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Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

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

#261

Post by hipsterstal1n »

limelight wrote: post #35
mikekhusid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Camden thing is going around a lot but to me it seems like they did a reorg and actually ended up hiring more police. https://www.tapinto.net/towns/camden/sections/law-and-justic...

Realistically, that's what will come from "abolishing" the police. That's not necessarily a bad thing! A big problem with existing departments is decades of corruption, poor leadership, and entrenched policies. Tearing the department down and rebuilding it from scratch—even if you end up with a similar size as before—gives you the opportunity to remove the excesses/abuse. You can also do things like hiring more speci…

I tweeted about this a week ago being from the area. It helped the city get rid of officers that the police union were protecting not fire-able. Further, it helped the city (which had declared bankruptcy) get rid of police pensions negotiated decades ago that were draining city coffers.

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

#262

Post by dsjoerg »

rhegart wrote: post #240
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...

A lot more crime happens, nobody reports it though. Just like in the Bay Area for car thefts. Very underreported because we are discouraged from making reports and after the 3rd break in, don’t even bother reporting. Everyone using Camden as a success on Social media is mistaken. Poor people hurt the most, while rich and upper middle class likely never has to call the police

Do you have a source/link about Camden?

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

#263

Post by yardie »

artificial wrote: post #241
yardie wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> legally accepted into its borders. You should read up on who's in these camps. Most are asylum seekers. Applying for asylum is legally recognized under the Geneva Convention. Hell, I just watched a documentary where an asylum seeker was asked to come to the Tijuana/SD border for his asylum interview, thrown into detention ICE, and then transferred from one center to another before finally being deported a year late…

What's the documentary?

I watched it at the last film festival: http://thirdhorizonfilmfestival.com/films/what-happened-to-a...

The tile is What Happened to a Dream Deferred. During the QandA the director told us how she had to get involved because the subject that applied for asylum was arrested at the interview. Then moved through many detention camps. This is done so their immigration lawyers can't find them and represent them during the hearings. I found this to be really shocking.

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

#264

Post by _-david-_ »

joe_the_user wrote: post #211
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.

Disbanding the force is more important than everything on your list. As others have said, once you lose institutional control, and the mayor and the police chief have both effective said that they have lost this, than small reform don't matter. Plus Minneapolis PD has a strong reputation as one of the most corruption in the nation. https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-police-officers-convic... https://www.patrickbur…

It seems like the mayor and police chief should be voted out as well. If they cannot maintain control they should go as well.

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

#265

Post by catacombs »

nosuchthing wrote: post #91
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.

I hope this closure impacts the union's finances severely, to the point of putting it on life support.

Police unions are the modern day mob, and they are the reason why reform hasn't budged in this country for decades.

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

#266

Post by elil17 »

wbharding wrote: post #132

This has sufficient public momentum to prove that a plurality believes the current system does the public more harm than good. Of course, removing cops will reduce harm done by cops to the public. But it will also reduce harm done by cops to law breakers. Intuitively, I would expect the law breakers to benefit disproportionately, since the cops stated mission was to prevent law breaking and all. Statistics I've read…

I think the point is that we need to go easier on “law breakers,” at least the kind of law breakers who most often get the police called on them. For instance, there is no reason for someone who committed petty theft to spend years in jail or, worse, to be treated violently by the police.

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

#267

Post by skissane »

jMyles wrote: post #253
skissane wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Country Sheriffs in the US appear to me to do a lot of policing work. For example, Polk County Sheriff (Florida) seems to be busy arresting people for DUI – https://tampa.cbslocal.com/2020/06/06/sheriff-grady-judd-54-... Sacramento County Sheriff's (Calfornia) has a homicide bureau – https://www.sacsheriff.com/Pages/Organization/CID/Homicide.a... Erie County Sheriff (New York) has a drug squad which regularly carries…

Right right - as I said, "recently have they come to resemble police." But I think that the distinction is still important as we talk about abolishing police. Police, as an institution, are very new. Much newer than Sheriffs.

In Westerns, the Sheriff is investigating everything from petty thefts to murders. In many places, that was all the police they had.

Is that historically accurate? Pretty much, yes. The modern concept of a police force only began in the 19th century, and at first they only existed in larger cities.

As separate police forces were established, Sheriffs began to perform less policing functions, and yield more of that jurisdiction to the newly established police forces. But, in many rural parts of the US, county sheriffs are the only local law enforcement, performing all police functions, and the same was true 150 years ago. The innovation of separate police forces never arrived in underpopulated rural areas.

So I think the history is the opposite of what you think–sheriffs performing general policing functions actually used to be more common than it is now.

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

#268

Post by downerending »

pickpuck wrote: post #245
ufmace wrote: post #162

I don't live in Minneapolis, and I don't know if this is the right solution or not. But what bothers me about what I've read so far, is they seem to have remarkably little details about exactly what they want to replace the department with. Exactly what does "community-led public safety" mean?

My understanding, based mostly on what I’ve seen on Twitter: 911 call -> Dispatch unarmed City employee, typically a social worker, who specializes in the relevant situation, population or neighborhood. Goal is to assist the individuals involved, to be compassionate instead of punitive, to get to the root cause of the issue. There is still some kind of armed security backup for the social worker’s protection in situa…

That's admirable in theory, but sounds like a recipe for getting your head blown off. There really are unrepentantly awful people in the world, and sometimes we need to save innocents from them.

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

#269

Post by elil17 »

sneak wrote: post #55
skissane wrote: post #46

The US has lots of different police forces – city police, county police, state police. Many other countries have more centralised policing with fewer levels. I think, a smaller number of bigger police forces might promote more professionalism, more professional management, oversight by more experienced politicians (state political leaders tend to be more experienced and capable than local political leaders, especiall…

The problem is that there is no organization that is incentivized to uncover or investigate police crimes. All other portions of government have cross-checks to stop people breaking the law. The police don't, and cover for one another. There needs to be an organization that has clear and direct incentive to prosecute abuses by the police, that doesn't have a century+ long tradition of violence, selective enforcement,…

For the FBI, there is such an organization. The FBI Inspector General investigates malpractice committed by FBI officers. However, the scope of their ability to fix problems in the FBI is limited because prosecutors rarely take up cases against law enforcement. They also hold FBI officers accountable by writing reports for congress. Again, the usefulness of this is limited by the unwillingness of Congress to act on this information.

(Inspectors General exist for for every federal agency)

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

#270

Post by koheripbal »

def8cefe wrote: post #254
koheripbal wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "human rights" do not appear anywhere in the constitution.

It doesn't, but the US Constitution still defines human rights within the jurisdiction of the United States. The word 'comment' doesn't appear in your comment, but that's still what it is.

It does not define "human rights". It defines some legal rights of people within the jurisdiction of the document - not some global notion of "human rights"
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