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Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

nytimes.com

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

#191

Post by Jtsummers »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #101
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’ve had a completely different experience than you. Cops who I’ve known have been pretty normal, compassionate people. They routinely tell me the most important skill in effective law enforcement is your ability to communicate.

This gets toward the heart of the issue here. (Also, same issue when discussing public education.)

Reasonable people living in different places or with different skin colors (as a specific differentiator) in the same place have vastly different experiences with the same individuals or police forces. This creates a fundamental conflict in the discussion/debate because both sides are speaking about it (usually) as if their experience is the experience.

Live in many southern US towns and you'll see very different treatment of people based on race which has a natural result that white people view cops as reasonable and polite (their experience) and black or Hispanic people view cops as unreasonable and oppressive (their experience).

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

#192

Post by johnhenry »

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…

Let's not ignore the fact that minorities neighborhoods have historically faced higher levels of scrutiny from police.

It's not just that offenders are from minority groups... Consider that police are going out into minority groups looking for offenders.

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

#193

Post by happytoexplain »

d0100 wrote: post #155
ijustlovemath wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meaning of "diverting funding to other resources" has been a consensus in the community for a very long time. It's only recently that "defund" has been conflated with "abolish," which has always been a very very small niche of the police reform community.

> has been a consensus in the community If the community wants more support from outside themselves, pick a better slogan

Yes, it would help, but a provocative slogan also has its own merits. It usually serves to highlight the very culture it is criticizing. If those criticized took even just one minute to think about it or talk to somebody they disagree with instead of reading from news sources and forums that are highly angry and cherry-picking, then they would easily realize what their "enemies" want. In this way, a provocative slogan exposes these people. However, provocation almost never has more upsides than downsides. But one of the vanishingly few cases where it's hard to blame somebody for resorting to it happens to be where any individuals within your government are using their power to mistreat, unjustly imprison, beat, or kill you, and where there is a large group of politically extreme citizens cheering for that.

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

#194

Post by Disruptive_Dave »

fighterpilot wrote: post #169
Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potential for death is a very limited way to measure dangerous occupations/activities.

Not sure why you're downvoted. Chronic stress should be considered. Police have a much lower life expectancy than regular people. This could be either selection bias or the impact of chronic stress, and it has little to do with dying as an immediate proximate consequence of the occupation.

It's also just a very un-nuanced way to think about anything. It reminds me of a scene in the show Scrubs where one friend is discussing the difficulties of being a child of divorce. The other comments how he always found it interesting how children with divorced parents think they have the market cornered on issues/problems (paraphrasing here, obviously). Think about all the children who grew up with parents who should have divorced but didn't, thus extending the misery of living in that environment.

Living every single moment with PTSD, physical pain, anxiety, and so on shouldn't be diminished because it isn't as romantic and easily captured as death is.

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

#196

Post by colinmhayes »

treis wrote: post #125

I don't think enough people are talking about the huge change in the crime landscape. Here in Atlanta, violent crime is up 50, 60% while arrests are down 40%. We're down hundreds of cops and morale is terrible. Cops aren't doing their jobs because they fear politically motivated prosecution. And for good reason given that a handful of them faced politically motivated prosecution. We're still below the worst days of v…

Maybe they'd be more respected if they respected the communities they're supposed to protect? I don't know about Atlanta, but here in Chicago I've had nothing but horrible interactions with the police. How can you expect people to support you when you treat everyone like they're out to kill you?

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

#197

Post by frankbreetz »

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.

I can agree, but I think higher pay should come with more qualification. The qualifications for police officers are laughably bad

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/06/11/ohio-requir...

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

#198

Post by myfavoritedog »

throwkeep wrote: post #138
ijustlovemath wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meaning of "diverting funding to other resources" has been a consensus in the community for a very long time. It's only recently that "defund" has been conflated with "abolish," which has always been a very very small niche of the police reform community.

Sitting member of Congress: "No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can't be reformed." https://mobile.twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1381745303997... Sitting member of Congress: "We can’t reform this." https://mobile.twitter.com/AyannaPressley/status/13817027443... Activist with 475k followers whose name is currently: "DEFUND & ABOLISH POLICE" https://mobile.twitter.com/BreeNewsome Ben & Jerrys: "T…

No True Scotsman defense incoming, as people pretend that a “very very small niche” is what it means when high-profile congressional members put forth positions that are not vigorously denounced by the media and their political allies.

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

#199

Post by ethagnawl »

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 objective standpoint, I also sometimes wonder if maybe they made a better life choice than I did: If I'd chosen that route, I'd be retiring with a pension in about three years.

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

#200

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #152
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that even among minorities support for the existence of an active police force remains high. However, the principles of policing by consent still hold: a community deserves to be policed by police it recognizes as members of that community, not outsiders, and which have the community's best interests at heart. There is still a lot of work to be done in the US regarding these things.

That appears to be a general argument for self-determination or segregation, according to tastes.

The concept of policing by consent arose in a city which, at that time in the 19th century, was not riven by racial conflict. To claim that it is an argument for segregation is ahistorical. Self-determination maybe, but the concept was originally put forward in order to improve outcomes, not for the political liberation of the local people per se.
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