Institutional racism in policing and how to rectify it.

[Timsup2nothin]

Indeed. A good pistol-whipping should suffice.

Ignore the fact that I was referring to rioters and those who resist arrest by assaulting police officers. I guess the detente is over.

It was a joke! Directed at Cutlass!! Referring to the potential of a good beating as a deterrent for onlookers!!!

In short, not targeted at you, or anyone else for that matter.

Where's that common ground again?

 

[JohnRM]

It was a joke! Directed at Cutlass!! Referring to the potential of a good beating as a deterrent for onlookers!!!

In short, not targeted at you, or anyone else for that matter.

Where's that common ground again?

I need a hug.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I need a hug.

That helmet is too scary for me, but I'll send someone over.

 

[JohnRM]

That helmet is too scary for me, but I'll send someone over.

Make sure she's wearing that Princess Leia slave costume.

 

[Arwon]

It strikes me as very odd that local municipalities and councils get to have tiny little police forces. Surely having a single larger police force (eg state level) would avoid some of the issues of having tiny poorly run inefficient little fiefdoms everywhere.

I can't see how independent police departments of like 50 people are going to be useful at changing their own behaviour.

 

[JohnRM]

It strikes me as very odd that local municipalities and councils get to have tiny little police forces. Surely having a single larger police force would avoid some of the issues of having tiny poorly run inefficient little fiefdoms everywhere.

Admittedly, this has been the experience in my region. Those departments that went to regional/county-wide forces have been improved to a significant degree.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Hmmmm...I have been operating from the premise that a city PD would be more responsive to city government and provide better access to reform than the current county Sheriff disaster I live with. Perhaps this needs rethinking.

 

[Cutlass]

It strikes me as very odd that local municipalities and councils get to have tiny little police forces. Surely having a single larger police force (eg state level) would avoid some of the issues of having tiny poorly run inefficient little fiefdoms everywhere.

I can't see how independent police departments of like 50 people are going to be useful at changing their own behaviour.

This happens because there's a lot of political drive in the US for localism. That is, have as many of the functions of government run as locally as possible. It's a big thing in American politics. But it does often have massive downsides.

Hmmmm...I have been operating from the premise that a city PD would be more responsive to city government and provide better access to reform than the current county Sheriff disaster I live with. Perhaps this needs rethinking.

I don't know that in policing whether local v. not local is really the issue that's causing, or allowing, the problem. Local police departments which aren't part of the local community, don't resemble, and come from the community, I do think that's an issue. So while I think localism in government is way excessive in the US, and a major source of our problems with government, I can see an argument for local policing. But I'm unhappy with local police that do not live in the community they serve in. It's like a foreign force doing the policing.

 

[Arwon]

My thinking is with a state-wide pool of police and statewide recruitment policies, you'd have an ability to send a more representative, more experienced or better trained set of officers to sensitive areas in need of deft community engagement.

 

[Cutlass]

My thinking is with a state-wide pool of police and statewide recruitment policies, you'd have an ability to send a more representative, more experienced or better trained set of officers to sensitive areas in need of deft community engagement.

That assumes that anyone actually wants to do that....

The sad reality is that we get bad policing in many minority areas because that's the policing the majority of the larger area wants. Where I live, for example, is just outside of a modest size city.

As of the census[22] of 2010, there were 124,775 people, 44,986 households, and 27,171 families residing in the city. The population density was 7,025.5 people per square mile (2,711.8/km²). There were 50,644 housing units at an average density of 2,926.5 per square mile (1,129.6/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 29.8% white, 38.7% African American or black, 0.6% Native American, 2.8% Asian, 0% Pacific Islander, 23.9% from other races, and 4.2% from two or more races. 43.4% of the population were Hispanic or Latino, chiefly of Puerto Rican origin.[23] Whites not of Latino background were 15.8% of the population in 2010,[24] down from 63.9% in 1970.[11]

The suburbs east and west of the city:

As of the census[4] of 2000, there were 49,575 people, 20,206 households, and 12,830 families residing in the town. The population density was 2,750.5 people per square mile (1,062.2/km²). There were 21,273 housing units at an average density of 1,180.2 per square mile (455.8/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 64.69% White, 18.83% Black or African American, 0.34% Native American, 4.01% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 8.74% from other races, and 3.35% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 15.23% of the population.

As of the 2010 Census,[10] there were 63,268 people, 25,258 households, and 16,139 families residing in the town. The population density was 2,888.9 people per square mile (1,117.0/km²). There were 25,332 housing units at an average density of 1,152.3/square mile (445.0/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 79.6% White, 6.3% African American, 0.2% Native American, 7.4% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 3.8% from other races, and 2.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.8% of the population.

(I'll leave it here to see if you can guess which one has the highest per capita income....)


See, the form localism takes, and the state government is entirely complicit, is to concentrate the "problem demographics" (read: colored people) as much as possible into the city by excluding them from the suburbs. The suburbs dominate state politics over the cities, because while the city is individually larger in population, there are a lot more suburbs. So the state and the suburbs, having concentrated the poor, the black, and the hispanic, in the city, they clearly aren't really all that concerned with the plight of those people. They're just bottling up the 'problem', and hoping to minimize how much it spills over to the neighboring towns.

How would giving the state full control of the police help a situation in which the state is, to a large extent, causing the problem in the first place?

 

[Arwon]

It would still depend heavily on the will within the police bureaucracy (which you'd hope was reasonably independent of the government). But I guess I figure at least they'd have the resources and the instituional ability to do things differently and simply treat each area as a different local command under the same rules and structure, even if the will didn't exist.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

My thinking is with a state-wide pool of police and statewide recruitment policies, you'd have an ability to send a more representative, more experienced or better trained set of officers to sensitive areas in need of deft community engagement.

This sounds good in theory. In practice my town is the LASD's worst 'problem area' which means we get sent the 'tough guys' to 'straighten us out'...it is also the threat used throughout the county for officer discipline...behave or get transferred to AV!

 

[Farm Boy]

Sending in the state or the feds gets a quick burst of outside ethics. It sometimes even keeps it if the intervening federal unit isn't running a lot of longstanding administrative zones. But if you keep it up long enough they're still susceptible to getting comfortable and corrupted. They'll pick up the same issues as the local guys had before, and yes, now they can be harder to get rid of. It's not a simple trade off either way.

 

[classical_hero]

My thinking is with a state-wide pool of police and statewide recruitment policies, you'd have an ability to send a more representative, more experienced or better trained set of officers to sensitive areas in need of deft community engagement.

But locals know the region better and are able to relate to the locals better and allow them to police according to certain quirks of the region and allow minor thing from getting out of hand.

 

[Flying Pig]

But locals know the region better and are able to relate to the locals better and allow them to police according to certain quirks of the region and allow minor thing from getting out of hand.

That's the ideal; in practice what often happens in such situations is that people mix up the personal and the professional (if you know the people involved in a situation, you inevitably bring your own perceptions of them to bear in dealing with it) or simply act arbitrarily according to their moods. It's a trend in recent decades that off-the-books 'slap on the wrist and don't do it again' policing has declined in favour of more formal methods which are standardised and accountable for. I can see why that's a good thing, but there were also advantages to the old system, which had a lot more room for people to be dealt with effectively without prolonged contact with the criminal justice system and the corresponding stain on their records.

 

[Cutlass]

It would still depend heavily on the will within the police bureaucracy (which you'd hope was reasonably independent of the government). But I guess I figure at least they'd have the resources and the instituional ability to do things differently and simply treat each area as a different local command under the same rules and structure, even if the will didn't exist.

A further problem is that the recruits to police training are often the people the general public wouldn't want as cops, if they really knew those people. Many of those recruits have a tendency towards bullying, or are in it for the rush or the power. Not a good start.

And then police leaders, and the civil leaders who hire the police leaders, are often chosen for being 'tough on crime' and 'keep us safe', which translates into a much more aggressive police force on the ground.

Badge cameras and dashboard cameras have been found to have some positive effect. Though many cops hate them, some others welcome them. If all you do when you're in contact with the public is being recorded, then you're going to be a lot more careful what you do.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

A further problem is that the recruits to police training are often the people the general public wouldn't want as cops, if they really knew those people. Many of those recruits have a tendency towards bullying, or are in it for the rush or the power. Not a good start.

And then police leaders, and the civil leaders who hire the police leaders, are often chosen for being 'tough on crime' and 'keep us safe', which translates into a much more aggressive police force on the ground.

Badge cameras and dashboard cameras have been found to have some positive effect. Though many cops hate them, some others welcome them. If all you do when you're in contact with the public is being recorded, then you're going to be a lot more careful what you do.

Yeah. Like be really careful about when you turn the camera on and off, for one thing.

 

[warpus]

I think cops need to start going after users of "high class" drugs, such as cocaine. As things stand now they're only pretty much going after users of soft drugs - like marijuana. And since marijuana is cheap, those users are far more likely to be black.

Start busting random lawyers, under the pretext that they "look like the type of person who snorts cocaine". Jail them and confiscate their cars and other belongings.

Or just, you know, don't rely on drug busts to fund your police department.

Just some random thoughts, I haven't read the rest of the thread.

 

[Smote]

Executive action: Body cameras

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2855715/Obama-hold-White-House-meetings-Ferguson.html

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Executive action: Body cameras

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2855715/Obama-hold-White-House-meetings-Ferguson.html

Executive action may well be appropriate. Ferguson PD has body cameras. They were donated. They don't use them.