In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers • Hacker News Board

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#131

Post by derac » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

throwntoday wrote: post #45

nxm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This^. The rating system puts the public in danger as a result if the right punishment (proper fine) is not given.

Fines are stupid to begin with. If they are too low nobody will care and the sheer number of people breaking the law makes enforcement pointless. If they are too high, they can send the average person into financial ruin, and the wealthy can continue paying their way around trouble. Even a ticket of a couple hundred dollars insane to the average American. In either case, without any proper oversight, this money just…

Where I am from, if you get enough strikes on your record you can lose your license.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#132

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

mellavora wrote: post #46

ameister14 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Whoever, taken together, has a monopoly on legitimate violence in a particular context" Are you sure that's the definition of "state" or "government?" I don't think it is.

I agree that the definition is problematic, though commonly accepted. The argument for goes back to Hobbes, and thus is in one sense foundational to western democracies. But it runs into problems when you look at the other aspect of western democracies, which is that power resides in the people and is only conditional granted to authority figures (i.e the "king" rules by consent of the governed, not by divine right).…

> The argument for goes back to Hobbes

While it resembles Hobbes description of the Leviathan, and is in some sense a product of it, the definition is more directly product of fairly modern political science seeking to systematically define it's scope of analysis and the things it is addressing in ways that don't apply only to a narrow cultural and historical context than it does to Hobbes’ normative arguments.

> Thus the people have the ultimate right to legitimate violence.

That it makes a genuinely democratic state also one in which the state or government is the people is more a feature than a bug of the definition. (Though whether actual modern Western regimes are genuinely democratic is a question for which analysis of particular states has frequently suggested a negative answer.)

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#133

Post by seti0Cha » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:15 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #24

overrun11 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a "solved problem" because your proposed solution wouldn't even work. Officers have discretion over who to engage/pull over which makes it totally different from most customer facing roles. If the rest of the police force is doing the right thing and not modifying their behavior to get a better score then a single officer can always perform better than average by avoiding potentially negative encounters. Thi…

>It's not a "solved problem" because your proposed solution wouldn't even work. Officers have discretion over who to engage/pull over which makes it totally different from most customer facing roles. I and my coworkers can choose what tickets to grab out of the queue. Sure I could game it and only take easy ones but my boss would figure it out sooner or later. Salesmen can try and avoid customers that look like they…

> I and my coworkers can choose what tickets to grab out of the queue. Sure I could game it and only take easy ones but my boss would figure it out sooner or later. Salesmen can try and avoid customers that look like they might be a PITA, they mostly don't. It's really not a problem in practice when someone

Your boss has a list of all tickets. There is no list of all possible police interventions so it's going to be way less obvious when a policeman does it. Also salesmen avoiding undesirable customers absolutely is a problem. You just don't happen to be the type they ignore (e.g. obviously poor people)

> You're damn right I don't want the cops enforcing a state law on weed, or anything, when they know that a greater fraction of the locals consider said law unreasonable and would just give them a 0/5 for it.

It's not about what a greater fraction of the locals want though. It's about what the particular person they are contemplating enforcing a law against wants.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#134

Post by skinnymuch » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #119

netizen-936824 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could argue that police come from the same population as anyone else, therefore a significant portion of police will also be scum

That doesn't contradict the parent's claim. Moreover, they're not drawn from the same population, there is a filtering mechanism that reasonably skews for police to be above-average even if we might want it to be better. Moreover, I'm also skeptical of the simplistic idea that our policing problem derives from "too many immoral officers". It seems more likely that it's an emergent property of the incentives and const…

> filtering mechanism that reasonably skews for police to be above-average

Are you saying cops are on average less scummy? Why is that a conclusion that you find to be inherently true?

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#135

Post by skinnymuch » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #122

0des wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that most people are inherently good. But I add a few points of skepticism toward anybody who chooses a role that comes with inherent authority by default: clergy, legislature, law, etc. Not saying they're bad, most aren't, however, you wanted to be the guy with the power- There is possibly a reason for that.

> you wanted to be the guy with the power- There is possibly a reason for that. Sure, but there's nothing that suggests the underlying motivation would be negative. For example, a lot of people cite a desire to protect and serve their communities. Just because there is a motive for something doesn't imply that it's ulterior or nefarious.

People may cite that. There’s no evidence of it being true. The issue of being class traitors is absolutely a negative issue.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#136

Post by jandrese » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:20 PM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #37

jandrese wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I agree. If they are rating these public servants on their service to the public that would be within the scope of a job review. Or think of it as one of those "how was your service today" questionnaires you get sometimes. This isn't about policing someone's personal life. But on the other hand, Yelp reviews are already problematic and extending them to civil servants probably doesn't help the situation.

An interaction with police is usually an inherently negative experience. There are plenty of people that would rate an officer 0/5 for giving them a speeding ticket regardless of how pleasant and polite they were. In fact, a police officer giving a speeding ticket with a smile on their face would come off as extremely condescending and feel like they're doing it as a power move asserting their authority.

There are others were you will appreciate the job the police officer is doing. Like if you get your bike stolen and they track it down and return it to you. Or you get mugged and they catch the mugger.

Of course if your police are not doing this then you may not be inclined to rate them as highly.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#137

Post by sc68cal » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:20 PM UTC

It doesn't matter how you "rate" cops if the police union goes to bat for bad cops and gets their jobs reinstated, or they just leave one department and move to another.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/us/police-unions-contracts-sh...

We know who the bad cops are. There's a list of them in Philadelphia who the District Attorney (the current, and previous) will never call to the witness stand because they give unreliable testimony.

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/crime/29-philly-officer...

There's no need for a new rating system. We need accountability for known bad cops.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#138

Post by i_like_apis » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

keybored wrote: post #121

i_like_apis wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were really speaking from a place of actually knowing the arrest population, you wouldn't say that. If you spent some time in jail or prison, you would know there is a huge difference between the normal population and the arrest population. Violence, drugs, theft, robbery, rape, (things people get arrested for) ... they're scumbags if anyone is.

At this point you (two) are just going to accuse the other of not associating with criminals under the most harsh (or harsh enough) circumstances. Maybe maximum security prison?

No, my whole point is that I'm talking about the general arrest population.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#139

Post by skinnymuch » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

i_like_apis wrote: post #91

rusk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously excluding yourself, I guess that means you spoke with 99 people all of which were scum, which strikes me as being fairly socially active for a fish out of water!

Sounds like you're casting some sort of sarcastic doubt. I've mixed with a population of about 500. Spoken to many, intentionally and otherwise. Very familiar with their culture. Trust me, 99% of the arrest population is scum.

No post body was provided.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#140

Post by skinnymuch » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

i_like_apis wrote: post #125

rascul wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have spent time in jail. I've also spent time out of jail. There's just as many scumbags outside. Lots of violent and aggressive people are not in jail, and lots of good people who didn't hurt anyone are in jail. There are a whole lot of other things besides what you list that could land you in jail.

To be honest ... based on what you're saying I don't think you've really been. > There are a whole lot of other things besides what you list that could land you in jail. Incorrect. The jail population is 99% in those categories. > and lots of good people who didn't hurt anyone are in jail Also incorrect. Although, there are a lot of mentally unstable folks there, who could be considered to be a bit more innocent than…

Okay buddy. I’m sure all the people In prison, not even jail, for weed related non violent issues are somehow hurting people. Your toxic world view is a neoliberals elitist status quo wet dream. Nothing more.