> A new report adds to a growing line of research showing that police departments don’t solve serious or violent crimes with any regularity, and in fact, spend very little time on crime control, in contrast to popular narratives.
@BigAngBlack oohhh I haven't even read the article yet, but I really like the way they posted links to all of the related documents at the top of the article. That is brilliant, and it would be great if more news orgs did so.
@BigAngBlack A fact that's been clear for a while now: if traffic stops were about punishing drivers that break the law, we could save a ton of money by setting up cameras and mailing tickets to people. That we haven't done that indicates the purpose is not to enforce traffic laws.
Not that I want to encourage setting up a giant surveillance network on our roads, but you'd think cops would be all for it if there wasn't something else going on.
“There’s no reasonable doubt that placing a handcuffed person in the back of a patrol car, parked on railroad tracks, creates a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm by the train,” Kerns said.
This is insanity. It created a substantial and unjustifiable risk, but not enough to show intent to harm.
White supremacy snatches yet another ruling from the jaws of conviction yet again. 🙄
"And if we look at this long-term graph, we can see that 31 August 2023 was the precise point where verdicts of gross misconduct against police became far less common. I wonder why?"
@BigAngBlack - This is a very hard lesson to learn. Cops are primarily there to protect the lives and property of the ruling class. The lower classes are their natural enemies.
This is almost certainly the case in the UK too - given the scale of police presence at protest marches, etc, and the tiny number of crimes being solved - less than 5% for house burglaries, for example, and less than 2% for rapes.
I fear we've fallen for a detective-fiction of what the police are doing - the reality is entirely different.
@BigAngBlack
That money would be better spent providing the programs that alleviate the root causes of crime and/or violence. Education, opportunity, mental/physical healthcare, nutrition...give people dignity and 9 out of 10 will run with it and do great things. Hurt people hurt people. It's not hard to figure this out. They know this. The suffering and the cruelty are the point.
@BigAngBlack oh yeah, there are all kinds of groups mankind bank off of this dysfunctional system. Some of them are even charities!! I've said it before and will say it again: perverse incentives. There are plenty of people who want the system to remain as it is because anything else would lower their own wealth/status.
@BigAngBlack so many (privileged) Americans' idea of the police comes from copaganda media rather than through personal experience... even if you're white and upper/middle class, just about everybody has a story about a cop being a dick to them, but most people don't have stories about cops protecting them
@BigAngBlack We are so long past the point at which we should have already begun a police reform process that I just don't even know what's going on at this point that people still aren't moving on this. Quite frankly we're to the point we should basically just start over. It's just that bad.
@nazokiyoubinbou
Police have so much power, 'reform' is just a talking point and political play. They'll never allow reform even if it was an effective move
@BigAngBlack Yeah, to be clear, I'm talking about reform coming from a higher level such that they have no real say. Eg laws/etc enacting a proper real police force that has to follow actual rules and laws instead of policing themselves, that kind of thing.
I know it's wishful thinking. I honestly don't know the answers. We need something, but none of what we need is what they are right now.
@BigAngBlack Agreed. In particular the police need to be treated the same under the law as us. When murder means being demoted to desk duty or maybe fired rather than decades of jail time like it would for us, it's not exactly a deterrent. But regardless, I wish I knew what the real answers were for this hot mess. All I know is the current situation is escalating more and more by the day in a very one-sided manner and it is not working.
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