mattiasNYC said:
JohnRoberts said:
You can't have it both ways. For the police to be effective against crime they have to investigate any suspicious behavior. The record in NYC for the new liberal mayor's relaxed stop and frisk policy is too early to tell.
Sorry John, but this is a line of reasoning that's just garbage. There's a certain section of society that cheer on stop-and-frisk as if it's somehow a really effective means to thwart crime, yet they have no statistic basis for that statement. The reality is that it sounds good and it's a no-loss proposition for those that support it, i.e. not non-whites in poor neighborhoods.
Mayor Bloomberg credited it for a reduction in gun violence.
Stop-and-frisk is if not unconstitutional immoral not to mention ineffective. It's horse crap. At best. “suspicious behavior” really = less good neighborhood + non-white.
In fact the courts have found that NYC police have violated constitutional protections regarding searches without just cause, and class action lawsuits are moving in the courts waiting on a settlement.
I agree that this is one of those too-easy answers for a complex problem. In fact getting guns off the streets is a little similar to the same knee jerk thinking that we need to get guns out of the hands of private citizens.
I have given some thought about how to neutralize guns (mostly for stabilizing war zones, but perhaps for a few cities too). Some way to sniff for gunpowder so that loaded weapons could be detected from a distance using a non-invasive chemical sniffer (while this may violate search protections too). Another more explosive strategy is to come up with a variant gunpowder that is destabilized by very specific radio frequency energy. Imagine ammunition that simply blows up in the presence of the specific RF field.
I don't think the constitution protects against criminals being blown up by their own gun. ;D
Sorry I don't mean to make light of this a difficult issue.
JohnRoberts said:
I see mixed data when I try to research it with increased police activity in some sectors.
It would be nice to have a simple bar chart to map gun violence vs. stop and frisk, but as often happens in economics, there are too many variables in the equation for a simple comparison.
Because it doesn't work as “advertised”.
JohnRoberts said:
If you want less crime, and who doesn't, that takes effective police.
There's “effective”, and then there's “just”. You could thwart crime by shooting suspects on sight, yet somehow that wouldn't be quite “kosher”, despite being effective.
Indeed one more data point that needs to be inspected in the context of this discussion is the push to incarcerate criminals to take them off the street to improve public safety . Over the last few decades since the '80s, we have built so many new prisons that now something like 1% of our population is behind bars. The crime statistics reveal that this has worked after a fashion but at a tremendous cost?
A number of these inmates are tangled up by drug laws and MS has a good program to divert such criminals into a rehab vs incarceration program, but nationwide there are many in jail that probably shouldn't. That said there are great many that can not be easily rehabilitated so incarceration is the lesser evil.
I can imagine a near future where non-violent prisoners do not go to jail costing us taxpayers tens of thousands a year, but instead get hooked up to a super ankle bracelet for a modified house arrest. For now this is science fiction but the technology is not, and probably cheaper than putting them up at the gray bar hotel.
JohnRoberts said:
If the public is messaged to distrust the police, that makes it harder for them to help those very same people.
The police are not the bad guys. This cultural bias that causes people to resist, fight back, and even run away from police (maybe some video game behavior?), is what causes the vast majority of bad outcomes. Just say "yes sir" and cooperate if stopped.
Do you have a source for that or are you just guessing? And what is this “culture” you're talking about? Considering the thread topic I'm betting I'm sure I know what you're referring to.
Just life experience... I have had multiple encounters with the men in blue, and I have personally found that being polite and respectful leads to better outcomes. But I am white so must get a free pass.
The culture I am talking about is deep mistrust of the police, which leads to rationalizations like running away may be a better option than stopping when told to stop. Now some people who run away already have outstanding warrants, so make a different calculation. In my judgement honest law abiding citizens should not be afraid of their police who are literally there to protect them. As i have said several times, body cameras on police (which kind of invades their privacy) will go a long way to gather real evidence about everyday police interactions. The cameras will help police better document interactions.
How many people have to be abused or killed by the police before people get to resist the police?
I don't think we are even close to such a situation, while the media has strung together a handful of cases to feed this media story. I can not imagine a situation where resisting the police as an individual ever makes sense. If we perceive a pattern of bad behavior there is recourse via the courts and indirect methods.
The notion that you can just say “yes sir” cooperate and everything will be fine is just so ludicrous it's beyond comprehension that people peddle it. Look up the Central Park Jogger case for a great example of how lives are ruined for decades because they did just what you say they should. They respected the police and the legal system and got put away for decades. Lives. Ruined.
Stuff happens, and despite the checks and balances built into the justice system mistakes are made. Modern use of DNA evidence, applied a couple decades later when the actual rapist admitted to the crime, could have been helpful. it is interesting that those innocent youths were convicted in two different jury trials, 4 of the 5 appealed and the convictions were upheld, so this is more than police prejudice. Settlements of $42 million have already been made, but they are suing for another $52 million.
JohnRoberts said:
The modern culture with anti-police sentiment coming from the very top politically is dangerous IMO.
See, to a lot of people what's dangerous is getting treated worse because of your skin color,
Prejudice is part of the human condition, and even black police officer encounter more black criminals so it's hard to expect them to ignore personal experience.
getting choked to death after trying to tell a not caring police officer you're choking,
"The handcuffs are too tight", and similar complaints are normal in such interactions. #1 why are cops arresting someone for a tax crime (selling single cigarettes outside a store), and #2 why did he resist against several officers for such a petty beef?
getting shot multiple times in the back while running away,
The incident I recall, the miscreant was running away because he was wanted for child support. It was not a good decisions to run away, nor was it a good idea to shoot him in the back.
getting shot while being a child holding a b-b gun,
This falls under the category of split second life or death decision making. IIRC that bb gun was lacking the orange tip marking required by the dept of commerce on toy guns since 1992, of course a BB gun could be lethal in some extreme scenario. Hesitation by a police officer when a weapon is pointed at them could be the last thing they do. There have been a couple police assignations in NYC recently.
being tackled by a police officer for no reason while riding a bike,
I don't recognize this case. I bet the police officer thought he had a reason, probably something like being routinely ignored by bike messengers (just speculation).
getting illegally anal probed,
I do remember one sensational case (a long time ago) involving a billy stick, stuck up somewhere it doesn't ever belong. . No excuse for that, obvious abuse of power.
and on and on and on ….. and it is what leads to an anti-police sentiment,
A relative small number of cases compared to all the professional interactions that occur.
not Bill DeBlasio's hurting the seemingly oversensitive police's feelings by not bowing down to them and giving them 100% support for any and all actions they take regardless of what they entail.....
Since he is their top boss's boss he has a special relationship with the police force. Instead of supporting his police force he has publicly embarrassed them with comments like he warned his children to look out for the police. In fact he probably gave them the similar advice to mine (treat them with respect). He campaigned on an anti-police agenda so is playing to his political base.
By the way, DeBlasio works for me too, not just police officers. He's supposed to represent everyone including people choked to death by the police.
I thought Bloomberg was too liberal. My opinions about DeBlasio are not for public consumption. I seem to recall London having a similar ultra liberal mayor for a while. Maybe it's something about large cities.
JohnRoberts said:
There is more that we can do but an anti-business and anti-police climate does not seem productive to me.
Huh? You've had a pro-business climate for a long time, and the incarceration rate (per capita) in the US is outdone by one country, period. A lack of police enforcement and ability to put people behind bars doesn't seem to be a problem.
Yet the solution is more capitalism and more police? Sounds like "head in the sand" to me.
I have already addressed the incarceration rate above. We have had a pro-BIG-business climate for too long, Now we have an anti-all-business climate. I would favor a pro-small-business policy to create jobs and employment in poverty stricken areas.
Please refrain from the pejorative characterizations. While I am not thin skinned, I have to resist responding in kind which would just diminish any real exchange of information.
JR