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

washingtonpost.com

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

#151

This is clever and I agree with the comments regarding their heart being in the right place but this is a flawed approach. The customer service experience of criminals isn't the right thing to optimize and probably has nothing to do with outcomes if not inversely correlated with crime reduction. The very idea that we can view and treat police officers like we do customer service people at say the mall I would argue i…

> The customer service experience of criminals isn't the right thing to optimize and probably has nothing to do with outcomes if not inversely correlated with crime reduction.

The vast majority of contemporary approaches to policing, but dating back to e.g. Peel in the mid 19th century, run quite contrary to your ideas. The people that police interact with and "the broader community" should not be any different (this basic idea is called community policing), otherwise policing will inevitably fail to meet community needs, for several different reasons. It is fairly well established that a lack of contact between police and members of the community results in an increase in crime, for a few reasons but in particular because the community will stop reporting crimes to the police if they do not have positive interactions with them. This has been a widespread problem in most if not all US cities.

In practice, the portion of people that police interact with who receive any sort of legal action (from citation to arrest) is very small. Around 2% in one field services division. The vast majority of police interactions are either addressed by policework (collecting information, brokering agreements, just telling people to knock it off) or were not even potentially criminal in nature to begin with (traffic accidents, medical emergencies, etc). These are all cases of officers acting as individuals to address a problem, with no criminal process involved.

> If you're ever talking to a police officer you're obligated to follow their lawful commands, and if you have any issue with them the forum to litigate that is court not with the police or through something like a net promoter score.

It sounds more like you're talking about a prosecutor. Police officers exercise a great deal of discretion and individual responsibility outside of the legal system, and are accountable to the police department for their work. Police departments have an entire command or division, usually more than one in practice, responsible for reviewing officer actions and conduct. Police departments are organized under city and state governments (and occasionally some other less common kinds of governments like improvement districts), and are accountable as a whole to the government they derive their authority from. That is, while courts do serve as an ultimate forum for complaints about police, courts generally only address specific violations of the law. Broader policing issues are heard out in the chambers of city councils and legislatures.

> If anything the experience of the people not interacting with the police aka the broader community IS the thing to optimize for. Maybe mail out surveys and ask people where the police are doing well and where they could be more helpful.

This is a standard practice in large police departments and is usually more formalized through e.g. commissions and councils of community members. Surveys themselves often originate from the city government in its role overseeing the police, e.g. conducted by the mayor or council members.

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

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Only 92 people were sentenced for marijuana possession in the federal system in 2017, out of a total of nearly 20,000 drug convictions. That's about 0.5%

0. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu...

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

#153
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people with numerous DUIs are just as likely to have a serious disease as have some moral failing resulting in them being a 'scumbag.' To me, choice is a major differentiator rather than 'obviously this person has a history of x actions' in the abstract.

Are you making the case that a person with numerous DUIs doesn't have a choice in the decision to drive drunk, and therefore isn't a scumbag?

Pretty much, yeah. I'm acknowledging that it is possible the person with numerous DUIs is an alcoholic and that, once drunk, the intent necessary for a knowing crime is no longer really there. The logic of 'chose to get drunk so chose the consequences' doesn't work if the person has a disease causing them to continuously drink.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any numbers to back that up? I'm sure there are some bad apples out there that make up excuses because they think someone looks suspicious tho. But it also seems like there are a huge number of bad drivers out there that do dangerous things and having traffic laws that are sometimes enforced seems like it has to curtail some of that behavior.

Just talk to any cop. If they are honest, they'll tell you this very thing. In fewer degrees than it takes to get to Kevin Bacon, I was witness to an investigation where one individual was thrown the book to convince them to work off the charges being filed by rolling up. A traffic stop is precisely how they made first contact with people up the chain. It's like criminal investigation 101. So much so, it is part of e…

That seems a little disingenuous to just throw all cops under the bus and say they all do that bad behavior. One anecdotal case and law and order episodes probably shouldn't be enough to come to that conclusion.

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

#155
post #12

I think their heart is in the right place (officers should have direct and transparent reputations to people). But in order to implement this "correctly", you need to go one step further into a dangerous territory: the ratings that an officer receives should be weighted by the rating of the person who rated them. Absolute scumbags shouldn't be able to hurt reputations in quite the same way as upstanding people. If yo…

Out here moralizing about policing while reinforcing class-tinged generalizations like “scumbags”

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Incarceration is mostly for violence and theft. Lots of stolen cars, lots of assaults. Quite a lot of murders.

I didn't know anyone who was there for just drugs, except a few who were dealing hard drugs. (And who were coincidentally also violent thieves)

If you want to understand the jail population, watch the show "lockup raw". It would give you a better picture of who is being discussed.

Though it defies logic, there are a lot of people like yourself who seem to think that prisons are filled with a bunch of victims, who are just there for drug offenses. It's not true by a long shot.

https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/whos_in_prison_for_mar...

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

#157
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you making the case that a person with numerous DUIs doesn't have a choice in the decision to drive drunk, and therefore isn't a scumbag?

Pretty much, yeah. I'm acknowledging that it is possible the person with numerous DUIs is an alcoholic and that, once drunk, the intent necessary for a knowing crime is no longer really there. The logic of 'chose to get drunk so chose the consequences' doesn't work if the person has a disease causing them to continuously drink.

Do you think being an alcoholic is a valid defense if you murder someone while drunk?

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, yes. In practice, bosses get lazy and defer to the easiest metrics.

That is often true, but local police departments are not known for being excessively data-driven.

Yeah, but giving them metrics won't fix that. Even forcing them to cite the metrics in their decisions won't force a culture change. And even if you could somehow convince/force them to earnestly intend to be data-driven, they'd probably still fail.

In ostensibly data-driven workplaces, the decision makers pick and choose which metrics to consider, influence how those metrics are measured, determine which exceptions and extenuating circumstances to consider, etc. The end result is often just as subjective as what you started with, except now the decision makers can conveniently pretend that the result comes from an objective process rather than their personal whims. It becomes a method for disclaiming responsibility.

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

#159

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 unreliab…

If the DA really knows who the bad cops are, the DA should prosecute them. DAs blaming cops are hoping that the public don't realize the DAs themselves are dropping the ball and letting cops get away with it.

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

#160

I've always found it interesting that when I'm pulled over for a traffic violation, a police officer can use their discretion on whether to punish me. I've been pulled over a few times for speeding, and a couple times I simply got a warning, and other times I got a ticket and had to pay a fine. If I committed a crime, why should an officer have that leeway? They caught me, I should have to pay the consequences... rig…

Because the purpose of the fine isn’t the money, it’s getting you to be more safe. If they can achieve that with a friendly chat then isn’t that better for everyone?

No. If he always chats with a Chris, but always tickets a Rene, that isn't better for everyone.
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