Police Reform

[Decoy73]

None of those other countries have an equivalent to our 2nd amendment to hold near and dear to their hearts.   Less guns per capita, better trained cops—>less shootings.   No reason to make it any more complicated than that.  How boring and non-free they must feel.  

[Enhance]

7 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

I fail to see what population levels have to do with this.

Hypothetically, if if your job was to build/train a police force for a town of 100 people with relatively low diversity, and my job was to build/train a police force for a town of 6,000 people with higher diversity, would our challenges be identical? That's more or less where my mind is at because I would say the answer is no. I wouldn't want to be blanketed and held to all of the exact same standards that you are.

 

I don't think 'population' itself is necessarily the issue but more or less the different challenges that can come with it.

[knapplc]

Just now, Enhance said:

It matters in these types of conversations when people are trying to make arguments and draw conclusions about police reform, particularly in relation to scope and scale. A geographically small European country is not necessarily equivalent to a geographically larger country with 60 times the population base.

 

I would agree, but in the inverse. We have FAR greater resources than those countries, and should have far better abilities to pay for lengthier training, greater mental health care for police, better overall society in general. 

 

@Waldo is correct that it's not super relevant in this instant conversation, and he's also correct that all those other societal ills need to be addressed.

 

We could do all those things and focus on reforming a nationwide police force that kills the population it's designed to "serve & protect" at a far greater rate than all of those countries in that graphic.  As @BIGREDIOWAN said, there's 500 videos of cops doing bad things in the past few weeks, but 500,000 police on the streets. So there are plenty of good cops who just want to "serve & protect." Longer, more stringent training and higher education requirements would go a long way to overcoming a lot of those issues.

 

[Enhance]

10 minutes ago, knapplc said:

I would agree, but in the inverse. We have FAR greater resources than those countries, and should have far better abilities to pay for lengthier training, greater mental health care for police, better overall society in general. 

 

@Waldo is correct that it's not super relevant in this instant conversation, and he's also correct that all those other societal ills need to be addressed.

 

We could do all those things and focus on reforming a nationwide police force that kills the population it's designed to "serve & protect" at a far greater rate than all of those countries in that graphic.  As @BIGREDIOWAN said, there's 500 videos of cops doing bad things in the past few weeks, but 500,000 police on the streets. So there are plenty of good cops who just want to "serve & protect." Longer, more stringent training and higher education requirements would go a long way to overcoming a lot of those issues.

I can agree with much of this, but I would still say it's difficult to just point at a place like the U.S. and say 'well, they're bigger and have more resources, so they should be better.'

 

I feel like we could all probably brainstorm countless examples of where more size and more resources don't necessarily correlate to success.

 

And again, I think I should reinforce that I support more stringent training and higher education requirements for law enforcement. I just think it's unfair to cherry pick 1-2 selective data points from drastically different countries and be like 'ah ha! Got you, America!!!' and that's what that graphic feels like to me.

[teachercd]

I would say this as well...if I was a cop and I knew there was a great chance the person I was engaging with DID NOT have a gun because of super strict gun laws...I would be less jumpy.

 

Inversely, if I knew there was a good chance that they were packing...I would be jumpy. 

47 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

I would agree, but in the inverse. We have FAR greater resources than those countries, and should have far better abilities to pay for lengthier training, greater mental health care for police, better overall society in general. 

 

@Waldo is correct that it's not super relevant in this instant conversation, and he's also correct that all those other societal ills need to be addressed.

 

We could do all those things and focus on reforming a nationwide police force that kills the population it's designed to "serve & protect" at a far greater rate than all of those countries in that graphic.  As @BIGREDIOWAN said, there's 500 videos of cops doing bad things in the past few weeks, but 500,000 police on the streets. So there are plenty of good cops who just want to "serve & protect." Longer, more stringent training and higher education requirements would go a long way to overcoming a lot of those issues.

 

Right...but crazies want to take away those resources and defund the police errrrr fund them less.

[knapplc]

57 minutes ago, Enhance said:

I can agree with much of this, but I would still say it's difficult to just point at a place like the U.S. and say 'well, they're bigger and have more resources, so they should be better.'

 

I feel like we could all probably brainstorm countless examples of where more size and more resources don't necessarily correlate to success.

 

And again, I think I should reinforce that I support more stringent training and higher education requirements for law enforcement. I just think it's unfair to cherry pick 1-2 selective data points from drastically different countries and be like 'ah ha! Got you, America!!!' and that's what that graphic feels like to me.

 

I think it's pretty clear that America has a unique set of problems, including overall violent crime, poverty, policing issues, etc, that plague society.  While none of those are easy fixes and none of those are easily defined by some infographic, it's still clear that we have to reform something. And I think the marches this past month are a prime example that the proletariat are getting a little tired of kicking that can down the road.

[Danny Bateman]

Most of us probably agree that the vast majority of cops are good but there are bad apples that need to be gone and the culture needs to change.

 

The bad apples are REALLY bad.

 

 

[DevoHusker]

48 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

99.9%?  I dunno if I believe that number at all.  I'd say it's closer to 40% because, as I've expressed before, cops don't inform on other cops doing bad things and that means integrity isn't there.

 

If they do inform on them, they're run out of the department.

 

So I'm not as hopeful and cheerful as you are and I think from within your own organization, you've got on a pair of rose colored glasses.

 

 

This is an absolutely false narrative. If I am a cop on a force of 100, and there are 2 "bad" ones, the statistical probability that I witness, or even know about, a "bad" act by one of them...that I have never worked with...is close to zero, so I could NOT turn them in. But in your scenario you also call me a bad cop. That is prejudicial and an asinine assumption. 

[RedDenver]

2 hours ago, teachercd said:

Ummmm...

 

That is like saying that the amount of crime in Nebraska vs the amount of crime in California has nothing to do with population.  I mean, California has more people and more resources...shouldn't they have less crime?

So how much less training should a police officer in Nebraska receive than an officer in California?

[knapplc]

I went back two pages and didn't see this, so if it's been posted, apologies.

 

 

 

[teachercd]

1 minute ago, RedDenver said:

So how much less training should a police officer in Nebraska receive than an officer in California?

23%.

[BigRedBuster]

1 hour ago, Enhance said:

Hypothetically, if if your job was to build/train a police force for a town of 100 people with relatively low diversity, and my job was to build/train a police force for a town of 6,000 people with higher diversity, would our challenges be identical? That's more or less where my mind is at because I would say the answer is no. I wouldn't want to be blanketed and held to all of the exact same standards that you are.

 

I don't think 'population' itself is necessarily the issue but more or less the different challenges that can come with it.

Of course the challenges would be different.  But, to make your comparison valid, you would need to know the ratio of people in Germany or Italy that live in cities over the same in the US.  I'm guessing we have a much higher percentage of our population in rural areas than those countries.

 

From there, it's just a matter of scale for population.  If you have 40 million people who live in urban areas and I have 330 million who do, I don't see how the cost and level of training would be different per officer.

 

Now, what you said above, you actually gave reasons why the US training and cost per officer could reasonably be less than those countries.

 

All that said, more and more officers in these small towns are experiencing the same as urban areas.

[Decoy73]

59 minutes ago, knapplc said:

I went back two pages and didn't see this, so if it's been posted, apologies.

 

 

 

After watching the video, I predict it won’t stand.   He resisted a supposedly legitimate arrest, fought with the officers, grabbed a Taser and aimed it at them as he was running away, just before he was shot.   Nowhere near the horrible thing that happened to George Floyd.   

[DevoHusker]

12 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

99.9% is a false narrative as well.  No one knows the actual percentage.

 

But the culture is cover for your brother/sister in arms and NO SNITCHING.  That's nationwide.

 

Admitting there is a problem is the first step...and we can't even get people to admit that the problem exists.

I never said the problem doesn't exist but I definitely disagree with your numbers. I don't think it is as pervasive as you do. Thanks for your point of view on starting the dialog regardless of which number is closer.

[RedDenver]

27 minutes ago, Decoy73 said:

After watching the video, I predict it won’t stand.   He resisted a supposedly legitimate arrest, fought with the officers, grabbed a Taser and aimed it at them as he was running away, just before he was shot.   Nowhere near the horrible thing that happened to George Floyd.   

The police rarely get tried let alone convicted of even more heinous events than this one, so getting off is easily the most likely outcome. It's part of why it's a systemic problem.