benefit from police protection or because they are targeted by the police.
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Aug 5, 2021 19:39
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Kalit posted:I bring this up for a couple reasons. I saw that Portland is finally starting a body camera program (I was shocked they didn't have one). I don't live there, but I'm wondering if people who are for defunding the police are against this, since it increases their budget. I'm sorry why do we have to increase the total police budget to buy bodycams? Can't we just spend the money they already have on bodycams instead of tear gas?
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Aug 5, 2021 19:44
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^^^ how will we afford APCs, LRADs, and enough overtime that my local police officer is the highest paid public employee then?fool of sound posted:Yeah a tremendous number of gangs form and are sustained because of a need for community defense, either because that community doesn't benefit from police protection or because they are targeted by the police. To add to this, a bunch of gangs originate in the California prison system as a direct result of guards helping to create them in the belief that they could be lazier about their jobs. The idea, as I understand it, was to make sure that prisoners were never organized and united enough to do another Attica. I'm no gang expert but I believe both north and south mexican gangs and the salvadoran ones are all prison originated
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Aug 5, 2021 19:46
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Kalit posted:I have a question for the thread regarding defund/reform. If a police department currently does not have body cameras, are you for or against spending money to mandate body cameras for all officers? Why do we begin this with the premise that we must increase their budgets to do anything? Why do public school teachers have to do more with less every year, but cops get asked to stop murdering people and it's like 'well, we don't have the funding for that'? There's no reason they can't afford to have body cams already. Buy one less humvee per year or something, man.
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Aug 5, 2021 19:47
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VitalSigns posted:I'm sorry why do we have to increase the total police budget to buy bodycams? empty whippet box posted:Why do we begin this with the premise that we must increase their budgets to do anything? Why do public school teachers have to do more with less every year, but cops get asked to stop murdering people and it's like 'well, we don't have the funding for that'? As I stated above, at least in Minneapolis, it's not as easy as "shifting money around" to fund a new program within the police department: Kalit posted:I realized I mis-spoke when I said a few million for that EIS system. I think that was an estimate I had in my head for the overall costs of a full EIS system including ongoing costs? This was for ~$230,000. So maybe you could have the opinion of "yes, but only if they reduce that same amount in something else". But that's why I am proposing this question as a hypothetical, to understand where the line is drawn for people
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Aug 5, 2021 19:51
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Kalit posted:Do you know if most police departments have an overall budget that they can use for whatever? As I mentioned above, for MPD, these things are typically not an "overall" budget increase that can be used as desired, it's earmarked decently well. OK I found the solution, change the earmarks so some of the MRAP and tear gas money they already get every year has to be used for body cams instead. drat that was easy, what other burning questions do you have.
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Aug 5, 2021 19:51
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fool of sound posted:Yeah a tremendous number of gangs form and are sustained because of a need for community defense, either because that community doesn't benefit from police protection or because they are targeted by the police. Eh, the nature of gangs as they are in the modern US and Latin America is more formed by the drug war and how profitable narcotics is. A lot of gangs got their start that way though. Gang leader for a day is a good read, it's pretty interesting look from the inside of a Chicago street gang from the perspective of an economist who befriended a bunch of the top members. What gang life was radically changed around the 80's because older members stopped retiring to go straight because you could actually a real living selling drugs if you were high up, and the gang became focused as a money making enterprise versus just a group of kids and young adults banding together to protect themselves and get into trouble.
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Aug 5, 2021 19:52
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empty whippet box posted:Why do we begin this with the premise that we must increase their budgets to do anything? Why do public school teachers have to do more with less every year, but cops get asked to stop murdering people and it's like 'well, we don't have the funding for that'? Interestingly, my understanding is that the cameras are fairly cheap in and of themselves, but storing the footage for a whole department's worth of officers for any reasonable length of time (and once you are keeping that footage, the cost of responding to public records requests/gaming the public records laws so you don't have to respond to public records requests) is exponentially greater.
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Aug 5, 2021 19:53
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Kalit posted:As I stated above, at least in Minneapolis, it's not as easy as "shifting money around" to fund a new program within the police department: If it's not that easy to shift money around, than that's not a mistake.
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Aug 5, 2021 19:54
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Kalit posted:As I stated above, at least in Minneapolis, it's not as easy as "shifting money around" to fund a new program within the police department: Yes it is. Try doing school budgeting sometime. California has a whole chunk of educational funding that's mandated by voter prop/measure to specify exactly where it can go. Police are seldom that strictly budgeted. It's just that they don't want to and since they're an armed gang the city leadership is scared of them. And I am not exaggerating here.
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Aug 5, 2021 19:57
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:If it's not that easy to shift money around, than that's not a mistake. Jaxyon posted:Yes it is. Actually I'm just re-reading my original question and I didn't have "increase the overall budget" in my assumptions. It was just a side note in talking about Portland that I mistyped (and since clarified), but I wanted to expand beyond that. So would both of you be for spending money on it, as long as it didn't increase the overall budget? Or would you rather still decrease the budget the same amount and have it spent elsewhere in the city's budget? Kalit fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Aug 5, 2021 |
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Aug 5, 2021 20:01
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Kalit posted:Actually I'm just re-reading my original question and I didn't have "increase the overall budget" in my assumptions. The increase the overall budget ended up being a side note about Minneapolis. Far more effective than body-cams is removing funding and spending it on social services. That's where we should start. Cops are just going to have to figure out and make do. Maybe they can start paying for their own body-cams, like teachers do with supplies for literally children's education.
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Aug 5, 2021 20:03
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Kalit posted:Actually I'm just re-reading my original question and I didn't have "increase the overall budget" in my assumptions. It was just a side note in talking about Portland that VitalSigns thought applied, but I wanted to expand beyond that. Body cams aren't very effective so yes given a choice between keeping police budgets the same but spending some of them on body cams or defunding the police somewhat, I would rather decrease the police budget because that's more effective, and redirect the money to mental health and social services to handle situations that police handle very badly now. But I'm also up for some synthesis here: decrease the police budget that amount and spend it on better programs, then make police buy bodycams out of their remaining budget anyway because aint no way defunding the budget by just the cost of body cams is going to be enough defunding.
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Aug 5, 2021 20:09
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Just LOL that I have teacher friends going broke to buy supplies for their classes of 8 year olds and cops can't even field a slight reduction in their military cosplay slush fund
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Aug 5, 2021 20:12
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Jaxyon posted:Just LOL that I have teacher friends going broke to buy supplies for their classes of 8 year olds and cops can't even field a slight reduction in their military cosplay slush fund Oh yea, that is absolutely 1000% abysmal. Our public schooling system is horrifically underfunded and we do need to dump money into it.
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Aug 5, 2021 20:14
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