My solution, which I've laid out here in detail a few times, is the opposite: Flood the profession with money. Starting salaries in excess of $100,000 across the board, but in conjunction with MASSIVELY more strict qualifications. Massive increases in training and continuing education. Massive increases in performance evaluation. You shouldn't be able to join a police force if you can't get accepted to a competitive undergraduate program. Best and brightest only.
why should we give current cops, who are so ingrained with bad cops, a 6 figure salary? you can't teach old dogs new tricks, and bad cops are not going to suddenly find a conscience and unlearn their habits because you doubled their salary. many are sociopaths. why reward that behavior?
the entire policing system needs to be revamped, and more of the current cops have to go to make way for a new culture of police.
in no way should we give cops that amount of money while teachers have to pay out of their own pocket so there are crayons for their classrooms.
I doubt if more than 10-15% of current police would meet the standards I would enact for the profession. 🤷♂️
And MN already has one of the highest standards in the country for officers. Some cities even require a 4 year degree, while the standard is at least a 2 year. Many states don't even require any college. HS grad, background and on to the academy. That is scary to me.
is that for all cops? i can see detectives needing that kind of education, but i can't imagine all police having degrees.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
N E W L O N D O N, Conn., Sept. 8, 2000 -- A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”
He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
Most Cops Just Above Normal The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.
But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.
Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Not a single post in this on this board (at least according to the search function) about this poor man that was murdered earlier in the week during the riots. Not surprising. His name was David Dorn, a 77-year-old former police chief that tried to help protect businesses in St. Louis during the riots, and was murdered in cold blood. His death as he bled out on the street was livestreamed on facebook. Very sad.
Why was a 77 year old out there trying to protect businesses? He should have known better.
Just so I'm clear that's sarcasm. It's a horrible story.
Also, I think I did read about that here but maybe without the name of the victim.
this was big news here in stl. from what i have seen he is kind of viewed as an uncle tom by protesters that were interviewed. it is really sad for sure though.
i guess the lesson here is if there is an angry mob coming at you to try to destroy something, you have to ask yourself if you are willing to lay down your life for someone else's property.
Which raises concerns about policing going forward. Of course the main concern everyone wants addressed is equality in policing so that minorities aren't targeted like Floyd and others have been. But another problem is....who the fuck is going to want to be a police officer? It's already the most dangerous and most important job there is. They're woefully underpaid. Folks on the left are calling to defund police departments. If you're a cop and the mob comes for you, what do you do? Stand your ground and protect citizens? Or protect yourself? The whole situation sucks. From the systemic racism, to the riots, to the good cops being vilified by the public, to the bad cops being protected by their departments....we're in ugly times. Hopefully something good actually comes of these Floyd protests.
I don't think it's even in the top 15...
I'd love to hear the 15 jobs you think are as dangerous or more dangerous than being a police officer. I'll even start the list for you.
1) Military 2) Firefighting
That's a start, what are the other 13?
Logging, anything on a boat, most forms of construction...
I got ya. I guess I'll rephrase to say policing has the a lot of unspecified (and thus, hard to prepare for) danger to it. You don't know who or what you're going to run into. Most of those jobs in that "top 10 most dangerous jobs" you posted have more specified dangers (accidents in transportation being the most common it seems), so you know the safety precautions to take.
There's definitely a unique aspect to the danger in policing.
Yeah and with public-trust in policing eroding, coupled with low wages, and folks calling for police departments to be defunded, I worry how many people will even want to be cops and deal with those dangers going forward. And the saddest part is, the bad cops will probably still want to be cops because they have ego/racist/control issues they they take out on people through crooked policing. But the good people that want to be cops might not think it's worth the trouble at this rate. Could lead to even more bad cops in power.
I keep reading that "people want to defund the police" or "disband police".
Where the hell did this come from?
Angry protest rhetoric, mostly. It's out there, but it isn't all that serious, IMO.
Plenty of Minneapolis organizations have already terminated contracts with the MPD. The Los Angeles mayor is slashing $150million in funds from the LAPD's budget. It's not just angry protest rhetoric, serious action is beginning to take place. Let's hope it continues because this shit needs fixed. But it runs deep for over 400 years, so it isn't gonna happen overnight.
I will be interested to see the crime statistics for many of these cities in the next 5 years. Defunding and cutting staff isn't going to fix police brutality and abuse, it's going to exacerbate the problem by having less money for training, resources and staff to handle calls. Go ahead and say fuck the police all you want, but that isn't a solution either.
Good riddance. There are a lot of good people looking for work. And to understand where I'm coming from, my own father was a policeman. I know how some of them handle the job.
Good riddance. There are a lot of good people looking for work. And to understand where I'm coming from, my own father was a policeman. I know how some of them handle the job.
Good riddance. There are a lot of good people looking for work. And to understand where I'm coming from, my own father was a policeman. I know how some of them handle the job.
I’m a dues paying union member and fully back and support labor unions, but the police unions in this country can piss right off. Theyre a blight and cancer for organized labor. Here in MN, the AFL-CIO and several other union presidents and locals have called for the resignation of Bob KKKroll, president of the Minneapolis police union. Time to turn the heat up on these dirtbags that provide cover for this crap.
Not a single post in this on this board (at least according to the search function) about this poor man that was murdered earlier in the week during the riots. Not surprising. His name was David Dorn, a 77-year-old former police chief that tried to help protect businesses in St. Louis during the riots, and was murdered in cold blood. His death as he bled out on the street was livestreamed on facebook. Very sad.
Why was a 77 year old out there trying to protect businesses? He should have known better.
Just so I'm clear that's sarcasm. It's a horrible story.
Also, I think I did read about that here but maybe without the name of the victim.
this was big news here in stl. from what i have seen he is kind of viewed as an uncle tom by protesters that were interviewed. it is really sad for sure though.
i guess the lesson here is if there is an angry mob coming at you to try to destroy something, you have to ask yourself if you are willing to lay down your life for someone else's property.
Which raises concerns about policing going forward. Of course the main concern everyone wants addressed is equality in policing so that minorities aren't targeted like Floyd and others have been. But another problem is....who the fuck is going to want to be a police officer? It's already the most dangerous and most important job there is. They're woefully underpaid. Folks on the left are calling to defund police departments. If you're a cop and the mob comes for you, what do you do? Stand your ground and protect citizens? Or protect yourself? The whole situation sucks. From the systemic racism, to the riots, to the good cops being vilified by the public, to the bad cops being protected by their departments....we're in ugly times. Hopefully something good actually comes of these Floyd protests.
I don't think it's even in the top 15...
I'd love to hear the 15 jobs you think are as dangerous or more dangerous than being a police officer. I'll even start the list for you.
1) Military 2) Firefighting
That's a start, what are the other 13?
Logging, anything on a boat, most forms of construction...
I got ya. I guess I'll rephrase to say policing has the a lot of unspecified (and thus, hard to prepare for) danger to it. You don't know who or what you're going to run into. Most of those jobs in that "top 10 most dangerous jobs" you posted have more specified dangers (accidents in transportation being the most common it seems), so you know the safety precautions to take.
There's definitely a unique aspect to the danger in policing.
Yeah and with public-trust in policing eroding, coupled with low wages, and folks calling for police departments to be defunded, I worry how many people will even want to be cops and deal with those dangers going forward. And the saddest part is, the bad cops will probably still want to be cops because they have ego/racist/control issues they they take out on people through crooked policing. But the good people that want to be cops might not think it's worth the trouble at this rate. Could lead to even more bad cops in power.
I keep reading that "people want to defund the police" or "disband police".
Where the hell did this come from?
Angry protest rhetoric, mostly. It's out there, but it isn't all that serious, IMO.
Plenty of Minneapolis organizations have already terminated contracts with the MPD. The Los Angeles mayor is slashing $150million in funds from the LAPD's budget. It's not just angry protest rhetoric, serious action is beginning to take place. Let's hope it continues because this shit needs fixed. But it runs deep for over 400 years, so it isn't gonna happen overnight.
I will be interested to see the crime statistics for many of these cities in the next 5 years. Defunding and cutting staff isn't going to fix police brutality and abuse, it's going to exacerbate the problem by having less money for training, resources and staff to handle calls. Go ahead and say fuck the police all you want, but that isn't a solution either.
Agreed completely.
Yeah, like decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana created a nation of drug addicts. We definitely need more laws and police to enforce them or we are doomed as a nation. /s
Not a single post in this on this board (at least according to the search function) about this poor man that was murdered earlier in the week during the riots. Not surprising. His name was David Dorn, a 77-year-old former police chief that tried to help protect businesses in St. Louis during the riots, and was murdered in cold blood. His death as he bled out on the street was livestreamed on facebook. Very sad.
Why was a 77 year old out there trying to protect businesses? He should have known better.
Just so I'm clear that's sarcasm. It's a horrible story.
Also, I think I did read about that here but maybe without the name of the victim.
this was big news here in stl. from what i have seen he is kind of viewed as an uncle tom by protesters that were interviewed. it is really sad for sure though.
i guess the lesson here is if there is an angry mob coming at you to try to destroy something, you have to ask yourself if you are willing to lay down your life for someone else's property.
Which raises concerns about policing going forward. Of course the main concern everyone wants addressed is equality in policing so that minorities aren't targeted like Floyd and others have been. But another problem is....who the fuck is going to want to be a police officer? It's already the most dangerous and most important job there is. They're woefully underpaid. Folks on the left are calling to defund police departments. If you're a cop and the mob comes for you, what do you do? Stand your ground and protect citizens? Or protect yourself? The whole situation sucks. From the systemic racism, to the riots, to the good cops being vilified by the public, to the bad cops being protected by their departments....we're in ugly times. Hopefully something good actually comes of these Floyd protests.
I don't think it's even in the top 15...
I'd love to hear the 15 jobs you think are as dangerous or more dangerous than being a police officer. I'll even start the list for you.
1) Military 2) Firefighting
That's a start, what are the other 13?
Logging, anything on a boat, most forms of construction...
I got ya. I guess I'll rephrase to say policing has the a lot of unspecified (and thus, hard to prepare for) danger to it. You don't know who or what you're going to run into. Most of those jobs in that "top 10 most dangerous jobs" you posted have more specified dangers (accidents in transportation being the most common it seems), so you know the safety precautions to take.
There's definitely a unique aspect to the danger in policing.
Yeah and with public-trust in policing eroding, coupled with low wages, and folks calling for police departments to be defunded, I worry how many people will even want to be cops and deal with those dangers going forward. And the saddest part is, the bad cops will probably still want to be cops because they have ego/racist/control issues they they take out on people through crooked policing. But the good people that want to be cops might not think it's worth the trouble at this rate. Could lead to even more bad cops in power.
I keep reading that "people want to defund the police" or "disband police".
Where the hell did this come from?
Angry protest rhetoric, mostly. It's out there, but it isn't all that serious, IMO.
Plenty of Minneapolis organizations have already terminated contracts with the MPD. The Los Angeles mayor is slashing $150million in funds from the LAPD's budget. It's not just angry protest rhetoric, serious action is beginning to take place. Let's hope it continues because this shit needs fixed. But it runs deep for over 400 years, so it isn't gonna happen overnight.
I will be interested to see the crime statistics for many of these cities in the next 5 years. Defunding and cutting staff isn't going to fix police brutality and abuse, it's going to exacerbate the problem by having less money for training, resources and staff to handle calls. Go ahead and say fuck the police all you want, but that isn't a solution either.
Agreed completely.
Yeah, like decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana created a nation of drug addicts. We definitely need more laws and police to enforce them or we are doomed as a nation. /s
I'm not sure why you're referencing that? No one has said we need more laws or police to enforce them. Can't there be a common understanding that police are needed, but held to a higher standard? Whatever, this is ridiculous. Getting rid of police isn't the solution, but go ahead, let's push that agenda and see what happens. People clearly are capable of doing the right thing on their own and being decent human beings /s. Fuck the human race. We're idiots.
The History of Policing in the United States, Part 1
Written by Dr. Gary Potter
The development of policing in the United States closely followed the development of policing in England. In the early colonies policing took two forms. It was both informal and communal, which is referred to as the "Watch," or private-for-profit policing, which is called "The Big Stick” (Spitzer, 1979).. . . The watch system was composed of community volunteers whose primary duty was to warn of impending danger. . . .
In the Southern states the development of American policing followed a different path. The genesis of the modern police organization in the South is the "Slave Patrol" (Platt 1982). The first formal slave patrol was created in the Carolina colonies in 1704 (Reichel 1992). Slave patrols had three primary functions: (1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary justice, outside of the law, if they violated any plantation rules. Following the Civil War, these vigilante-style organizations evolved in modern Southern police departments primarily as a means of controlling freed slaves who were now laborers working in an agricultural caste system, and enforcing "Jim Crow" segregation laws, designed to deny freed slaves equal rights and access to the political system . . .
More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to "disorder." What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. Private and for profit policing was too disorganized and too crime-specific in form to fulfill these needs. The emerging commercial elites needed a mechanism to insure a stable and orderly work force, a stable and orderly environment for the conduct of business, and the maintenance of what they referred to as the "collective good" (Spitzer and Scull 1977). These mercantile interests also wanted to divest themselves of the cost of protecting their own enterprises, transferring those costs from the private sector to the state. ----------------------------------------------
The last part reminds me of my friend who was recently arrested and spent TWO WEEKS IN JAIL FOR HORRIBLE CRIME OF SKATEBOARDING. (and yes, you guessed it, he's black and couldn't afford the seven thousand dollar fine) And how we are now transferring the costs from the state back to the private sector in the form of FOR-PROFIT PRISONS.
But sure, let's just reform our way out of this by hiring good people and pay them more.
Good riddance. There are a lot of good people looking for work. And to understand where I'm coming from, my own father was a policeman. I know how some of them handle the job.
I posted this in another thread but it's appropriate here, too:
There's a little parable we can watch develop in real time. Consider this when people squawk about "well what legislation have they passed" as they're slagging a candidate.
Early this week Justin Amash drafted a bill to end qualified immunity. Lean, direct, and extremely effective if it passes. Ayanna Pressley signed on as co-lead and a couple dozen House Reps, all Democrats, have come on board as co-sponsors.
Now House Democrat leadership is drafting a much broader bill that will cover all sorts of items:
On first blush, there appears to be a multitude of positive items. My fear, however, is twofold:
1. Once this goes through the usual meatgrinder, many items will be defanged and a whole bunch of other unrelated items will be jammed in. Instead of addressing individual items in unique bills, everything may get blunted to pass one bloated piece of legislation.
2. The article already talks about "altering" qualified immunity which sounds different to me than ending it. I worry that this will not only squash Amash and Pressley's bill, but also be not nearly as effective. It really feels like they're about to be steamrolled.
I hope I'm wrong, but am too cynical to be optimistic.
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,011
I'll defend a good cop any day but there are a lot of cops who are providing their own proof that the system is broken in many places:
Protests about police brutality are met with wave of police brutality across US
Use of teargas, batons, pepper spray, fists, feet and vehicles
against protesters sparks lawsuits and international condemnation
The nationwide anti-police brutality protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd
in the US have been marked by widespread incidents of police violence,
including punching, kicking, gassing, pepper-spraying and driving
vehicles at often peaceful protesters in states across the country.
The actions have left thousands of protesters in jail and injured many others, leaving some with life-threatening injuries.
From Minnesota to New York, Texas, California, Washington DC and many
places beyond, from small towns to big cities, police officers have
demonstrated just how problematic law enforcement is in the US, drawing
condemnation from international groups as well as domestic civil rights
organizations.
The International Crisis Group, which monitors unrest around the
world, said the police had used “excessive force”. The UN high
commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, said: “All police
officers who resort to excessive use of force should be charged and
convicted for the crimes committed.”
Numerous incidents of police violence have been exposed in disturbing
videos and press accounts in recent days, with little sign that police
are adjusting their tactics.
Not a single post in this on this board (at least according to the search function) about this poor man that was murdered earlier in the week during the riots. Not surprising. His name was David Dorn, a 77-year-old former police chief that tried to help protect businesses in St. Louis during the riots, and was murdered in cold blood. His death as he bled out on the street was livestreamed on facebook. Very sad.
Why was a 77 year old out there trying to protect businesses? He should have known better.
Just so I'm clear that's sarcasm. It's a horrible story.
Also, I think I did read about that here but maybe without the name of the victim.
this was big news here in stl. from what i have seen he is kind of viewed as an uncle tom by protesters that were interviewed. it is really sad for sure though.
i guess the lesson here is if there is an angry mob coming at you to try to destroy something, you have to ask yourself if you are willing to lay down your life for someone else's property.
Which raises concerns about policing going forward. Of course the main concern everyone wants addressed is equality in policing so that minorities aren't targeted like Floyd and others have been. But another problem is....who the fuck is going to want to be a police officer? It's already the most dangerous and most important job there is. They're woefully underpaid. Folks on the left are calling to defund police departments. If you're a cop and the mob comes for you, what do you do? Stand your ground and protect citizens? Or protect yourself? The whole situation sucks. From the systemic racism, to the riots, to the good cops being vilified by the public, to the bad cops being protected by their departments....we're in ugly times. Hopefully something good actually comes of these Floyd protests.
I don't think it's even in the top 15...
I'd love to hear the 15 jobs you think are as dangerous or more dangerous than being a police officer. I'll even start the list for you.
1) Military 2) Firefighting
That's a start, what are the other 13?
Logging, anything on a boat, most forms of construction...
I got ya. I guess I'll rephrase to say policing has the a lot of unspecified (and thus, hard to prepare for) danger to it. You don't know who or what you're going to run into. Most of those jobs in that "top 10 most dangerous jobs" you posted have more specified dangers (accidents in transportation being the most common it seems), so you know the safety precautions to take.
There's definitely a unique aspect to the danger in policing.
Yeah and with public-trust in policing eroding, coupled with low wages, and folks calling for police departments to be defunded, I worry how many people will even want to be cops and deal with those dangers going forward. And the saddest part is, the bad cops will probably still want to be cops because they have ego/racist/control issues they they take out on people through crooked policing. But the good people that want to be cops might not think it's worth the trouble at this rate. Could lead to even more bad cops in power.
I keep reading that "people want to defund the police" or "disband police".
Where the hell did this come from?
Angry protest rhetoric, mostly. It's out there, but it isn't all that serious, IMO.
Plenty of Minneapolis organizations have already terminated contracts with the MPD. The Los Angeles mayor is slashing $150million in funds from the LAPD's budget. It's not just angry protest rhetoric, serious action is beginning to take place. Let's hope it continues because this shit needs fixed. But it runs deep for over 400 years, so it isn't gonna happen overnight.
I will be interested to see the crime statistics for many of these cities in the next 5 years. Defunding and cutting staff isn't going to fix police brutality and abuse, it's going to exacerbate the problem by having less money for training, resources and staff to handle calls. Go ahead and say fuck the police all you want, but that isn't a solution either.
Agreed completely.
Yeah, like decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana created a nation of drug addicts. We definitely need more laws and police to enforce them or we are doomed as a nation. /s
Yeah. That’s what I said. Take law enforcement off the street and I’m pretty sure everyone will suddenly start to follow the rules. No question society will do the right thing and stop breaking laws. We should have thought of this sooner.
City council announces plan to disband Minneapolis Police Department
Council president Lisa Bender made the announcement at a Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block rally at Powderhorn Park Sunday, just blocks from where George Floyd lost his life at the hands of police
City council announces plan to disband Minneapolis Police Department
Council president Lisa Bender made the announcement at a Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block rally at Powderhorn Park Sunday, just blocks from where George Floyd lost his life at the hands of police
I was there
Based on some of the wording, it sounds like they may be going for the Camden model
Interested in seeing how this all works out. I kinda hate throwing the baby out with the bath water, but it’s bold.
You should read that article about Camden. They also refer to what they're doing as "community policing" but there are actually more cops on the ground - they're just employed by the county vs. a traditional city PD. The other article hints at Minneapolis moving toward something similar (though no talk of head count).
Interested in seeing how this all works out. I kinda hate throwing the baby out with the bath water, but it’s bold.
You should read that article about Camden. They also refer to what they're doing as "community policing" but there are actually more cops on the ground - they're just employed by the county vs. a traditional city PD. The other article hints at Minneapolis moving toward something similar (though no talk of head count).
Comments
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836&fbclid=IwAR0ITk2_J6IrRj78_LOjWbDNEo1xc_dKUd5gP9OGLyUXWNi_Jm_thHdGN1w
N E W L O N D O N, Conn., Sept. 8, 2000 -- A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”
He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
Most Cops Just Above Normal The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.
But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.
Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united-states-part-1
Some excerpts . . . there are six parts.
The History of Policing in the United States, Part 1
Written by Dr. Gary Potter
The development of policing in the United States closely followed the development of policing in England. In the early colonies policing took two forms. It was both informal and communal, which is referred to as the "Watch," or private-for-profit policing, which is called "The Big Stick” (Spitzer, 1979).. . . The watch system was composed of community volunteers whose primary duty was to warn of impending danger. . . .
In the Southern states the development of American policing followed a different path. The genesis of the modern police organization in the South is the "Slave Patrol" (Platt 1982). The first formal slave patrol was created in the Carolina colonies in 1704 (Reichel 1992). Slave patrols had three primary functions: (1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary justice, outside of the law, if they violated any plantation rules. Following the Civil War, these vigilante-style organizations evolved in modern Southern police departments primarily as a means of controlling freed slaves who were now laborers working in an agricultural caste system, and enforcing "Jim Crow" segregation laws, designed to deny freed slaves equal rights and access to the political system . . .More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to "disorder." What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. Private and for profit policing was too disorganized and too crime-specific in form to fulfill these needs. The emerging commercial elites needed a mechanism to insure a stable and orderly work force, a stable and orderly environment for the conduct of business, and the maintenance of what they referred to as the "collective good" (Spitzer and Scull 1977). These mercantile interests also wanted to divest themselves of the cost of protecting their own enterprises, transferring those costs from the private sector to the state.
----------------------------------------------
The last part reminds me of my friend who was recently arrested and spent TWO WEEKS IN JAIL FOR HORRIBLE CRIME OF SKATEBOARDING. (and yes, you guessed it, he's black and couldn't afford the seven thousand dollar fine) And how we are now transferring the costs from the state back to the private sector in the form of FOR-PROFIT PRISONS.
But sure, let's just reform our way out of this by hiring good people and pay them more.
There's a little parable we can watch develop in real time. Consider this when people squawk about "well what legislation have they passed" as they're slagging a candidate.
Early this week Justin Amash drafted a bill to end qualified immunity. Lean, direct, and extremely effective if it passes. Ayanna Pressley signed on as co-lead and a couple dozen House Reps, all Democrats, have come on board as co-sponsors.
Now House Democrat leadership is drafting a much broader bill that will cover all sorts of items:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/politics/democrats-police-misconduct-racial-bias.html#click=https://t.co/v23MjoLEYV
On first blush, there appears to be a multitude of positive items. My fear, however, is twofold:
1. Once this goes through the usual meatgrinder, many items will be defanged and a whole bunch of other unrelated items will be jammed in. Instead of addressing individual items in unique bills, everything may get blunted to pass one bloated piece of legislation.
2. The article already talks about "altering" qualified immunity which sounds different to me than ending it. I worry that this will not only squash Amash and Pressley's bill, but also be not nearly as effective. It really feels like they're about to be steamrolled.
I hope I'm wrong, but am too cynical to be optimistic.
Protests about police brutality are met with wave of police brutality across US
Use of teargas, batons, pepper spray, fists, feet and vehicles against protesters sparks lawsuits and international condemnation
The nationwide anti-police brutality protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in the US have been marked by widespread incidents of police violence, including punching, kicking, gassing, pepper-spraying and driving vehicles at often peaceful protesters in states across the country.
The actions have left thousands of protesters in jail and injured many others, leaving some with life-threatening injuries.
From Minnesota to New York, Texas, California, Washington DC and many places beyond, from small towns to big cities, police officers have demonstrated just how problematic law enforcement is in the US, drawing condemnation from international groups as well as domestic civil rights organizations.
The International Crisis Group, which monitors unrest around the world, said the police had used “excessive force”. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, said: “All police officers who resort to excessive use of force should be charged and convicted for the crimes committed.”
Numerous incidents of police violence have been exposed in disturbing videos and press accounts in recent days, with little sign that police are adjusting their tactics.
(More at link.)City council announces plan to disband Minneapolis Police Department
Council president Lisa Bender made the announcement at a Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block rally at Powderhorn Park Sunday, just blocks from where George Floyd lost his life at the hands of police
I was there
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camden-new-jersey-reformed-its-police-department