Is there snot in my beard?

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

Sgt. Douchepickle of the LAPD shot an innocent man in the street for pulling a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from his pocket (dramatic but you get the picture) and was only given a suspension due to officer Douchepickle 'feeling threatened'. With a zero-tolerance policy we would hear; That bastard Douchepickle got his ass canned after shooting a man for no smurfing reason.

No.
Sgt Douchepickle shot him because he felt threatened, as he had the right to. There is something called escalation of force. In this situation I would assume Sgt. Douchepickle had applied it and yelled at innocent man in the street to stop what he was doing and had yelled the warned that he was going to shoot before I actually did.

[NeoCracker]

I believe this came up in that cop thread, but why not institute a civilian review board to overlook cases of police brutality and other such offenses?

That way the issues are getting looked at by unbiased parties rather then fellow police.

[Peegee]

Troll. You guys made this thread expecting me to come in here explaining how a free market resolution product would just result in outright eternal war every time somebody stole another kid's pencil at school, right?

What would I do to fix the police? Nothing. Internal affairs is omniscient and benevolent and that's all the policing of the police we need. Just ask Wesley.

This is GC so I'll just go ahead and say it blithely: there's no fixing the system unless you have competition. Competition can't happen against central government (go ahead and try to print your own money, or try to opt out of programs and stop paying taxes) - so given your givens, we have no change.

Well there's the option for voting for somebody else. Somebody who will get things done.

Thanks for playing Bleys.

[Criminally Vulgar]

I want to shoot whoever gave pg a copy of Libertarianism 101.

[Quindiana Jones]

I'm willing to bet that one of those reps is from pg.

[Criminally Vulgar]

Not yet.

[Quindiana Jones]

Well, I'll be. He's normally the first to rep comments like that. xD

[Heath]

My father was a police officer for a number of years, so I think they've never really seemed threatening to me. It's funny how perceptions are different though. While I was at university, I was walking through York with a friend who was from London. We passed two police officers who said 'hello' as we walked past them. She was genuinely weirded out by this, and was convinced you'd never get that in London, whereas I thought it was relatively common outside of cities.

I think one of the things that is important is that there is as much transparency as is practically possible from the police, and as much engagement as possible between citizens and the police. I think, in Britain, the public trust in the police has probably been badly shaken by the recent Hillsborough Inquest findings and rightly so. There's always going to be a certain degree of mistrust of the police, I think, because of the authority they represent. I think the critical thing is being able to trust them, and having faith in them to administer justice fairly and without prejudice.

I'm impressed I got through this post without using the word pleb! Oh, hang on...

[Raistlin]

I could go on this topic forever. Really. I'm just going to briefly list and summarize a few things, though (note, some of these may only apply in the US):

1. Get rid of "internal investigations." Entirely separate agencies should investigate police for misconduct.

2. Implement civilian review boards, which have the power to investigate and discipline cops, including the power to fire.

3. Give cops full whistle-blower protection, making it a crime to fire a cop for snitching on other cops.

4. Eliminate qualified immunity for lawsuits against police officers, making it easier to find cops personally financially liable for their mistakes.

5. Make it easier to fire cops with bad histories in general, and implement higher standards in hiring former cops so that bad cops aren't merely shuffled from department to department.

6. Make it a crime for cops to inhibit the public recording of cops engaged in official duties.

7. Have the cops themselves record everything humanly possible. All interactions with the public, all interviews, etc. should be taped. Make it a crime to stop the recording, and implement legal presumptions against the police if the recordings are stopped (i.e., if there's a lawsuit against a cop for conduct that happened when the recording wasn't on, the court will presume the unrecorded facts against the officer).

8. End the war on drugs. Seriously. This, and the resulting stat games, are a huge cause of the us vs. them attitudes, from both the public and the police. The police are no longer protecting the community, but looking for arrests and seizures.

9. Speaking of seizures, just eradicate the current policy of asset forfeiture, which allows police to seize property that they suspect has anything to do with any crime, regardless of evidence or due process -- and then keep that money for their own department.

10. Another policy that needs changed: the use of SWAT and other paramilitary tactics. These should be used extremely rarely only in inherently high-risk situations (such as with hostages or standoffs), not to bust down the door of someone suspected of only non-violent drug offenses in the middle of the night. This current policy of KNOCK DOWN ALL THE DOORS endangers both cops and civilians, and further encourages the "us vs. them" attitude.

That's enough for now. The biggest issue is accountability. The sense of entitlement among cops is so prevalent because cops are almost never held accountable for their actions. This needs to change, and is what the majority of my recommended changes addresses.

Happy, Bleys?

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

Or you could just leave everything as is. The problem lays with a few individuals who drag bad press to the police forces. Not the whole or even the majority are like these few individuals.

Us vs Them. That is exactly how it is. Police officers need to see themselves on a different level or whatever than the civilians they protect. It allows them to think more clearly and objectively make decisions based on the situation.

[Quindiana Jones]

If there are only a few bad apples, then how would Raistlin's suggestions harm the police as a whole?

[NeoCracker]

I could go on this topic forever. Really. I'm just going to briefly list and summarize a few things, though (note, some of these may only apply in the US):

1. Get rid of "internal investigations." Entirely separate agencies should investigate police for misconduct.

2. Implement civilian review boards, which have the power to investigate and discipline cops, including the power to fire.

3. Give cops full whistle-blower protection, making it a crime to fire a cop for snitching on other cops.

4. Eliminate qualified immunity for lawsuits against police officers, making it easier to find cops personally financially liable for their mistakes.

5. Make it easier to fire cops with bad histories in general, and implement higher standards in hiring former cops so that bad cops aren't merely shuffled from department to department.

6. Make it a crime for cops to inhibit the public recording of cops engaged in official duties.

7. Have the cops themselves record everything humanly possible. All interactions with the public, all interviews, etc. should be taped. Make it a crime to stop the recording, and implement legal presumptions against the police if the recordings are stopped (i.e., if there's a lawsuit against a cop for conduct that happened when the recording wasn't on, the court will presume the unrecorded facts against the officer).

8. End the war on drugs. Seriously. This, and the resulting stat games, are a huge cause of the us vs. them attitudes, from both the public and the police. The police are no longer protecting the community, but looking for arrests and seizures.

9. Speaking of seizures, just eradicate the current policy of asset forfeiture, which allows police to seize property that they suspect has anything to do with any crime, regardless of evidence or due process -- and then keep that money for their own department.

10. Another policy that needs changed: the use of SWAT and other paramilitary tactics. These should be used extremely rarely only in inherently high-risk situations (such as with hostages or standoffs), not to bust down the door of someone suspected of only non-violent drug offenses in the middle of the night. This current policy of KNOCK DOWN ALL THE DOORS endangers both cops and civilians, and further encourages the "us vs. them" attitude.

That's enough for now. The biggest issue is accountability. The sense of entitlement among cops is so prevalent because cops are almost never held accountable for their actions. This needs to change, and is what the majority of my recommended changes addresses.

Happy, Bleys?

Given how rarely I post on my face book, perhaps I shall just post this.

[Citizen Bleys]

Happy, Bleys?

Yes. This is exactly what I wanted.

Opposition to any or all of these points would be a bonus, but I don't have a problem with any of them.

[Peegee]

comment on Raistlin's post:

#1 and #2 would have huge tendencies to become cronyistic and worthless. The CRTC is basically composed of people from big media corporations. Imagine a civilian run investigations organisation where ex-cops can get work after they retire.

To add to Raistlin's post:

Eliminate the police union.

[Denmark]

my personal run-ins with the police:
1 speeding ticket for going 46 in a 30 zone
1 warning, no ticket for going 52 in a 30 zone
1 information taking at a car accident in which i was involved but not at fault

i don't have enough data to give a good post other than that