Should Police Departments Be Given More Money?

[StringJunky]

6 hours ago, CharonY said:

. This is of course on the heels of now released video where a black army officer was pepper-sprayed whilst facing overly aggressive police officers and so on. The issue is that taken together these individual incidences paint an overall picture that is not really pretty.

I think this incident in particular highlights the seemingly  common habit of police unnecessarily escalating routine traffic situations.

Edited April 15, 2021 by StringJunky

[dimreepr]

29 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I think this incident in particular highlights the seemingly  common habit of police unnecessarily escalating routine traffic situations.

I think it highlights the start of the pendulums return swing. 

[iNow]

On 6/30/2020 at 6:35 PM, Alex_Krycek said:

So ultimately blood chokes (not air chokes) are effective if used by trained martial artists, but again, the US police do not have nearly enough training to attempt to apply these safely

Sam Harris released a podcast today where he interviewed Rener Gracie who’s been working with police departments to offer BJJ training to officers at a significantly discounted cost. 

I don’t agree with everything they discussed, but this is by far the strongest case I’ve heard for the position you advocated here. Is worth a listen given your interest and background and previous comments. Link below ✌️

Sam Harris: Waking Up podcast. Episode #246

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/246-police-training-police-misconduct/id733163012?i=1000517415557

Edited April 17, 2021 by iNow

[Alex_Krycek]

25 minutes ago, iNow said:

Sam Harris released a podcast today where he interviewed Rener Gracie who’s been working with police departments to offer BJJ training to officers at a significantly discounted cost. 

I don’t agree with everything they discussed, but this is by far the strongest case I’ve heard for the position you advocated here. Is worth a listen given your interest and background and previous comments. Link below ✌️

Sam Harris: Waking Up podcast. Episode #246

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/246-police-training-police-misconduct/id733163012?i=1000517415557

Thanks - I'll check it out.  

My position from the beginning has been that more training would equal less likely use of force.  But when force is required it would be applied judiciously and effectively to result in the least possible harm.  

By training I mean both psychological, physical, and tactical.

[iNow]

42 minutes ago, Alex_Krycek said:

 more training would equal less likely use of force.  But when force is required it would be applied judiciously and effectively to result in the least possible harm.  

By training I mean both psychological, physical, and tactical.

And I tend to agree with you that more training would lead to better results, especially martial arts type training. No doubt. Could be a high ROI investment.

I’m just not ready to stipulate that bias and racism (implicit or otherwise) are not the bigger issues at play requiring a change in culture and general approach to policing.

After all, nearly 60% of police killings occur when they’re responding to nonviolent issues (graph and source shared earlier this week in this thread), and whites behaving the same way after being apprehended for the same offenses aren’t being similarly murdered by law enforcement.

Anyway, your view benefited from a hard sell in the above discussion. Many good points made. 

Edited April 17, 2021 by iNow

[Alex_Krycek]

I created this schema to better understand the problem.  Reforming the police would require dismantling the main nodes in this system thus eliminating the secondary and tertiary consequences.  

 

[iNow]

I would add the presence and overuse of qualified immunity over there next to your blue wall of silence.

Also, in terms of reforming problematic police departments from a federal level (I believe there’s roughly 17,000 distinct departments all under local control and acting like little fiefdoms), the precious admins gagging of the use of Consent Decree has stood in the way. Fortunately, Attorney General Merrill Garland is taking steps to rescind those restrictions so the Justice Dept can again step in and mandate changes to local departments when issues are found. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/16/ag-merrick-garland-erases-trump-limits-on-consent-decrees-for-police.html
 

Quote

Consent decrees are court-ordered agreements that can be used to resolve violations of the law or systemic misconduct discovered during federal investigations of state or local law enforcement agencies.

 

[MonDie]

On 8/8/2020 at 8:27 PM, iNow said:

Interestingly, this too is mistaken. Decades of evidence shows rather consistently that the riots get more out of control and the property damage gets worse the more police are present.

From 50 years ago:

https://belonging.berkeley.edu/system/tdf/kerner_commission_full_report.pdf?file=1&force=1

From 5 years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/01/when-police-ratchet-up-the-force-riots-get-worse-not-better/

And from 5 months ago: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/06/01/why-so-many-police-are-handling-the-protests-wrong

 

 

On 8/11/2020 at 9:18 PM, CharonY said:

I think it is a very good model and evidence suggest that, too. Some of the issues is that the departments and their leadership are too entrenched into their ways and often trying to change it is difficult to impossible. Also trying to change a mindset of folks who are used to an adversarial mindset to do proper community policing is also somewhat unlikely. Studies suggest that one of the impediment is resisting police culture.

Sometimes it is necessary to change the whole thing and often the change has to come from the outside.

All of this is basic psychology.  One gigantic problem-IMO-still looms.  How easy is it to provoke a confrontation between sides?  Who benefits from the resulting wrestling match?  Who profits; who consumes; who condones; and who could but doesn't?

Who gets a distraction?

TMBS 146: Joshua Khan describes his group's delightful encounter with undercover cops.

youtu.be/8MZqEuUlzDs?t=690

 

[ScienceNostalgia101]

I see in police funding an issue analogous to locks on a canal. The raising and lower of the water levels; the opening and closing of the gates; there is a specific order these things have to be done in, in order for the boat to pass safely.

 

However, in this case we don't know what that order is.

 

We know Scandinavia achieves better results against crime by tackling its root causes than the US does by resorting to overpolicing. We don't know how the US is going to get there. If we started by raising the minimum wage, there would be pushback from moneyed interests. If we tried to cut police budgets to force those moneyed interest to accept the necessity of raising the minimum wage, crime might increase in the meantime and those moneyed interests might use it as an excuse to raise police budgets even higher than they were before, giving them and others less incentive to care whether or not the poor are turning to crime out of desperation.

 

. . .

 

Is there any method to force the issue that WON'T backfire?

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

I see in police funding an issue analogous to locks on a canal. The raising and lower of the water levels; the opening and closing of the gates; there is a specific order these things have to be done in, in order for the boat to pass safely.

 

However, in this case we don't know what that order is.

 

We know Scandinavia achieves better results against crime by tackling its root causes than the US does by resorting to overpolicing. We don't know how the US is going to get there. If we started by raising the minimum wage, there would be pushback from moneyed interests. If we tried to cut police budgets to force those moneyed interest to accept the necessity of raising the minimum wage, crime might increase in the meantime and those moneyed interests might use it as an excuse to raise police budgets even higher than they were before, giving them and others less incentive to care whether or not the poor are turning to crime out of desperation.

 

. . .

 

Is there any method to force the issue that WON'T backfire?

It's a matter of number's; keep the disgruntled small enough to deal with and stop the differently disgruntled from converging and uniting; the more money at risk, the greater the force used to achieve that goal.