Police have been quitting in droves in the last year • Hacker News Board

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#61

Post by obblekk » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #5

> Finally, officers said they were asked to handle too much; they were constantly thrown at tangled societal problems like mental health breakdowns or drug overdoses, they said, for which they were ill-equipped — then blamed when things went wrong. Sounds like they've got some common ground with the "defund the police" folks, if they'd listen a bit.

This quote sounds like a bit too similar to the political proposal… maybe a cherry picked quote but doesn’t seem like something most police would say without prompt.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#62

Post by jellicle » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

smileysteve wrote: post #11

_fat_santa wrote: post #3

Policing has to be one of the hardest jobs in our modern society, I honestly couldn't event imagine the stress. Imagine picking up a JIRA ticket at work and not knowing if that ticket is going to a run of the mill bug fix or something that can kill you. That's just out of the realm of possibility for an SWE but for a cop it can be any one of the calls they take on a daily basis. I've always had respect for cops becau…

And if you make the incorrect commit in the moment -- or don't check with compliance, then a person is dead, you're on trial by the public; and possibly at risk for jail time. [Addendum: And you're being promoted based on arrests, while sharing frustration with management about compliance, and likely seeing other cowboy coder style actions]

You're probably 1000x as likely to be fired for a bad commit than you are to be fired as a cop that has made a poor policing decision.

After all, you don't have a union.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#63

Post by YinglingLight » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

ijustlovemath wrote: post #29

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #10

Sounds like 'defund the police' is stupid, self-defeating sloganeering that makes no sense given what its apparent settled-upon meaning (only settled upon many months after becoming popular).

The meaning of "diverting funding to other resources" has been a consensus in the community for a very long time. It's only recently that "defund" has been conflated with "abolish," which has always been a very very small niche of the police reform community.

>The meaning of "diverting funding to other resources" has been a consensus in the community for a very long time.

source? or just feels?

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#64

Post by Analemma_ » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #19

_fat_santa wrote: post #3

Policing has to be one of the hardest jobs in our modern society, I honestly couldn't event imagine the stress. Imagine picking up a JIRA ticket at work and not knowing if that ticket is going to a run of the mill bug fix or something that can kill you. That's just out of the realm of possibility for an SWE but for a cop it can be any one of the calls they take on a daily basis. I've always had respect for cops becau…

Law enforcement can be dangerous but it's only #22 in occupational death rates. Lumberjacks and roofers are far more likely to get killed. https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...

And the majority of those are traffic accidents. If you limit it to homicides it drops many more places.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#65

Post by eof » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #7

Guys, police are self-abolishing. Victory is within grasp. But seriously. Why is this surprising? This is a completely rational reaction of people who feel they're being unfairly demonized as a group despite most of them being professional and doing their jobs the best they can with the training and incentives they're given. Enjoy the crime wave.

I don't disagree that this is not surprising; but no one really takes issue with the fact that the most of them are professional.

The issue is that the minority of bad cops are vigilantly protected.

The accountability for cops is almost non existant, and the power they hold is tremendous.

Anyone who genuinely thinks that the police aren't in many dimensions being "fairly demonized", seems to me, to be extremely likely to come from a well-to-do background.

I am white; spent my youth being a dirty hippy. I was endlessly harassed by cops who absoluted loved to wield their power to literally ruin your life.

As I've gotten older and more invisibly middle class, I no longer fear the police, but I have basically zero sympathy for them.

Once they stop protecting the bad cops, they will easily win over the hearts and minds of citizens.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#66

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #34

nradov wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law enforcement can be dangerous but it's only #22 in occupational death rates. Lumberjacks and roofers are far more likely to get killed. https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

[deleted]

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#67

Post by VWWHFSfQ » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #19

_fat_santa wrote: post #3

Policing has to be one of the hardest jobs in our modern society, I honestly couldn't event imagine the stress. Imagine picking up a JIRA ticket at work and not knowing if that ticket is going to a run of the mill bug fix or something that can kill you. That's just out of the realm of possibility for an SWE but for a cop it can be any one of the calls they take on a daily basis. I've always had respect for cops becau…

Law enforcement can be dangerous but it's only #22 in occupational death rates. Lumberjacks and roofers are far more likely to get killed. https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...

this comment is always on threads like this. as if it's supposed to prove like "meh it's not THAT hard of a job"

roofers don't have to worry about making a split-second decision about whether or not they have to kill someone before they kill you.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#68

Post by unknown_error » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #6

When one of the two major political parties and their friends in the mainstream media decide to team up and demonize an entire profession...

They did a plenty fine job demonizing themselves. A generation of police trained to be militarized against our own citizens and unaccountable to the law, covering each other's misdeeds up with routine impunity?

Maybe it's time to rethink how this country does policing. And sometimes that takes a changing of the guard.

Not even an ACAB type. I've had several run ins with the police, some positive, some negative. Some of them were extremely friendly and helpful. Others were power hungry and lied through their teeth in court. The profession as we've made it can unfortunately attract people for different reasons, both white knights and bullies.

Mass resignations are a natural and probably necessary step towards actual reform.

If only we could get congresspeople and Supremes to resign en masse too. This country is long overdue for massive social upheaval.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#69

Post by depaya » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #20

_fat_santa wrote: post #3

Policing has to be one of the hardest jobs in our modern society, I honestly couldn't event imagine the stress. Imagine picking up a JIRA ticket at work and not knowing if that ticket is going to a run of the mill bug fix or something that can kill you. That's just out of the realm of possibility for an SWE but for a cop it can be any one of the calls they take on a daily basis. I've always had respect for cops becau…

Imagine just doing your best to help your local community by building some online community notice board, only for a rabid horde to start picketing your house, shouting ALL PROGRAMMERS ARE BASTARDS!!!

Imagine using your online community notice board to murder a member of your community, and when your community tries to hold you accountable your fellow programmers, politicians, and members of your political party around the country circle the wagons and shout PROGRAMMER LIVES MATTER!!!

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#70

Post by JadeNB » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #6

When one of the two major political parties and their friends in the mainstream media decide to team up and demonize an entire profession...

> When one of the two major political parties and their friends in the mainstream media decide to team up and demonize an entire profession...

Setting aside as presumably unproductive the discussion of whether Democrats are actually demonizing the police, I think it's fair to say that especially Trump-era Republicans did and do their share of demonizing.