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

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

#101

Post by joejerryronnie » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #52

_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…

We know different cops. The only cops I've met are mildly racist and intellectually lazy. Sure they were occassionally nice to have a beer with. But then they'd start talking and leave no doubt they aren't one of the good apples. Imagine getting a JIRA ticket thinking, "fucking Java bug, again. Only way to fix this is to yank the power cord out." Honestly, delivery people have to put up with way more shit and don't h…

I’ve had a completely different experience than you. Cops who I’ve known have been pretty normal, compassionate people. They routinely tell me the most important skill in effective law enforcement is your ability to communicate.

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

#102

Post by Jtsummers » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:06 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.

But it's a reason to choose your words carefully.

"Defund the Police" is very easy to interpret as "abolish" or "practically abolish". Which means it's very easy to twist even the less extreme politicians' and activists' meaning toward that end. This sets them up for abuse from their opposition who then cost them possible supporters.

The fact is, many people on the right wouldn't mind if police were a little less of a daily presence in their lives. They also have family members and friends with mental health issues and don't want to see them (or their caregivers) shot in the street because the first response is the armed police instead of medical or social services. They also don't want a gas cannister shot into their infant or toddler's bed.

But a phrase like "Defund the Police" is so easily turned to use the meaning of the most extreme speakers, who really do mean something closer to "Abolish the Police" than "Redistribute funds from the police to deal with the causes of societal issues instead of (just) the results". Once that's done, you've essentially lost and the more moderate voices who mean the latter and not the former get discredited in many people's view. They're saying one thing with, to those individuals at least, a very clear meaning which is at odds with what the moderates claim they mean.

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

#103

Post by ridiculous_lol » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

RankingMember wrote: post #15

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.

The issue is accountability. Police unions are much too strong, so the bad cops are reinstated even when they're on camera doing something heinous. How is the public supposed to feel about that?

Shouldn't people call for more regulations against the Union instead of the entire department?

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

#104

Post by dfxm12 » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:07 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.

Cops first. Seriously. If George Floyd (and countless other minorities who were unfairly demonized before and since) had gotten this respect, these protests, this demonization doesn't happen. Cops are the people in power, abusing that power. It is up to them to be the bigger people in this situation, to re-earn the trust they lost.

Also, this is an emotional reaction. A rational reaction would involve some sort of introspection, some sort of realization that there is a reason people feel the way they do.

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

#105

Post by jdmoreira » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

blacktriangle wrote: post #74

plank_time wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paranoid mentality that any call could kill you is the exact reason why so many unarmed black people are shot. If you can’t carry out a day’s work without the unreasonable fear that you will be shot, and any action makes you “fear for your life” so that why you emptied your clip into a car, then you shouldn’t be a cop. Cops needs to have cooler heads and this should be measured and verified before allowing them t…

Except "so many unarmed black people are shot" is a lie. A larger per-capita percentages of unarmed whites are shot than blacks.

Could you point me in the general direction of a source? I would like to find more about this.

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

#106

Post by recursivedoubts » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

mtrower wrote: post #95

recursivedoubts wrote: post #12

Democracy is said to be the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. However, I note that, from a democratic perspective, it appears that the broader public does not actually want a reduced police force, and this appears to be true across racial lines[1]. So, let us perhaps say, instead: democracy is the theory that the extremely-online elites and activists know what the…

> So, let us perhaps say, instead: democracy is theory that the extremely-online elites and activists know what they want, and that the common people deserve to get it good and hard. Holding a (small time) elected leadership position, this definitely matches my own observations. I have to deal with the opinions of those I represent on the matters I’m elected to handle quite frequently; the opinions of the few and the…

obnocracy - rule of the most obnoxious?

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

#107

Post by tryingtogetback » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

Maybe it's finally the time for private sector to step in?

Privately funded regional and/or local (HOA-funded) police departments that are immune to political games with funding that's independent from political trends. Private security startups must be working in this area, right?

Just take a look what amazon is doing to shipping industry, how well researched and optimized their deliveries are. Policing is no different (infinite potential for optimizations and innovations) given that private entities (not government) are managing it and (most importantly) are accountable for it.

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

#108

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

pacbard wrote: post #99

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...

I wonder if the stress comes from how a police officer dies on the job rather than the absolute death rate of the profession. Lumber harvesting is the most dangerous profession in the US but I imagine that most deaths would be described as "accidents". For example, someone cuts a leg with a chainsaw, a tree snaps in a weird way, someone gets pushed off a cliff. Police officers, on the other hand, usually due to viole…

> I wonder if the stress comes from how a police officer dies on the job rather than the absolute death rate of the profession.

> Police officers, on the other hand, usually due to violence while interacting with other people.

Incorrect. It's mostly traffic accidents. https://www.npr.org/2010/12/29/132441719/Traffic-Accidents-L...

In 2020, it was mostly COVID. https://thedaily.case.edu/study-finds-more-active-duty-polic...

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

#109

Post by pininja » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

bradklein wrote: post #27

Here are some facts from the City of Vallejo, a city of 120,000 people located 30 miles north-east of San Francisco: - Recently featured in ABC's 20/20 show for a "Gone Girl" case were the Vallejo Police Department accused a couple of faking a kidnapping. The woman was sexually assaulted during her kidnapping, and the VPD staged a news conference claiming the whole thing was made up. The city paid the couple millions…

The two ABC news links are broken. Are they still online?

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

#110

Post by kspacewalk2 » Thu, Jun 24, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

RankingMember wrote: post #15

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.

The issue is accountability. Police unions are much too strong, so the bad cops are reinstated even when they're on camera doing something heinous. How is the public supposed to feel about that?

The issue should be accountability. Police unions are a root cause of the problem. Instead, ordinary officers are being treated like the first five paragraphs of this story. The most popular slogan is "defund the police". There's people non-ironically advocating for 'abolishing prisons'.

This is why they're quitting, and this is why the drive to meaningfully reform police will be wasted this time around, too. It will be drowned in the consequences of the actions of radicals who push for simple solutions that are simply wrong, and all the nice middle-class folks from nice middle-class neighbourhoods who enable and support them, instead of calling them out on their bullshit.