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The privatization of policing

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Re: The privatization of policing

#171

Post by brk »

mikem170 wrote: post #140
brk wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property theft and wage theft are two very different categories of theft. The average police department does not get involved in wage theft, which would be something more involving lawyers, maybe ultimately leading to an arrest warrant carried out by a police force. And of course this is another example of an "AND" decision, not an "OR" one. We can enforce and prosecute property theft crimes, which absolutely needs t…

> Property theft and wage theft are two very different categories of theft. This kind of reinforces the parent's point. They are both theft (shoplifting and wage theft), and yet so many people are ok ignoring the numerically worse problem (wage theft). The fact that the police don't get involved and lawyers are required to rectify wage theft just shows how far we as a society don't care to defend those people. Meanwh…

I'm not saying we should ignore wage theft. I am saying it is a scenario where a police force cannot really do much.

You can call your local PD and report shoplifting, or most other kinds of physical theft. It would be a pretty clear accusation, and these days odds are you'd be able to produce some simple evidence in the form of video footage (CCTV, cellphone, etc.).

But how do you report wage theft in a way that the average police force can act on? Are you going to call and say "I'm being forced to work unpaid hours"? If you did I can almost guarantee you they would refer you to some other department or organization. I would not envision the police showing up to arrest your employer, take them in for questioning, etc.

Wage theft is also slightly more complex in that the victims are often complicit in the sense that they continue to work for the employer. To be clear, I am not saying this makes it right, but it makes it hard for the police to do much from an enforcement perspective. You're saying your employer is underpaying you, but you're also continuing to work for them. The employer would tell the police that showed up that you were free to leave, or were agreeing to the term by virtue of showing up. It would take legal action, e.g. a lawyer not a cop, to actually create a claim that was actionable and enforceable by the law enforcement organization.

Re: The privatization of policing

#172

Post by landemva »

throwaway-PDX wrote: post #153

I live and work in Portland. The article paints a rosey picture of a nasty set of problems. The government here is experimenting with social justice ideas. We've legalized drugs, empowered homeless camping and defunded our police. I see and empathize with the reasons to legalize drugs, not demonize the homeless or blame people for their addictions or mental health problems... and I understand the academic case for no…

> We need national solutions to these issues

You lost me there. Let's not spread the problems of Portland and SF to the other States where you can still escape.

Re: The privatization of policing

#173

Post by landemva »

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #55
landemva wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fourth, if private security violates your rights you can sue. When government violates your rights they typically get the case dismissed due to 'qualified immunity' which USSC made up in 1970s.

Until the lines get blurred and an off-duty police officer starts moonlighting for private security who violates your rights while you're in commission of a crime and now the question of qualified immunity while off-duty becomes a question. It doesn't seem too unlikely where in the not-so-distant future these private security companies would be made up of accredited police officers.

> now the question of qualified immunity while off-duty becomes a question.

I am curious if there is case law to support your theory. It would be hilarious to read about a city or county attorney trying to file a motion to dismiss, when the city or county would not be a party to the case.

Re: The privatization of policing

#174

Post by mikem170 »

brk wrote: post #171
mikem170 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Property theft and wage theft are two very different categories of theft. This kind of reinforces the parent's point. They are both theft (shoplifting and wage theft), and yet so many people are ok ignoring the numerically worse problem (wage theft). The fact that the police don't get involved and lawyers are required to rectify wage theft just shows how far we as a society don't care to defend those people. Meanwh…

I'm not saying we should ignore wage theft. I am saying it is a scenario where a police force cannot really do much. You can call your local PD and report shoplifting, or most other kinds of physical theft. It would be a pretty clear accusation, and these days odds are you'd be able to produce some simple evidence in the form of video footage (CCTV, cellphone, etc.). But how do you report wage theft in a way that the…

> But how do you report wage theft in a way that the average police force can act on?

I follow what you are saying, and admit there's not an obvious easy answer. I'd also say that private security guards who roam the public streets (sometimes harassing law abiding people) are not the best answer to shoplifting.

Hmmm, thinking about this it doesn't seem right to leave wage theft as a civil matter - a lot of victims don't have the resources to engage a lawyer. Maybe we could do things so the deck is not so much stacked against them. More of a paper trail, like an employment contract specifying hours and wages and a paper trail of time sheets. Also making it much easier to report, and treating it as a criminal matter. We could if we wanted to, nothing is set in stone. Maybe also more investigators. Perhaps victims could submit audio and/or video evidence to government authorities. Why should law-abiding employers object to being taped, when they are happy to tape the public to catch shoplifters? It would be nice to figure out how to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable people. It's a lot of money to them.

I kind of threw my comment out there because I know that it burns when someone is victimized by theft, whether by a shoplifter or an employer, but there seems to be a lot more people are quick to be offended by shoplifters then when employers are doing the stealing. I didn't mean to mischaracterize your views on this.

Re: The privatization of policing

#175

Post by phpisthebest »

mikem170 wrote: post #170
jaywalk wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you suggest that police get involved in wage theft?

Maybe the same as when someone writes a bad check? It's my understanding that people get arrested for that, it's not left just to lawyers and civil contract courts (which not everyone can afford). Maybe also make wage theft easier to prove, with a required paper trail like an employment contract and signed time sheets, more investigators, etc. I'd be curious how other countries might handle this better, there's often…

>>Maybe the same as when someone writes a bad check?

That does not happen, not at the level of say shoplifting or something

At most you can make a complaint, which will go to a prosecutor which will then decide if they want to file criminal charges, at which point the police would arrest someone. Which rarely happens for a single bad check. It is almost always CIVIL unless there is some other crime involved like identity theft, even then it would have to be wide scale

You know what, that is the same process for Wage Theft. You file a complaint with the dept of labor, the dept of labor will investigate and if the problem is wide scale they will issue fines or even criminal indictment if they view it as malicious

>Maybe also make wage theft easier to prove, with a required paper trail like an employment contract and signed time sheets, more investigators, etc.

The problem here is wage theft is not often as cut and dry as you make it out to be, most often is not an employer refusing to pay wages or writting a bad check for wages. It manifests as forcing an employee to work during their lunch or break, refusing to pay earned vacation time/PTO when someone quits, paying strait time instead of OT rates for Overtime, misidentifying an employee as exempt denying them OT, etc.

These are all things that are harder to prove and in some cases can be honest mistakes.

Re: The privatization of policing

#176

Post by phpisthebest »

n8cpdx wrote: post #108
phpisthebest wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It that a PPB issue or a policy of local prosecutors? I dont know about Portland but in many "progressive" cities there is a directive to not prosecute minor property crimes (i.e car break ins, shoplifting, etc) unless there was violence involved (i.e a Car Jacking at Gun Point) So the police have naturally reacted by not arresting anyone for those crimes, why bother to arrest them if they are just turned back out in…

A bit of both. PPB is a tiny force for a city the size of Portland. 313 patrol officers over 3 shifts for a city of 650,000. https://www.portland.gov/police/open-data/ppb-staffing-repor... But even if they were fully staffed and had time to “criminalize homelessness”, the DA is reluctant to prosecute. But even if the DA presses charges, there is a huge public defender shortage. Loads of people are being set free and…

One reform I think should happen is 1:1 funding for the prosecutors office and the public defenders office.

If the DA gets a $100 Million budget, then the Public Defenders office should have that as well.

Right now it is like 10:1 in alot of cases if not even more lopsided.

Re: The privatization of policing

#177

Post by novok »

brk wrote: post #171
mikem170 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Property theft and wage theft are two very different categories of theft. This kind of reinforces the parent's point. They are both theft (shoplifting and wage theft), and yet so many people are ok ignoring the numerically worse problem (wage theft). The fact that the police don't get involved and lawyers are required to rectify wage theft just shows how far we as a society don't care to defend those people. Meanwh…

I'm not saying we should ignore wage theft. I am saying it is a scenario where a police force cannot really do much. You can call your local PD and report shoplifting, or most other kinds of physical theft. It would be a pretty clear accusation, and these days odds are you'd be able to produce some simple evidence in the form of video footage (CCTV, cellphone, etc.). But how do you report wage theft in a way that the…

I think in practice it would show up as an enforcement organization of the government labor department that would have a set of prosecutors on staff to enforce wage theft laws, much like how most cities have a DA and other government prosecutors to go through with criminal court cases. The work load of the PD would be minimal other than to maybe enforce jail transport orders after a court case finishes, it would mostly be about funding a lawyer group in the government.

Re: The privatization of policing

#178

Post by mikem170 »

phpisthebest wrote: post #175
mikem170 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the same as when someone writes a bad check? It's my understanding that people get arrested for that, it's not left just to lawyers and civil contract courts (which not everyone can afford). Maybe also make wage theft easier to prove, with a required paper trail like an employment contract and signed time sheets, more investigators, etc. I'd be curious how other countries might handle this better, there's often…

>>Maybe the same as when someone writes a bad check? That does not happen, not at the level of say shoplifting or something At most you can make a complaint, which will go to a prosecutor which will then decide if they want to file criminal charges, at which point the police would arrest someone. Which rarely happens for a single bad check. It is almost always CIVIL unless there is some other crime involved like iden…

I don't flat out argue with anything you are saying. It would be difficult to do a better job of catching wage theft.

But if we're not going to put more effort into catching those criminals, why are we ok with putting more effort into catching shoplifters? Why are we allowing poorly trained armed security to roam public streets and sometimes harass, beat up, or shoot law abiding citizens, to the point that local prosecutors are frustrated with what is going on?

How come we allow stuff like this, pulling out the stops for shoplifters, but not wage-theives? How come people argue in favor of the one but not the other?

Re: The privatization of policing

#179

Post by lamontcg »

pmarreck wrote: post #86
detuned wrote: post #47

There was a notable absence of opposing views in the article so I looked up "echelon security portland" and found a lot of objectionable actions they've taken. According to this article https://www.opb.org/article/2021/12/02/part-two-police-prose... they've been unaccountable to the public, they've lied about what people do (pretending they've attacked them), they've lied about their use of force, and attacked people…

So let me get this straight: A few bad police apples create a mass left-wing media outrage which results in the withdrawing of a public good (police protection), which results in people needing to hire private security, which results in even more objectionable actions taken by this less-accountable private security, than there were previously by the taxpaid police force? You don't say. I guess the only relative impro…

> A few bad police apples

A few bad apples spoils the bunch.

Rotten apples produce gases that accelerates fruit ripening and turns everything else in the container rotten more quickly.

Re: The privatization of policing

#180

Post by mikem170 »

prepend wrote: post #167
mikem170 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Property theft and wage theft are two very different categories of theft. This kind of reinforces the parent's point. They are both theft (shoplifting and wage theft), and yet so many people are ok ignoring the numerically worse problem (wage theft). The fact that the police don't get involved and lawyers are required to rectify wage theft just shows how far we as a society don't care to defend those people. Meanwh…

> yet so many people are ok ignoring the numerically worse problem (wage theft). I think this is a false argument as I don’t think people are ok ignoring wage theft. Others have pointed out as these aren’t exclusive options but, specifically, I’ve never heard anyone espouse that wage theft is ok. It seems to me that in a conversation concerning sexual harassment, someone points out that everyone is ok with human traf…

I guess the comparison was made, and caught my attention, because we are allowing business owners to hire undertrained armed private security guards to roam the public streets and sometimes harass law abiding citizens, to the point that local prosecutors complained about a lack of accountability, to stop shoplifting, but we're not doing anything more to stop wage theft, and it appeared that some people didn't see any problem with that.

Where does this lead? Isn't the government supposed to have a monopoly on violence in a modern state? Or are we allowing anyone with money to hire armed enforcers in public places? Would victims of wage theft be justified taking the law into their own hands also, since they are dealing with a bigger problem than shoplifiting?

I'm exploring this issue, more than opinionated, but think it's worth talking about.

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