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Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

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Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#51

Post by morgante »

jimbob45 wrote: post #31
nkrisc wrote: post #5

It sounds kind of crazy on the surface but it makes sense - what else would you do if you completely lost faith in the police force to do its job effectively? It would probably seen easier to disband it and replace it with something else than to try and reform such an organization.

- Bodycams - Mandatory psych evals half-yearly - Anonymous corruption reporting - Reduce/eliminate drug penalties - Eliminate civil forfeiture - Ticketing revenues no longer fund the department - Expanded auditing of violent calls Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. I fully expect MN to swing red this election as a result of this.

All those things have been tried and reform is more limited. The biggest problem is that unions protect all the bad applies in "solidarity" so even with body cams and abundant evidence of brutality nothing happens.

If you actually think body cams help, ask yourself why Derek Chauvin felt comfortable murdering George Floyd in broad daylight while being filmed.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#52

Post by cryptoz »

jimbob45 wrote: post #31
nkrisc wrote: post #5

It sounds kind of crazy on the surface but it makes sense - what else would you do if you completely lost faith in the police force to do its job effectively? It would probably seen easier to disband it and replace it with something else than to try and reform such an organization.

- Bodycams - Mandatory psych evals half-yearly - Anonymous corruption reporting - Reduce/eliminate drug penalties - Eliminate civil forfeiture - Ticketing revenues no longer fund the department - Expanded auditing of violent calls Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. I fully expect MN to swing red this election as a result of this.

- What happens when the bodycams are off? Is the officer fired and jailed?

- What happens when an officer fails the pysch eval? Are they fired?

- Who oversees the corruption reporting? How do you know they are not corrupt too? They surely can't be part of the police dept.

- Reduce/eliminate drug penalties: The problem is racism where drugs are often used as the excuse. Why is there no racism training in your list? Or de-escalation training?

> Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change.

This is extremely rude and invalidating of large efforts put forward by the protesters to look at all options, think outside the box, and make real change. Some protesters have even been re-writing the police and city budgets themselves to see how things might turn out.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#53

Post by rightbyte »

BrianHenryIE wrote: post #11
drunkpotato wrote: post #2

Interesting and surprising if this happens. Note that they're just announcing their intent to disband, it's not an actual vote, but there's some pretty strong language here. The article also notes the mayor is opposed to disbanding. I would rather see police reforms and a rethinking of priorities than disbanding police altogether. But if it happens (a big if) perhaps Minneapolis will provide a rare natural experiment…

> I would rather see police reforms and a rethinking of priorities Why? Surely any new policing entity will entail the philosophy of reform and keeping the rotten part around would be detrimental.

I would argue that it is hard to have a much less rotten police force than the city in general. It seems quite crime ridden from the statistics. Maybe if you draft the policemen from other areas or cities?

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#54

Post by drunkpotato »

BrianHenryIE wrote: post #11
drunkpotato wrote: post #2

Interesting and surprising if this happens. Note that they're just announcing their intent to disband, it's not an actual vote, but there's some pretty strong language here. The article also notes the mayor is opposed to disbanding. I would rather see police reforms and a rethinking of priorities than disbanding police altogether. But if it happens (a big if) perhaps Minneapolis will provide a rare natural experiment…

> I would rather see police reforms and a rethinking of priorities Why? Surely any new policing entity will entail the philosophy of reform and keeping the rotten part around would be detrimental.

Perhaps it is just me being less pessimistic about human nature. I think as an institution policing needs reform, but it can happen in a more gradual way. Not everyone in a bad system is a bad person, and people are remarkably morally flexible under pressure to fit in. Improve the institution and I believe you can improve the people inside it.

I admit that with the surprising, to me, deplorable recent behavior of the Buffalo PD, I am more sympathetic to the idea of total replacement. So I’m interested to see whether this goes anywhere in Minneapolis.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#55

Post by sneak »

skissane wrote: post #46

The US has lots of different police forces – city police, county police, state police. Many other countries have more centralised policing with fewer levels. I think, a smaller number of bigger police forces might promote more professionalism, more professional management, oversight by more experienced politicians (state political leaders tend to be more experienced and capable than local political leaders, especiall…

The problem is that there is no organization that is incentivized to uncover or investigate police crimes.

All other portions of government have cross-checks to stop people breaking the law. The police don't, and cover for one another.

There needs to be an organization that has clear and direct incentive to prosecute abuses by the police, that doesn't have a century+ long tradition of violence, selective enforcement, racism, and murder.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#56

Post by at_a_remove »

I doubt anyone will adopt a scientific approach, namely, before the experiment begins, figure out what it is you're going to measure, how you're going to measure it, and then announce a threshold for "this got us what we wanted" versus "this was a mistake."

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#57

Post by chowells »

jimbob45 wrote: post #31
nkrisc wrote: post #5

It sounds kind of crazy on the surface but it makes sense - what else would you do if you completely lost faith in the police force to do its job effectively? It would probably seen easier to disband it and replace it with something else than to try and reform such an organization.

- Bodycams - Mandatory psych evals half-yearly - Anonymous corruption reporting - Reduce/eliminate drug penalties - Eliminate civil forfeiture - Ticketing revenues no longer fund the department - Expanded auditing of violent calls Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. I fully expect MN to swing red this election as a result of this.

It sounds to me like you have no idea what's going on in Minneapolis. The city has passed laws to require those things. The police department has sued, stonewalled, and flat out ignored those laws. This is the next logical step - when they won't obey the law, remove them entirely.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#58

Post by dehrmann »

sunseb wrote: post #7

What could go wrong? Lunatics are running the asylum it seems. Authority is always here. Disband the police and you will get another arbitrary authority (being gangs, some kind of political repression, and so). There already are no-go zones in Europa where the police don't go anymore, believe me, you wouldn't want to live there. If you don't want the official police anymore, why not starting with your place, your hom…

I agree that the risk of disbanding a police department is underappreciated and there are some scary alternatives that can form. This isn't an action people should be taking or proposing lightly. I'm worried it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#59

Post by guerrilla »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #45
guerrilla wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the goal of police abolitionists: [1] 1. https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/06/police-abo... Some more references: 1. https://www.8toabolition.com/ 2. https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1268547515038806018 3. https://twitter.com/TravelingNun/status/1268510966116954114

Before you edited your post to fix your typo I thought that was a clever pun.

Just some tablet typing on the go :)

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#60

Post by morgante »

jsdevwork1 wrote: post #36
_bxg1 wrote: post #3

a) I'm incredibly happy to see that the masses still have a voice b) I'm not positive this is the right solution, but it could be, and it will be fascinating to see how it plays out and whether it's something that could work everywhere

It will play out quite predictably: more crime, organized and otherwise.

Nope.

Camden disbanded their police department and has seen crime drop: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/what-happened-to-crim...

Disbanding the police doesn't mean no public safety measures. It means disbanding the department and rebuilding a new approach to public safety.

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