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Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

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Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#121

Post by jivatmanx »

rayiner wrote: post #105
calibraxis wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why tech workers need unions. When Facebook does something nasty, they can blame the unions; the billionaires and millionaires were merely cowering behind their desks. We shouldn't contort ourselves to avoid the simplest answer: the state is getting what it paid for. The US incarcerates its population more than any known state on earth. That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don'…

> That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model f…

I'm sure they're protecting their turf, but they didn't start the drug war, and they're not at the forefront of promoting it.

Nixon declared the "War on Drugs". He also pioneered the "Southern Strategy", and many elements of his campaign are now well accepted to have been used as code words.

It wasn't a personal appeal to the puritan morality of drug users to stop, it was an appeal to the fears of scared whites.

The "War on Drugs" almost exclusively effects poor, minority communities and individuals.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#122

Post by coldtea »

rayiner wrote: post #89
nostromo wrote: post #80

Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. (Those factors could have a causal relationship, but I doubt it's the primary cause based on reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature".) http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010... Having big budgets but less crime means these swollen budgets end up being wasted on a lot of "fun" things like military gear. (Did you know t…

> Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. Two words: public unions.

We have unions over here in Europe too. Even more respected actually. But they don't correlate with "police spending".

Perhaps the word you're looking for is "lobbyists" and "demagogues".

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#123

Post by jlgreco »

Moral_ wrote: post #91
chc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it was a 20-year-old college student with a 12-pack of water, and they failed to break her windows because she drove away when the crowd of large men ran up and started beating on her car, and then they charged her with assault.

The charges were dropped.

Heads should roll for them being filed in the first place.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#124

Post by gohrt »

nostromo wrote: post #80

Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. (Those factors could have a causal relationship, but I doubt it's the primary cause based on reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature".) http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010... Having big budgets but less crime means these swollen budgets end up being wasted on a lot of "fun" things like military gear. (Did you know t…

I'll take your extra firemen, thanks.

Please don't conflate police looking for make-crime, with generous responses to emregency situations risking irreversible damage to life and property.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#125

Post by danielweber »

jivatmanx wrote: post #121
rayiner wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model f…

I'm sure they're protecting their turf, but they didn't start the drug war, and they're not at the forefront of promoting it. Nixon declared the "War on Drugs". He also pioneered the "Southern Strategy", and many elements of his campaign are now well accepted to have been used as code words. It wasn't a personal appeal to the puritan morality of drug users to stop, it was an appeal to the fears of scared whites. The…

http://www.npr.org/2009/08/13/111843426/folsom-embodies-cali...

In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. The union has contributed millions of dollars to support "three strikes" and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to Wilson after he backed the three strikes law.

It's not precisely what 'rayiner was saying, but the prison guard union is definitely pushing for more people in prison.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#126

Post by nostromo »

mathattack wrote: post #101
nostromo wrote: post #80

Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. (Those factors could have a causal relationship, but I doubt it's the primary cause based on reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature".) http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010... Having big budgets but less crime means these swollen budgets end up being wasted on a lot of "fun" things like military gear. (Did you know t…

"Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high." Isn't this cause and effect? Crime is lower because we are hiring more policemen. That is certainly one conclusion from Freakonomics. This is just a digression, because I do think the "Cops as Warriors" model is very scary, as "collateral damage" becomes acceptable in a war.

I attempted to address that in my comment. Check out, Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature" which shows that violent crime is down globally, not just in the US.

Also, Levitt did say increased policing decreased crime, but only caused around 5% of the decline ( http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUndersta... p. 184)

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#127

Post by gohrt »

Spooky23 wrote: post #27

The SWAT issue is a different issue IMO, more related to politicians wanting to "do something" at the Federal and State levels. "Doing something" translates to "allocate funding". That money can pay for more cops/overtime, or stuff. Or it may be earmarked by a congressman whose donor makes light tanks to only buy tanks. The us vs. them stuff is related to the state of affairs in high-crime communities. Cops can't rel…

You know the difference between body armor and a machine gun, right? They don't have to go along together.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#128

Post by king_jester »

rayiner wrote: post #66
mitchty wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true but a lot of these murders are gang related so it isn't quite a great comparison not? I know the topics of guns in america is a hot topic in general but even for the usa the general trend is downward.

Gang-related murders are the result of gang activity, and gang-activity is very scary for a community. First, lots of teenagers and young people are gang members, and gangs have major presences in inner-city schools, so even a "gang-related murder" isn't like some mobster getting killed, but something that hits really close to home in the community. Second, this activity is very geographically segregated, which makes…

> Gang-related murders are the result of gang activity, and gang-activity is very scary for a community. First, lots of teenagers and young people are gang members, and gangs have major presences in inner-city schools, so even a "gang-related murder" isn't like some mobster getting killed, but something that hits really close to home in the community. Second, this activity is very geographically segregated, which makes particular neighborhoods seem more like war zones. Third, even a few innocent bystanders getting caught in the cross-fire can have a chilling effect on the community. In Chicago this year, a kid who sang at Obama's inauguration was gunned down in gang-related cross-fire. Just one kid in a city of 2.7 million people, but it still had a tremendous effect on the community.

Of course, the solution for this is not policing but rather to address the fundamental social inequalities that make gangs thrive.

> And the militarization of the U.S. police didn't happen overnight. It happened in the 1970's-1990's when crime rates in U.S. cities skyrocketed.

Violent crime rates in cities have been on a declining trend since the late 70s/early 80s. The militarization isn't caused by violent crime, because we would expect as rates fall that there would be no call to increase police power at any given time. You are definitely right, the policing issue is really institutional in nature, but as a systemic kind of effect it isn't necessarily tied to any factual reality about crime.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#129

Post by Arjuna »

nostromo wrote: post #80

Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. (Those factors could have a causal relationship, but I doubt it's the primary cause based on reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature".) http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010... Having big budgets but less crime means these swollen budgets end up being wasted on a lot of "fun" things like military gear. (Did you know t…

"Today in the US, if you call 911 about an emergency medical condition, they will often send a fire engine along with an ambulance [...]"

This is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).

1. Imagine a scenario where an ambulance arrives as a first responder, and the EMTs [1] find that they cannot gain access to the emergency scene, because the home or other structure is locked or otherwise blocked. In this case, a firetruck would need to be dispatched, because it deploys with the correct equipment (e.g., Halligan bar [2], Denver tool [3], etc.) and personnel trained to handle such a situation. Also, ambulances are typically deployed with only two personnel, and that may not be enough in situations where items need to be moved or cleared to gain clear access to the emergency scene.

2. Most firefighters are cross-trained as EMTs. If they are local to the emergency scene, then they may be the first responders, while an ambulance is en-route.

3. Incoming 911 calls can often be confusing, with callers under extreme stress, experiencing situations that they have never faced in their lives. Imagine a situation where a caller is so distraught, overwhelmed, or focused on a life-saving effort, that they cannot articulate that they need firefighting support, in addition to an ambulance.

The bottom line: in an emergency situation, it is better to have more help on-hand than too little.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_technician

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halligan_bar

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_tool

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#130

Post by Silhouette »

rayiner wrote: post #51
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the reason for UK police not wanting guns is primarily what the UK police see as their mission: It is community policing, where UK police try to work within and with the permission of the community because they feel they're most effective that way (also called "policing by consent"). http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/policeNine.php Police carrying guns makes them "scary" to the general public, and as suc…

> The US police is VERY militarized in Urban areas. U.S. urban areas are very militarized. London, a city of 8 million people, had 100 murders last year. Over the last 20 years, the number broke 200 only once, in 2003. Chicago, a city of only 2.7 million people, had 532 last year. And this is way down from the peak. Murders in U.S. cities peaked in the early 1990's. L.A. county had 2,589 murders at its peak in 1993.…

A common argument from police officers I know in the UK is that they don't want to carry things like firearms and heavy protection gear routinely precisely because it promotes escalation, as well as the kind of them-and-us culture mentioned elsewhere in this thread because most of us here aren't legally allowed to carry firearms.

As a counterpoint, for all the early mockery that Police Community Support Officers took, the idea seems to have worked out pretty well. If you call to report a relatively minor problem today, it's a good bet that you'll get one or two PCSOs and maybe a PC turning up. I think the fact that "real people" come to deal with the situation and maybe have a quiet word with someone who's a little out of line probably goes a long way to avoiding unnecessary confrontation. I'm pretty sure I would be far less comfortable if a small paramilitary team knocked on my door and asked to come in, even if they just wanted to ask if I'd seen anything relevant to a break-in at a neighbour's house or something.

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