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Samurai Sanders posted:Oh? What's the basis of their opposition?
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Jun 29, 2014 20:44
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While I totally understand the justified rage at the profession, at some point it seems like it would be impossible to have any kind of law officer that would be acceptable or even contain acceptable compromises. I realize this might be the point, of course, but it seems like reacting to the sharkish business practices of the modern funeral industry by saying there shouldn't be funerals or undertakers. (This is not an endorsement of the modern 'justice' system or the current cops.) I would like to ask if there could be some explanation for why there shouldn't be police unions, though. Or at least, some form of them; fair enough if it should be a "civil workers union" including firemen, garbagemen, etc. instead of specifically The Thin Blue Line, but why should this one profession be denied labor representation?
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Jun 29, 2014 20:44
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Demilitarizing the police is important, but so is de-policizing (or whatever) many issues that are currently treated as law enforcement problems - homelessness, addiction, mental health, etc. Often, for people in poor or marginal communities, the police force is the only functioning institution around. Continued lack of political interest in social inclusion has put the burden onto the police, who then apply law enforcement reasoning, or military-based reasoning, to their approach. The last resort - getting the police involved - has become the only option. This also relates to the continued enormous reach of the prison and probation system, particularly among racial minorities, since as soon as your problem starts being treated as a criminal issue, you're at the mercy of the criminal justice system.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:45
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Sharkie posted:Your hope for local cops on the beat is that they are corrupt in one way but not corrupt in another (admittedly more vindictive) way? Is there any other profession in America that you hold to these standards? Is your hope for teachers that they forge grades instead of making misleading calls to social services?
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Jun 29, 2014 20:48
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Rent-A-Cop posted:They represent the cop when the cop decides to put the boot to someone and gets a complaint/lawsuit filed against him. Presumably they'd prefer not to have those incidents recorded because it makes representing their members more difficult.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:48
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Samurai Sanders posted:That seems kind of indirect to me; have they come out and said that these cameras would be bad because of x?
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Jun 29, 2014 20:52
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Samurai Sanders posted:That seems kind of indirect to me; have they come out and said that these cameras would be bad because of x? Cameras dont tell "the whole story" and we (the public) is not able to understand what the camera actually shows are there most often mentioned objections. Public unions eh?
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Jun 29, 2014 21:00
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Are there any studies about how Americans view police broken down by age and/or location? As other people have pointed out in detail, one of the many reasons that the police are awful is that many Americans are awful and believe anyone charged with a crime surrenders their citizenship and humanity. I'd like to think there was some hope of things improving based on demographics.  wixard posted:In that video the trucker basically asked to be pulled over (what did he expect to happen, the cop would know he wanted him to stop talking on the cellphone?) and the cop didn't gently caress with him for it. If a teacher ignores an absence and it fudges a grade up to pass a kid instead of failing them I have no problem with that either. The example you gave is a teacher falsifying records in order to help a child; this instance would be like a teacher falsifying records in order to cover up their own malfeasance. If the driver was doing something for which he should have been ticketed, he should have been ticketed. Otherwise the cop could have just let him go without a ticket and without trying to offer up fraudulent records.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:02
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Sharkie posted:The example you gave is a teacher falsifying records in order to help a child; this instance would be like a teacher falsifying records in order to cover up their own malfeasance. Yes, I agree the trucker should have been ticketed and I said it in my first post here. I don't think they should use their horns to regulate other drivers on the highway and I'm pretty sure it can be interpreted as aggressive driving or something in most places. That's my whole point - it actually does help both the cop and the driver to have a good reason for the stop happening, and the cop's would have been just as good with a ticket. He even mentions the guy has a violation for a light out on his last inspection so this should help with his employer, why do you think he isn't trying to help him? ChristsDickWorship fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 21:10
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AlexG posted:Demilitarizing the police is important, but so is de-policizing (or whatever) many issues that are currently treated as law enforcement problems - homelessness, addiction, mental health, etc. Often, for people in poor or marginal communities, the police force is the only functioning institution around. Continued lack of political interest in social inclusion has put the burden onto the police, who then apply law enforcement reasoning, or military-based reasoning, to their approach. The last resort - getting the police involved - has become the only option. This also relates to the continued enormous reach of the prison and probation system, particularly among racial minorities, since as soon as your problem starts being treated as a criminal issue, you're at the mercy of the criminal justice system. Another major leap would be ending the for-profit prison system. Right now there's a pretty massive incentive to cram as many people into jail as possible and the end results or misery involved be damned. If there aren't enough criminals then just create more. It's a perfect storm. The public won't elect politicians that are viewed as being soft on crime. Our society has criminalized being poor. For profit prisons have contracts with government entities that require them to have X number of people in the jail. Our system is god awful at rehabilitating criminals or giving them a way out. Once you're in the justice system you're in it for life and you can be in it for the dastardly crime of being caught with a few ounces of weed. ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 21:13
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Police aren't the only problem... the problem is systemic. Police only utilize the power and the role that courts have defined for them. By this I mean, police arrest people constantly on bullshit charges because they know the court system will back them up. How can you even arrest a person for "resisting arrest" as their only charge, let alone an untold percentage or your arrests? What arrest where they resisting? Cops are, in essence, cleared from all wrong doing because they know they have absolute authority and they know that the court system will back them, it isn't about their union. Sure, their union is a problem; because they protect the obviously criminal acts of some officers, but the officers commit these acts because they know the legal system is always going to back them. The Union is doing it's job, the system itself is loving corrupt. Once upon a time I would walk to and drink daily at a certain bar. One of the people I met there was a law enforcement officer. I liked him, and we had a great time together. Still, he drove home drunk; not just drunk, but loving hammered, every night. I mean every night, we were there seven days a week. I would walk home, he would drive 20 miles to his house. He even told me that he had been pulled over on numerous occasions, but luckily, once the people that pulled him over realized he was a cop, they gave him a warning and let him go. He would laugh about that. To him it was a joke. Until we end the belief that cops are infallible, we will always have this problem.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:18
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wixard posted:The teacher isn't creating a fraudulent record in my example? quote:The example you gave is a teacher falsifying records in order to help a child; this instance would be like a teacher falsifying records in order to cover up their own malfeasance. wixard posted:Yes, I agree the trucker should have been ticketed and I said it in my first post here. I don't think they should use their horns to regulate other drivers on the highway and I'm pretty sure it can be interpreted as aggressive driving or something in most places. That's my whole point - it actually does help both the cop and the driver to have a good reason for the stop happening, and the cop's would have been just as good with a ticket. He even mentions the guy has a violation for a light out on his last inspection so this should help with his employer, why do you think he isn't trying to help him? I guess we just have different perspectives regarding how leniently the officer's actions should be viewed. To continue the teacher metaphor, I've been a teacher, and there's a world of difference between a teacher ignoring an absence, and a teacher fudging grades because they did something illegal or against policy. Quid pro quo behavior like this is corruption, and I guess because the person that witnessed the illegal behavior could have got something out of the cop's cya attempt you see it from a more ameliorative stance than I do. Personally I think "this corruption isn't as harmful as this other corruption so this is how I'd prefer it to be handled" is a nihilistic and corrosive attitude to take towards the misbehavior of public servants.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:24
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Pohl posted:Once upon a time I would walk to and drink daily at a certain bar. One of the people I met there was a law enforcement officer. I liked him, and we had a great time together. Still, he drove home drunk; not just drunk, but loving hammered, every night. I mean every night, we were there seven days a week. I would walk home, he would drive 20 miles to his house. He even told me that he had been pulled over on numerous occasions, but luckily, once the people that pulled him over realized he was a cop, they gave him a warning and let him go. He would laugh about that. To him it was a joke. Yeeeaaaah it can get much worse than that. The area where I'm from the police used to make a literal loving game of getting absolutely hammered, completely falling down drunk, then driving around trying to avoid each other. If they did get caught they'd see who could blow the highest number on a breathalyzer and punish whoever got the lowest by giving them a warning and sending them home. Sometimes they'd get bored, steal a breathalyzer from the station, then spend the entire night driving from bar to bar to see who could get the highest score. They'd brag about it in public, harass people at random, and pull guns on people during traffic stops for speeding. Sometimes they would just randomly pull people over and cite them for traffic violations that were literally physically impossible in the circumstances. Then you'd constantly hear them lamenting the fact that everybody in the area loving despised them. edit: And just to make it clear I'm not judging police for drinking or getting merry. If they want to grab a breathalyzer and see who can get the drunkest fine, whatever, I don't give a poo poo. What I take issue with is the fact that they drove while doing it. That isn't the least bit acceptable for anyone to do. ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 21:31
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The cop in that video didn't ticket the driver, because the cop realized the driver was only highlighting his illegal behavior. Sure, the trucker was being a dick with his horn, but you could argue, and I think would be able to argue in court, that he was using his horn for safety reasons. The cop had no excuse, and to pull the trucker over and lecture him, that was a classic example of "power".
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Jun 29, 2014 21:32
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AlexG posted:Demilitarizing the police is important, but so is de-policizing (or whatever) many issues that are currently treated as law enforcement problems - homelessness, addiction, mental health, etc. Often, for people in poor or marginal communities, the police force is the only functioning institution around. Continued lack of political interest in social inclusion has put the burden onto the police, who then apply law enforcement reasoning, or military-based reasoning, to their approach. The last resort - getting the police involved - has become the only option. This also relates to the continued enormous reach of the prison and probation system, particularly among racial minorities, since as soon as your problem starts being treated as a criminal issue, you're at the mercy of the criminal justice system. This is a good post and one that I think even most cops would agree with here.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:44
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wixard posted:In that video the trucker basically asked to be pulled over (what did he expect to happen, the cop would know he wanted him to stop talking on the cellphone?) and the cop didn't gently caress with him for it. If a teacher ignores an absence and it fudges a grade up to pass a kid instead of failing them I have no problem with that either. Your example sucks because grades are up to the justifiable discretion of the teacher. They're not tied to test scores - and this is particularly true for student conduct grades like absences and tardiness. There's nothing fraudulent involved, unless it's done in a form of unethical quid pro quo. You compared police corruption to normal grading.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:47
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I think we decided to stop having Cops on the Beat threads in D&D. But in the interest of trying new things, I'll give a cop thread a new go, provided: it's made by someone who's not Sedan Chair or Tatum Girlpants and does not read like either of their incredibly-angry-all-the-time bullshit.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:48
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XyloJW posted:I think we decided to stop having Cops on the Beat threads in D&D. But in the interest of trying new things, I'll give a cop thread a new go, provided: it's made by someone who's not Sedan Chair or Tatum Girlpants and does not read like either of their incredibly-angry-all-the-time bullshit. Can I do it?
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Jun 29, 2014 22:06
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Nessus posted:While I totally understand the justified rage at the profession, at some point it seems like it would be impossible to have any kind of law officer that would be acceptable or even contain acceptable compromises. I realize this might be the point, of course, but it seems like reacting to the sharkish business practices of the modern funeral industry by saying there shouldn't be funerals or undertakers. (This is not an endorsement of the modern 'justice' system or the current cops.) That's why I specifically avoided suggesting that policing be eradicated, and concentrated on workable reforms. quote:I would like to ask if there could be some explanation for why there shouldn't be police unions, though. Or at least, some form of them; fair enough if it should be a "civil workers union" including firemen, garbagemen, etc. instead of specifically The Thin Blue Line, but why should this one profession be denied labor representation? OP posted:Unions are good. However, when unions are used to shield the actions of a body empowered to use deadly force in the course of detaining citizens, abuse is the inevitable result.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:06
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Sharkie posted:I guess we just have different perspectives regarding how leniently the officer's actions should be viewed. To continue the teacher metaphor, I've been a teacher, and there's a world of difference between a teacher ignoring an absence, and a teacher fudging grades because they did something illegal or against policy. Quid pro quo behavior like this is corruption, and I guess because the person that witnessed the illegal behavior could have got something out of the cop's cya attempt you see it from a more ameliorative stance than I do. Personally I think "this corruption isn't as harmful as this other corruption so this is how I'd prefer it to be handled" is a nihilistic and corrosive attitude to take towards the misbehavior of public servants. Safety inspections aren't a huge deal, every trucker passes them and all will fail one eventually because lights do actually go out while you're driving. I just don't think it would cross the cop's mind to bribe someone to keep them from reporting they saw him speeding on the highway, I think he was probably just running the same paperwork he would run if he pulled over a truck that wasn't honking at him. I could certainly be wrong, but that's where I'm coming from when I say it represents the kinds of resolutions I hope for from beat cops. Pohl posted:The cop in that video didn't ticket the driver, because the cop realized the driver was only highlighting his illegal behavior. Sure, the trucker was being a dick with his horn, but you could argue, and I think would be able to argue in court, that he was using his horn for safety reasons. The cop had no excuse, and to pull the trucker over and lecture him, that was a classic example of "power".
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Jun 29, 2014 22:08
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wixard posted:I don't know, I must be the only one who doesn't think horns exist on cars to point out other people's traffic violations. I've personally never seen anyone on the road honking at cars who pass them too fast. The trucker was doing it intentionally to a COP, not a random person. The difference should be obvious.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:25
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Okay, the thread will continue as-is, but will have to check in with a probation officer regularly for drug tests.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:45
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Yeeeaaaah it can get much worse than that. The area where I'm from the police used to make a literal loving game of getting absolutely hammered, completely falling down drunk, then driving around trying to avoid each other. If they did get caught they'd see who could blow the highest number on a breathalyzer and punish whoever got the lowest by giving them a warning and sending them home. Sometimes they'd get bored, steal a breathalyzer from the station, then spend the entire night driving from bar to bar to see who could get the highest score. Where exactly do you live?
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Jun 29, 2014 22:49
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Pohl posted:The trucker was doing it intentionally to a COP, not a random person. The difference should be obvious.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:50
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XyloJW posted:Okay, the thread will continue as-is, but will have to check in with a probation officer regularly for drug tests. You know we're just going to get another thread to piss in the cup for us.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:52
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As long as you continue to insist that public employee unions are good, you will get nowhere with this. They are the main reason cops are able to act with impunity. In California, the prison guards union blocks attempts at relaxing mandatory minimums and drug laws on an annual basis. Working for the government is working for the electorate; public employee unions are an anti-democratic phenomenon designed to extract tax dollars to their members. They are barely the same thing as a union in the private sector, which exists to counter a power imbalance between workers and private employers dictated by capitalistic principles. A public employee union is Democrats negotiating with themselves to give themselves more money and exempt themselves from laws, and is the source of massive corruption whenever it exists, as well as huge concrete amounts of suffering when we're talking about prison guards or cops being able to do whatever they want to the citizenry with no consequences.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:07
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XyloJW posted:Okay, the thread will continue as-is, but will have to check in with a probation officer regularly for drug tests. I uh, thanks Your Honor. *quaffs cranberry juice, tapes piss-filled balloon to abdomen* meat sweats posted:As long as you continue to insist that public employee unions are good, you will get nowhere with this. They are the main reason cops are able to act with impunity. In California, the prison guards union blocks attempts at relaxing mandatory minimums and drug laws on an annual basis. poo poo, I find it really distasteful to agree with Koch brothers rhetoric but maybe the concept of public employee unions does need to be scrapped. The problem is that usually that's intended as a way to destroy all pensions and benefits and bring the rights of public employees down to that of a grease monkey at Jiffy Lube. Maybe deeper reforms are needed that can guarantee the basic rights and benefits of cops, teachers and state bureaucrats alike. Maybe states could amend their constitutions to eliminate those unions and at the same time guarantee rights and benefits? I'm just spitballing here.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:13
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One thing I was thinking about was implementing laws to prevent law enforcement from being a revenue stream. I understand that you sometimes have to seize property or levy fines, but that revenue ought to go into the US federal treasury or earmarked for foreign aid. Similarly, I'd like to find a way to prevent cost cutting for incarceration. The right way to cut costs is to reduce the number of people in jail, not replacing the food with rotten baloney. Maybe we should fine states a certain amount per inmate. Regardless, the goal is to make prison a clear drain and in a way, punish society for failing to prevent crime.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:38
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Public employees work with the benevolent hand of the government, how could their interests ever be disregarded? The only type of monopsonist that puts his employees first is a government bureaucrat, of course. Public sector unions account for more than half of the unionized labor in the US. Want to destroy whatever vestige of union power in the US remains? Get rid of public employee unions.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:49
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wixard posted:Well you fooled me when you mentioned arguing in court. If we were all allowed to be more critical of cops than average people when they break the law, we might not need to have this thread. You haven't refuted or negated anything I said. I used the word 'court' for a reason, but you seem to think I was joking, or that my use of it was a joke. Do you even know what your were or are even arguing anymore?
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Jun 29, 2014 23:50
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meat sweats posted:As long as you continue to insist that public employee unions are good, you will get nowhere with this. They are the main reason cops are able to act with impunity. In California, the prison guards union blocks attempts at relaxing mandatory minimums and drug laws on an annual basis. I wrote it above, and I will repeat it: The unions do their jobs, they aren't the problem. The problem is systemic; a justice system from cops to courts that allows this to happen. It isn't the Unions.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:53
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I'm wondering about public employee unions as well. I live in a city that has recently seen increasingly violent police repression of leftist activists in the last years, with mass arrests at public events etc. Then recently city employees including the police had this big protest where they of course were able to act in complete impunity (setting fires in front of city hall etc). It loving sucks to see the people who have been beating you up and arresting you by the thousands on bullshit charges for protesting against austerity immediately turn around and organize their own actions against cuts to their pensions etc and not see any contradiction in that... On the other hand the police union was only one of the groups present, firefighters were also present as well as many other public employees. Their grievances are legitimate and if they ought to be critized for anything it's for their reluctance to stand in solidarity with the rest of the working class. I understand that, in theory, public employees are supposed to serve the people and considering this having unions of their own could make little sense. However the reality is that the state in contemporary liberal democracies is fully within the control of a capitalist class pursuing neoliberal goals, not of the people, and that vital public employees such as teachers are seeing their pay and benefits unjustifiably destroyed as a consequence of that. I wish public employees could be said to be working for the public, but if we are honest with ourselves we must admit that this is pure idealism. In reality public employees are to a large extent employees of capital (which the state currently exists to serve). Part of me wishes that there was a way of reaching an alliance with the police. If the police union was to "strike", for example, and to stop enforcing political repression in service of their masters, the state would be under much more pressure to respond to both their demands and to those of the rest of us. I understand how unrealistic it is to even consider something like that, though.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:53
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JeffersonClay posted:Public sector unions account for more than half of the unionized labor in the US. Want to destroy whatever vestige of union power in the US remains? Get rid of public employee unions. If you're just going to admit that symbolic gestures in support of "union power" are more important to you than civil liberties and racial equality, then you are part of the problem. Two million people incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. People shot by cops for sport on a daily basis. Militarization and legal impunity of police forces from Manhattan to small towns. But we can't get rid of fake public employee unions because that would decrease the number of people listed as being in unions, therefore literally any horror is acceptable to maintain the current system.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:54
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If you have problems with cops then maybe try not doing crimes? I haven't even spoken to a police officer since the last time I was arrested.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:54
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meat sweats posted:If you're just going to admit that symbolic gestures in support of "union power" are more important to you than civil liberties and racial equality, then you are part of the problem. Then keep the discussion to police unions rather than public sector unions writ large as others are doing.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:57
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Enid Coleslaw posted:If you have problems with cops then maybe try not doing crimes? I haven't even spoken to a police officer since the last time I was arrested. Do you belong to a population that is disproportionately targeted for stops and arrests?
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Jun 29, 2014 23:58
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meat sweats posted:If you're just going to admit that symbolic gestures in support of "union power" are more important to you than civil liberties and racial equality, then you are part of the problem. This is not a Union issue, this a political and systemic issue that involves a completely corrupt justice system. There are Union problems in law enforcement, especially in California's prison system. I, and others, realize that. It does, however, take a back seat to the reality that our justice system is dysfunctional. Accretionist posted:Then keep the discussion to police unions rather than public sector unions writ large as others are doing. He is so wrong, it doesn't matter. To him, the union causes crime and it causes police abuse; all while it causes overcrowding prisons. Or something.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:58
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Accretionist posted:Then keep the discussion to police unions rather than public sector unions writ large as others are doing. All public sector unions should be illegal because they exist solely to thwart the will of the voters and break the law, but only police and prison guard unions do so in order to perpetuate racist, violent ends. It's an intertwined problem.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:58
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Enid Coleslaw posted:If you have problems with cops then maybe try not doing crimes? I haven't even spoken to a police officer since the last time I was arrested. I think more people are worried about the cops having a problem with them. See also: Every black person shot by the police for no goddamn reason.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:59
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JeffersonClay posted:Public employees work with the benevolent hand of the government, how could their interests ever be disregarded? The only type of monopsonist that puts his employees first is a government bureaucrat, of course. With police unions, I think limiting their power to defending an officer against administration action only instead of administration AND criminal/civil action would be a huge start, the other being that police union leadership should be comprised of only public defenders since something tells me they more than any other group know who the crooked cops are. Two other things would be that officers should be black listed from being hired again if they have a history of being violent / crooked, and that any shooting's that occurs is reviewed by civilians, not things like internal affairs, not by the district attorney's office, and that if you've been a cop, DA, or judge you are immediately disqualified from serving on that.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:00
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