Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department • Hacker News Board

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#91

Post by nosuchthing » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #5

It sounds kind of crazy on the surface but it makes sense - what else would you do if you completely lost faith in the police force to do its job effectively? It would probably seen easier to disband it and replace it with something else than to try and reform such an organization.

There's a severe financial side to it all as well...

The city budget funds the police, which funds the union, and they donate their money to the attorney general, mayor, and city council members. Often when they don't get the budget they demand, police will openly retaliate against local businesses and residents who did not support their budget.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#92

Post by Nightshaxx » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

TrevorAustin wrote: post #4

"Dissolve the organization and start over from scratch" is an under-used solution in American life, even in the private sector. Apparently Camden, NJ did a version of this in 2013 with a fair amount of success: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camde...

Camden had the most violent crime in 2019 [1], but are around the 12th highest population in NJ in 2017 [2]. They are the 10th most dangerous city in the country [3] as of 2020 according to neighborhood scout. The FBI ranked it #1 in 2012. [4]

Yep, sure seems like a success story....

[1] https://nj1015.com/the-10-most-violent-cities-in-new-jersey-... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_Ne...

https://www.newjersey-demographics.com/cities_by_population

[3] https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/blog/top100dangerous

[4] https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2012/10/compared_to_cities_...

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#93

Post by throwmehaweh » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #52

jimbob45 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Bodycams - Mandatory psych evals half-yearly - Anonymous corruption reporting - Reduce/eliminate drug penalties - Eliminate civil forfeiture - Ticketing revenues no longer fund the department - Expanded auditing of violent calls Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. I fully expect MN to swing red this election as a result of this.

- What happens when the bodycams are off? Is the officer fired and jailed? - What happens when an officer fails the pysch eval? Are they fired? - Who oversees the corruption reporting? How do you know they are not corrupt too? They surely can't be part of the police dept. - Reduce/eliminate drug penalties: The problem is racism where drugs are often used as the excuse. Why is there no racism training in your list? Or…

What about adding mandatory personal liability insurance for all cops, just like what doctors have to pay into? Then when they mess up, they are personally on the line instead of the taxpayer.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#94

Post by miguelmota » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #3

a) I'm incredibly happy to see that the masses still have a voice b) I'm not positive this is the right solution, but it could be, and it will be fascinating to see how it plays out and whether it's something that could work everywhere

I agree. It’s worth a try to try a systematically different approach since the current policing practices are not working. People are afraid of change but it’s clear that maintaining the status quo is detrimental so it’s time to figure out alternative solutions.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#95

Post by dehrmann » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #66

scarface74 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that any different than the lawless gangs that have the force of government behind them?

There exists a decent real world example of "a tale of two police strategies" in two demographically similar cities: Juarez and El Paso. Juarez and El Paso are situated across from each other along the U.S.-Mexico border. In some ways they are the same city, with many residents traveling across the border each day. Juarez is the second most deadly city in the world, at over 100 murders per 100K population [1]. El Pas…

The power of Mexican drug cartels is scary. Someone like El Chapo is essentially above the law. The only reason he's still in prison is because he as extradited to the US.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#96

Post by pixl97 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

PaulWaldman wrote: post #61

Is this equivalent to a software rewrite? Let's just throw the whole thing out and start over. Throwing out a system and starting afresh would likey introduce new bugs/systemic failures that aren't currently present. Is addressing and correcting each specific feature/SOP not an option?

Police departments are not like software, they are like servers. Sometimes you need to format and reinstall.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#97

Post by almost_usual » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #28

_bxg1 wrote: post #3

a) I'm incredibly happy to see that the masses still have a voice b) I'm not positive this is the right solution, but it could be, and it will be fascinating to see how it plays out and whether it's something that could work everywhere

The masses have a voice in proportion to the degree to which they control where their taxes go. The power of the purse is remarkable, because you can destroy (almost) any instutition by simply defunding it (which is also why any attempt to circumvent that power, e.g. Executive re-purposing of funds, should set off huge blaring alarms.) And when it comes to "what congress can do" I'd argue that it's 90% about allocati…

You could argue the US has a debt as large as it does because it has the strongest military on Earth. Who is going to enforce the debt collection?

Using this logic and the destabilization of US military the natural answer is another highly militarized government.

So where there is lawlessness there is opportunity for authoritarianism whether that’s a gang, police, US military, or foreign adversary.

We need to be smart about change and boil the frog, not get into a fight we cannot win, otherwise society will descend into authoritarianism likely ran by the most experienced and powerful authoritarian.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#98

Post by jeffbee » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

chipperyman573 wrote: post #43

jeffbee wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, Americans need to realize that almost everything about our society is a bad first draft, in need of prompt replacement. People reflexively defend existing institutions, but the more I've thought about it over the years, the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving. Police departments might be a good place to start, but most American cities also need to address structural d…

>but the more I've thought about it over the years, the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving There is so much about America that is worth preserving. One easy example right off the top of my head is the law and culture that enables people to peacefully demonstrate like they are today. Even discussing the idea of doing this in many countries could get you killed - or worse! Tha…

Sure, we don't _currently_ have internment camps, but we used to have them and the current president, when asked point blank by Time magazine, refused to rule out using WW2-style internment camps for muslims. So there's that.

Freedom of expression is one of those things that I'd prefer to keep, but we can see that it is stronger on paper than in practice. In practice, if you gather in the capital city to bring your grievances to the government, unidentifiable mercenaries will gas you. And if you are a journalist reporting in front of your local police station some cop will shoot you in the head with "non-lethal" rubber ball, leaving you without eyes, or teeth.

It is the institutions of American that need to be dismantled, because are an implementation that doesn't reflect the founding ideals of our country.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#99

Post by babygoat » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:43 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #53

BrianHenryIE wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would rather see police reforms and a rethinking of priorities Why? Surely any new policing entity will entail the philosophy of reform and keeping the rotten part around would be detrimental.

I would argue that it is hard to have a much less rotten police force than the city in general. It seems quite crime ridden from the statistics. Maybe if you draft the policemen from other areas or cities?

Roughly 5% of the Minneapolis police actually live in Minneapolis.

Maybe they should have hired from within the community instead.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#100

Post by rjkennedy98 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 10:43 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #70

PaulWaldman wrote: post #61

Is this equivalent to a software rewrite? Let's just throw the whole thing out and start over. Throwing out a system and starting afresh would likey introduce new bugs/systemic failures that aren't currently present. Is addressing and correcting each specific feature/SOP not an option?

That's been tried for years and clearly hasn't worked. Incremental reform has failed when you have corrupt unions and entrenched cultures. Yes, you should usually try to incrementally fix bugs in a codebase. But sometimes it's so mired in technical debt that you're better off throwing the whole thing out and starting from scratch.

> That's been tried for years and clearly hasn't worked.

Are you implying there haven't been improvements at all? Seriously, if you say things like this, you should need to provide some statistics. I'm pretty sure we're at all time lows for police killing unarmed people (don't know where I saw the statistic but this is why I'm so skeptical of the above statement).