The Politics of Policing

[Trump.Stamped]

We need less laws. No harm caused to person or property = no laws broken. The same standard for a civil case should be applied to criminal cases. Policing over the years has devolved into revenue generation for the state.

Get rid of all city police departments and increase the number of county sheriffs where needed? At lest the sheriff is more accountable to the public. And will less laws obviously we would need police.

Perhaps change the MO to more passive policeing.

lol...more passive policing...thats exactly what is happening. The result is officers afraid to use force, and it gets them hurt. No, you just need to make sure the right people are doing the job and they have the right training. Police Chiefs are just as accountable, maybe even more so, because they are appointed by the Mayor, who is elected. Its actually easier to get rid of a Chief - fire - than a Sheriff, who has to be voted out.

We'll have to agree to disagree that the police are more passive then 20 or so years ago.

Less laws less need to interact with the public.

I believe you could recall the sheriff if the public lost confidence.

Not easy to recall an elected official. At all.

Exactly which laws do you want to get rid of (not arguing - we do have too many laws)? I'm curious.

End probation and the bulk of he issues would go away IMVHO. Move away from law enforcement back to peace officer.

I'd get rid of the dwi laws, instead focus on driving while impaired and maintaining lane disilplen (whatever that impairment may be, age, putting on makeup, texting, ect ). No more pre crime crap.

Get rid of all the unconstitutional gun laws.

Ah, I knew it. Prohibition. Get rid of dwi laws. Wow.

Your problem is obvious.

Actually he said probation, so I think he just wants people to do straight jail or prison time. No probation. I like it!

 

[TexM3]

lol...more passive policing...thats exactly what is happening. The result is officers afraid to use force, and it gets them hurt. No, you just need to make sure the right people are doing the job and they have the right training. Police Chiefs are just as accountable, maybe even more so, because they are appointed by the Mayor, who is elected. Its actually easier to get rid of a Chief - fire - than a Sheriff, who has to be voted out.

We'll have to agree to disagree that the police are more passive then 20 or so years ago.

Less laws less need to interact with the public.

I believe you could recall the sheriff if the public lost confidence.

Not easy to recall an elected official. At all.

Exactly which laws do you want to get rid of (not arguing - we do have too many laws)? I'm curious.

End probation and the bulk of he issues would go away IMVHO. Move away from law enforcement back to peace officer.

I'd get rid of the dwi laws, instead focus on driving while impaired and maintaining lane disilplen (whatever that impairment may be, age, putting on makeup, texting, ect ). No more pre crime crap.

Get rid of all the unconstitutional gun laws.

Ah, I knew it. Prohibition. Get rid of dwi laws. Wow.

Your problem is obvious.

Actually he said probation, so I think he just wants people to do straight jail or prison time. No probation. I like it!

Pardon my dyslexia.

 

[MikeK]

Thankyou, I remember way back to ...... a lot. They do the best they can. There was nit 330mil back then with tons of heroin coke etc. 30mil illegals running around too, a large percentage working crime. Inner city problems since 70% welfare baby boom running like wild animals daily. Was not that bad way back.

Where the police are concerned the most important difference between then and now has been the War On Drugs which dominates the entire structure of the law-enforcement establishment, from street cops to the court system to the jails, prisons, probation and parole systems. In spite of the fact that this administrative folly already has cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars and promises to cost trillions more as the beat goes on, it is an easily observed fact that it serves no constructive purpose but is totally counterproductive. The simple fact is in spite of the War On Drugs, which has been raging for half a century, any recreational drug one wishes to obtain is readily available within five miles (typically just a few blocks) of any inhabited area of the U.S. And it seems redundant to say that repeatedly doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is one definition of dementia -- or clear evidence of high-level corruption.

There was no drug war back then so full attention of the police was focused on the kinds of criminals who harm other people. Back then the purpose of the police was to protect and serve the public, which is what they did. Today the police are preoccupied with making drug arrests, which they persist in doing in spite of the fact they they know their efforts change nothing and produce absolutely no positive effect.

 

[whitehall]

When a Police Officer goes beyond the oath he takes to uphold the Constitution the system is there to prosecute him just like any other citizen. When the freaking president invites the thugs who promote violence toward Police Officers for a dinner at the White House there is no legal venue to stop it. When the media seems concerned about an issue they call "gun violence" but they don't seem to care about the crisis Chicago where it is estimated that 2000 citizens will be gunned down by gang bangers by the end of the year and the mayor happens to be a democrat, there is something wrong in the media. When the media offers moronic platitudes to justify an historic unprescedented event like the assassination of five Police Officers in a single day in Texas it indicates that the Country has lost it's way under democrat party liberalism.

 

[bullwinkle]

When a Police Officer goes beyond the oath he takes to uphold the Constitution the system is there to prosecute him just like any other citizen. When the freaking president invites the thugs who promote violence toward Police Officers for a dinner at the White House there is no legal venue to stop it. When the media seems concerned about an issue they call "gun violence" but they don't seem to care about the crisis Chicago where it is estimated that 2000 citizens will be gunned down by gang bangers by the end of the year and the mayor happens to be a democrat, there is something wrong in the media. When the media offers moronic platitudes to justify an historic unprescedented event like the assassination of five Police Officers in a single day in Texas it indicates that the Country has lost it's way under democrat party liberalism.

So do you advise your party to 'Serpico' any, including the President, who says the protesters may have a point?

 

[Hutch Starskey]

Alright. Sometimes y'all do what you are supposed to. That's great.

Pedophiles may always slow down when they drive by children playing, but I'm not about to give them a medal for it.

Sometimes? How about 99.9% of the time, in situations where people like you would curl up in the fetal position and pee themselves.

We aren't looking for medals, just shut the f*ck up until you have all the information on an incident.

That's part of the problem is that they often don't release the information. It often goes to a grand jury where the proceedings and evidence is not publicly available.

The state AG should, and probably does, release the report when it is completed. If not, that should be remedied. What usually happens is that people have already made their judgement, moved on, and don't care about the facts anymore.

Grand jury proceeding are sealed. They cannot be released. Not surprising that this is the preferred method to deal with police officers and exactly the reason why people come to their own conclusions.

 

[TexM3]

We'll have to agree to disagree that the police are more passive then 20 or so years ago.

Less laws less need to interact with the public.

I believe you could recall the sheriff if the public lost confidence.

Not easy to recall an elected official. At all.

Exactly which laws do you want to get rid of (not arguing - we do have too many laws)? I'm curious.

End probation and the bulk of he issues would go away IMVHO. Move away from law enforcement back to peace officer.

I'd get rid of the dwi laws, instead focus on driving while impaired and maintaining lane disilplen (whatever that impairment may be, age, putting on makeup, texting, ect ). No more pre crime crap.

Get rid of all the unconstitutional gun laws.

Ah, I knew it. Prohibition. Get rid of dwi laws. Wow.

Your problem is obvious.

I choose personal responsibility and Liberty over a bureaucratic police state.

If that's my problem, what's yours?

I'm sure "personal responsibility" will keep people from driving drunk. Yep.

Considering drunk drivers kill more people than people with guns, what do you think would happen to that number if you made driving drunk legal???

I perfer an objective measure of impairment vs a subjective measure. A person can be legally drunk but not impaired. And a 100% sober person with their face planted in their smart phone while driving is often completely impaired.

IMO the whole dwi thing is more about money than public safety.

Punishment for driving while impaired should be harsh.

 

[MikeK]

And there's your problem. You get your world view from TV.

Referencing videotaped examples which support a point I'm making is a problem? And referencing the source of those televised examples suggests my "world view" derives from watching tv?

I've been a member on a LEO board for ten years and they ALL say the show is not a reflection of their daily jobs.

Really? Is that what the cops say? If so, then it must be true. Right? But if video clips of actual police doing actual things is not a "reflection of their daily jobs," whose "daily jobs" are those clips reflecting? But the cops say it and you believe it and I understand that mechanism. It's called the authoritarian/submissive personality and it presumably is quite common to those who have been members of LEO message boards for years. Cops refer to them as "buffs."

It's made for TV and there's a lot of editing.

Yes, COPS is indeed made for tv, as are all tv documentary series, and I'm quite sure some of the sequences and behaviors are edited out. Because if they weren't the ratio of police prosecutions would rise substantially. But as it is some of the sequences are extremely interesting and informative to watch.

Nor do you know what the results would be if a domestic situation wasn't handled. Someone could end up dead. Then it's the cops fault.

Some example of domestic conflict shown on COPS unquestionably call for police intervention to prevent serious violence. But you may rest assured that for every example of domestic intervention seen in this documentary series there are dozens more happening in the same time frame which manage to work themselves out in the natural way it's been happening since men and women started shacking up in caves.

But, admittedly, these domestic squabbles do give our heroes in blue something to do when they're not busting some pathetic, harmless stoner for possession of a few dime bags and a pipe. (You see a lot of that on COPS. A lot)

 

[MikeK]

We need less laws. No harm caused to person or property = no laws broken. The same standard for a civil case should be applied to criminal cases. Policing over the years has devolved into revenue generation for the state.

The main problem with the American law-enforcement establishment is the so-called War On Drugs, which has been going on for half a century, achieving absolutely nothing constructive but becoming more counterproductive day-by-day, year-by-year.

The fact that this monumental, wastefully damaging fiasco goes on uninterruptedly doing the same things over and over and producing the same negative result is clear and indisputable evidence that its managing agencies are either manifestly insane or systemically corrupt, or both.

 

[Iceweasel]

Referencing videotaped examples which support a point I'm making is a problem? And referencing the source of those televised examples suggests my "world view" derives from watching tv?

Yes, I made fun of you for thinking COPS was a reflection of reality. Which cop will agree with you?