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

#201

Post by karmelapple » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 11:15 PM UTC

SllX wrote: post #103

ticviking wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandating that cops enforce unpopular laws was critical to Teddy Roosevelt's reform of the NYPD to help reduce corruption. That leeway was used to solicit bribes, particularly to let bars open on Sundays. I think that if we removed a lot of the leeway about enforcement we would find ourselves forces to ask, "What laws do we really care about enforcing in the first place?"

Something to consider. I once decided to see if a type of document existed—this being the internet, it was once amazing to me the things I thought might exist actually existing, maybe I should still be amazed—and the document I wanted to find was a “list of crimes” in my State. California does not (or did not) have such a list. I basically just wanted a number, and to see if there were any interesting ones I never th…

Here you go, the master crime list of Massachusetts: https://www.mass.gov/doc/master-crime-list/download

Here's one that seems similar for North Dakota: https://attorneygeneral.nd.gov/sites/ag/files/documents/Offe...

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

#202

Post by zach_garwood » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 3:29 AM UTC

RhysU wrote: post #184

jcrawfordor wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of thing is absolutely routine and police unions are almost certainly the single greatest obstacle to improved policing in the US. But the way things are right now the police unions are tremendously powerful, and so reform efforts have to cooperate with them and find common interests. Shortening the cycle time from an alleged violation happening to discipline being imposed or not is one of those common inte…

> That kind of thing is absolutely routine and police unions are almost certainly the single greatest obstacle to improved policing in the US. I always find it interesting that police unions are generally portrayed as bad while non-police unions are generally portrayed as good. Or, vice versa. (I realize that you didn't make statements about unions in general, only a strong statement that the presence of a large and…

You have to acknowledge that there is a slight difference between a union of armed mercenaries and a union of, say, grocery store staff. You can see how some might view one of those as "bad".

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

#203

Post by RhysU » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 11:07 AM UTC

zach_garwood wrote: post #202

RhysU wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That kind of thing is absolutely routine and police unions are almost certainly the single greatest obstacle to improved policing in the US. I always find it interesting that police unions are generally portrayed as bad while non-police unions are generally portrayed as good. Or, vice versa. (I realize that you didn't make statements about unions in general, only a strong statement that the presence of a large and…

You have to acknowledge that there is a slight difference between a union of armed mercenaries and a union of, say, grocery store staff. You can see how some might view one of those as "bad".

Very true. But there are also unions with access to young minds, that control the skies, that intermediate our interaction with the government, etc. All of the public-sector unions have some superpower.

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

#204

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 1:13 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #152

skinnymuch wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Okay? That’s federal. Why is that relevant? When you get arrested for marijuana randomly on the street in a normal state, what are the chances it’s going federal?

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

#205

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

i_like_apis wrote: post #156

skinnymuch wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, the…

Linking to a conservative think tanks report is pretty funny. It isn’t even trying to hide its bias from the get go. It knows it audience. People who have already been instilled to vote against their self interest and who want to oppress others.

I would not only link to a leftist think tank. Besides that being rarer than the propoganda of the right. It’s insulting to myself most of all (the fact I would let myself get duped by propaganda this easily) and to the people i am talking to, to do that.

Also, watching a tv show? That’s the worst way to understand politics. While being the best way for basic propaganda to work on a person. Life isn’t a joke where tv shows are what should be referenced.

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

#206

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

i_like_apis wrote: post #145

skinnymuch wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Interesting you said “their culture” when you are in that same in-group. No I am proudly not of the same culture (which is ignorant, violent, shoplifting heroine addicted, thieving, murdering, raping, etc ...). That should not be difficult to understand. ... did you just call me an "anti-other common folk boot licker"? 5/10 barely intelligible comment.

Yeah I was on the subway. This is a basic casual comment convo. I have a learning disability that effects my talking and writing. Do I deserve to be mocked for that like your fellow jailmates?

Why do a character attack of my writing? Even with the mistakes, it should not be difficult to understand if some one is fluent in English.

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

#207

Post by sureglymop » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #65

sureglymop wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual problem is that police are above the law. What I mean by that is, unlike citizens they are in a position where they might break a law without any repercussions or abuse their position of power. The only real way to deal with this would be to police the police in a realistic manner. Bodycam and location data of their every move would need to be available for that. Currently, police can simply turn these off…

no, police are not above the law. they're only "special" in that they enforce the law, which requires exceptional privileges and responsibilities ordinary citizens don't have. but they're otherwise fully under the same legal jurisdiction as the rest of us. some police may act as if they're above the law, but that's projection, not foundational. edit: interesting, seems to have hit a tribal trigger of some sort, but c…

Hey, i just want to mention that I did not down vote you. Of course you are technically correct, it seems like you took 'above the law' in my comment in the 'literal sense' but it was more of a way to express how common it is for police to abuse their situation and privileges.

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

#208

Post by dylan604 » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

bostonsre wrote: post #154

dylan604 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you think that all I have is one anecdotal story because that's all I've shared in a single post on an interweb forum, then you're making gross assumptions on your part.

If a patrol officer is tasked to pull over someone by an investigating detective, their sergeant, or anyone else out ranking them, that's what they are going to do. They all have ranks and respond to higher authority. It's part of their job.

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

#209

Post by throwaway787544 » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

thfuran wrote: post #44

throwaway787544 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is also a premature optimization and potentially YAGNI. Yes, you want down-weighting because of one potential complication. But you haven't even built and operated this system yet, so you don't know if this workaround you're applying will even be necessary or will end up causing larger issues. One example of this is "voter fraud". It is possible to commit voter fraud, and so certain parties want strong ident…

>YAGNI But not the ordinary YAGNI. You're Absolutely going to need some way of dealing with low-quality input.

Why? What's the worst thing that could happen from poor quality input? Unreliable scores? These reviews don't mean or do anything in the real world, and it's much less serious than an actual IA complaint. There's also no evidence that there would be enough poor quality inputs to make a meaningful impact on scores.

You really should wait and see before you invest a ton of time and money into solving problems that end up not being problems.

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

#210

Post by clairity » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

sureglymop wrote: post #207

clairity wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, police are not above the law. they're only "special" in that they enforce the law, which requires exceptional privileges and responsibilities ordinary citizens don't have. but they're otherwise fully under the same legal jurisdiction as the rest of us. some police may act as if they're above the law, but that's projection, not foundational. edit: interesting, seems to have hit a tribal trigger of some sort, but c…

Hey, i just want to mention that I did not down vote you. Of course you are technically correct, it seems like you took 'above the law' in my comment in the 'literal sense' but it was more of a way to express how common it is for police to abuse their situation and privileges.

no worries, and i understood the intent, but wanted to explicitly counteract the nodding-along effect of platitudes like that.

we all have the propensity to abuse situations and privileges, so police aren't special in that regard. the problem is that we narrowly attribute this universal human quality to just police, blinded by context, because that fits a preconceived narrative and surreptitiously makes each of us feel a little better about ourselves. this happens subconsciously and is a form of the fundamental attribution error we make so often.

that's not to absolve the police of grievances, since they do have extraordinary powers and as a result their misbehaviors have greater impact. certainly we should hold them to a higher standard. but police aren't more corrupt than average (they aren't lesser human beings, as implied).