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Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

harvardlawreview.org

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Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#31

Post by beat »

bdcravens wrote: post #24
joesmo wrote: post #9

It doesn't matter what attitudes change, the community relationship between police and citizens will not be repaired till at least my generation is dead (mid 30s) but more likely till at least three current generation of young people is dead. And that only if dramatic changes happen now. Otherwise things will continue to degrade and the police will continue to arrest and kill innocent people for committing crimes tha…

> The irony is, of course, that being a police officer is not even a very dangerous job. http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/10/us/mississippi-police-officers... Routine traffic stop. Pretty sure I've never heard of a developer being murdered during a pull request. > That leads me to conclude they're just a bunch of cowards with an inferiority complex out to hurt people to make themselves feel better. I'm sure cops exist who…

Being a taxi driver is actually more dangerous than being a police officer.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-dangerous-jobs/

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#32

Post by Jtsummers »

bdcravens wrote: post #24
joesmo wrote: post #9

It doesn't matter what attitudes change, the community relationship between police and citizens will not be repaired till at least my generation is dead (mid 30s) but more likely till at least three current generation of young people is dead. And that only if dramatic changes happen now. Otherwise things will continue to degrade and the police will continue to arrest and kill innocent people for committing crimes tha…

> The irony is, of course, that being a police officer is not even a very dangerous job. http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/10/us/mississippi-police-officers... Routine traffic stop. Pretty sure I've never heard of a developer being murdered during a pull request. > That leads me to conclude they're just a bunch of cowards with an inferiority complex out to hurt people to make themselves feel better. I'm sure cops exist who…

> Congratulations, I think this is the most bigoted and stereotyping post I have ever read on Hacker News. Ever.

DamnYuppie:

> We have large populations of minorities who feel entitled to behave badly without any consequence because the color of their skin.

I dunno. DamnYuppie may be winning. At least joesmo is bigoted against people because of their chosen profession. Unlike DamnYuppie who's bigoted against people for the color of their skin.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#33

Post by Thriptic »

joesmo wrote: post #9

It doesn't matter what attitudes change, the community relationship between police and citizens will not be repaired till at least my generation is dead (mid 30s) but more likely till at least three current generation of young people is dead. And that only if dramatic changes happen now. Otherwise things will continue to degrade and the police will continue to arrest and kill innocent people for committing crimes tha…

> That leads me to conclude they're just a bunch of cowards with an inferiority complex out to hurt people to make themselves feel better. I'm sure cops exist who aren't like this but that doesn't disprove the fact that the majority are. Then you add their racism to the mix... Cowards will be cowards.

Ah yes, let's demonize a large, heterogeneous group of people because they seem to be inappropriately making generalizations about a large, heterogeneous group of people....

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#34

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

Someone1234 wrote: post #30

US police services need to move to "policing by consent" (also often called "community policing"). The concept is that a police service is ineffective if they do not have the broad support of the local community, and the police service should adapt to service the community they have (not the community they'd want to have). If a bunch of gangbangers "hate" cops then that's fine. But when the good law abiding citizens…

> The concept is that a police service is ineffective if they do not have the broad support of the local community

I suspect this has already been pre-co-opted in the United States. Journalists and community leaders and pastors and all sorts of others reflexively support, admire, and praise the police.

> A lot of other countries do this, and it works well.

They can do it because their culture(s) isn't so toxic.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#37

Post by bitwize »

LordKano wrote: post #18
boards2x wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But equally the non-violent public do not deserve to face potential threats to their life and violent coercion in routine interactions with law enforcers. It is really not "the public" at large, at least not in many cases. The police seems to be profiling and directing excessive force towards non-Caucasians, as it was so obvious in the shocking incident in Texas. This case, which sort of crystallized the problem,…

The police seems to be profiling and directing excessive force towards non-Caucasians Law enforcement has always directed this kind of treatment towards non-whites in the US. What has changed is that there are now cameras everywhere so the officer's word isn't enough anymore and they have begun to subject middle and upper middle income white people to the same kind of treatment that used to be reserved for black and…

And we will always think in terms of "us vs. them" because we're monkeys, and we've evolved highly intelligent brains to, among other things, protect our bananas from the monkey tribe next door.

But we are getting better at overruling our monkey instincts with reason and compassion. So that's a good sign.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#38

Post by Someone1234 »

3pt14159 wrote: post #27
angersock wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally agree, but the short-cut hair makes a great deal of sense if you don't want a suspect pulling on your scalp.

De-escalation is more effective than the slight tactical advantage.

But de-escalation training is expensive, whereas equipment is often given almost for free from ex-military surplus or paid for from "anti-terrorism" federal funds.

Police in other Western countries receive significantly longer training courses than US police do. This is an issue rarely discussed in this topic. If people want de-escalation, they need to fund the longer training regime and more importantly pay for it.

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#39

Post by trhway »

you have "change the world", "python ninja", "rock star", etc.. in software engineering. Cops are people too, and what you see is just similar notions in their professional area. Cool Tazer instead of cool MacBook. Agile law enforcement with multiple refactoring... It is just bad luck if you happen to be the one being "refactored".

Re: Law Enforcement’s “Warrior” Problem

#40

Post by j_baker »

It seems like a no-brainer to me. Training police officers to think like warriors indicates that they're fighting in a war. We already have enough issues with gangs turning our streets into battlegrounds[1]. Why do we need police officers to compound the issue?

[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/22/how-chicago...

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