Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 356 posts

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

#221

Post by rootusrootus »

ethagnawl wrote: post #199
rootusrootus wrote: post #113

I certainly wouldn't want to be a cop. The downsides right now seem so much greater than any upside. And you already needed to be doing it for some reason more than just money. But a lot of the problem is self-inflicted. The bad apples may be few, but instead of making a show of culling those from the force, they celebrate protecting them. We need less militarization, a lot more transparency, an actual separate overs…

> you already needed to be doing it for some reason more than just money. This just isn't true. It is a good, steady, well paying job with great benefits, _lots_ of overtime, a union that will fall over itself to protect you and (often) the ability to retire after ~20 years with ~50% pay. I personally know people who've chosen to "grin and bear it" and go down that path for these exact reasons. From a purely objectiv…

I could have gotten the same by staying in the military 20 years, without the headache that comes with being a cop.

At least where I live, you need (or needed, it could have recently changed) a bachelor's degree to become a police officer, and it pays 53K per year. It doesn't seem like a great gig to me, at least financially.

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

#222

Post by sakopov »

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…

Honestly, what conversation can we have about policing with a person who thinks a delivery driver has a more dangerous life than a cop? Only thing I can tell you is I hope you have a lot of delivery drivers living next to you if police shortage becomes a reality and crime trajectory continues on the same path as in 2020 and 2021. Or perhaps your keyboard can be as effective in self-defense as it is in the spreading of nonsense.

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

#223

Post by yardie »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #44

Am I the only one who thinks that police officers should be paid more, not less? These should be highly specialized and trained jobs that are hard to get and easy to lose if you're bad at them / criminal -- seems like the reality right now is that they're easy to get and hard to lose.

Depending on the municipality (ie, tax payers) police are paid really well or really poorly. My city, Miami, police probationaries start at $55k, and that's just a high school diploma. On the flipside, the highway patrol, who work the same areas, start at $37k.

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

#224

Post by MrRadar »

vvilliamperez wrote: post #100

For people against the concept of police, what do you see replacing it? Privatized security forces? Community members/ local militia? A more limited public police force? National guard?

I think most activists recognize there will still need to be people authorized to use violence in certain circumstances, they just want to minimize the number of those people and make them more accountable. Most of the proposals I've seen call for the creation of a public safety department whose employees would not be authorized to use force and who could be sent to deal with situations where violence is not necessary (such as, say, a person trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill, like George Floyd was doing when the police were called on him).

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

#225

Post by slavboj »

_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…

You're also describing pizza delivery and convenience store cashier, but they don't have the legal ability to beat the shit out of their customers because someone wasn't fast enough / was too fast getting their wallets out.

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

#226

Post by spywaregorilla »

themolecularman wrote: post #139
spywaregorilla wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> despite most of them being professional and doing their jobs the best they can If you stand in solidarity with those who flagrantly abuse their power, you're not doing your best.

> If you stand in solidarity with those who flagrantly abuse their power, you're not doing your best. I've been thinking of this. And everyone on HN is not doing their best then. Every tech employer that we all work for qualifies.

Not everyone works for an evil tech employer. HN certainly doesn't stand in solidarity with, say, facebook.

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

#228

Post by jjcon »

bildung wrote: post #174
jjcon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Untrue at least for USA, only 28% are road related deaths. https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfar0020.pdf

Your source is only for the year 1995, and even there it was the second most common cause. It was the most common cause on average over the last ten years (traffic fatalities are split, you have to add them together): https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/causes-of-law-enforcement-d...

Even on your source they aren’t the majority

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

#229

Post by tiahura »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #117
yardie wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 can imagine how they become this way. With most offenders being from minority groups it's hard to keep an open mind if you're having to chase after them every day. Even though these problems are societal, not really caused by the minorities themselves but rather lack of opportunities etc But if you're on the business end of society's failures on a daily basis I can imagine how this changes one's opinion. I've worke…

“Even though these problems are societal, not really caused by the minorities themselves but rather lack of opportunities etc”

That’s the line of thinking that keeps many of them in that situation. We need to be honest -African American culture is largely dysfunctional and self-destructive. 120 years ago my ancestors were dirt poor, they didn’t have “equitable” opportunities in education, housing, or employment, yet they managed to not go around shooting each other, having children out of wedlock, or abusing drugs.

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

#230

Post by RankingMember »

bena wrote: post #180
RankingMember wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's talking about a known slogan. You're speculating as to what that group "wants".

Those slogans describe things the group would want. Your objections are rooted in a bias you aren't willing to admit.

You and I both have innate biases that any objections we have would be inevitably colored by, so that's not really a material statement. What I'm saying is that when you say something like:

> They want to keep everything they have and have other people handle all of that stuff they don't want to

...you're criticizing a composited caricature that only exists in such a monolithic form in your head.

Post reply on HN