Well there's two issues with people who complain about vague problems and offer up random solutions....
1. We never get a chance to understand the problem, so there's no real hope of fixing it.
2. The solutions are almost certainly not going to improve anything...as has been proven by everything suggested from "implicit bias training" to "defund the police". None of it worked.
You claiming you don't understand the problem doesn't mean other people don't, that's personal incredulity, which is fallacious reasoning to reach your conclusion
You also don't get to determine that as if your metrics are absolute or conclusive. The issue is manifold, no one EVER claimed the issues would be fixed with ONE policy change or even just addressing the institution of policing, that's a strawman of the highest order (Wicker Man would tell you to tone it down)
Why would you assume there isn't that as a possibility remotely? Sounds like you've bought into the idea that the institution is innately heroic somehow and not authoritarian jackboot thuggery.
Is it possible? Sure. Is it proven? No.
Is it possible that the problem exists entirely in your imagination?
So the several Supreme Court cases in regards to this mean nothing? Is it possible you just want to keep dodging the implications because it'd bring up cognitive dissonance you don't want to confront?
Well we've got pretty good evidence of how well they work. Back in the 80s when crime was far worse than it is now....huge investments were made in policing, and guess what? A steady drop in crime followed for 2-3 decades.
Now two years ago....a bunch of activists who can't even identify a problem complained about police to the point of rioting frequently and got cops who were completely innocent fired from jobs.
Now crime is back on the rise. You don't have to be a genius to spot the correlation here.
Correlation /=/ causation, you're embarrassing yourself to suggest that those investments were the only reason crime went down, which is reductive on top of being mere correlation and not demonstrating the causative link
Pretty sure they can, you're willfully blind to the issue because you want to think racism has to be something that is only individual prejudice and nothing in regards to societal ideas
Crime's rise cannot be simply correlated to one factor, you've already been told this is nonsensical and yet you continue to double down
No...they're underfunded. They don't have enough detectives, dna labs, specialists, and a whole host of necessary resources. There's backlogs in many major cities on rape kits. Detectives frequently don't have enough time to thoroughly investigate a case before moving onto the next. It's not a good situation.
It's almost like people expect too much of police in terms of addressing problems that could be assisted by getting funding to other institutions. You'd need to demonstrate and substantiate these claims, otherwise I'm sensing a biased narrative where you want to make this like policing is the ONLY solution to crime as a societal problem
I'm sure that makes sense to you....because frankly, you don't have any idea what is going on.
What is a mental health worker going to do with a subject having a psychotic episode? Do you think that they are just going to talk them out of it?
I'm not so pessimistic to think they can't handle it in a way that doesn't have to involve treating them like a child, or worse, a rabid animal. If you think cops can handle ALL situations, the one who's out of their depth is YOU, because I'm not naive enough to think a cop should be the one to address something that social workers are far better equipped for.
What happened to the cop that was a better result than a civilian would have?
Wasn't he arrested?
No one said that was the problem: being arrested is the technical outcome, the particulars of how they were treated is more often the issue here. Like how a black student is held down like a beast while the white passing Hispanic is treated like they were the victim and couldn't possibly have been just as violent, if not moreso. Little convenient amnesia there, hm?
I suppose if a cop comes across someone shoplifting...then you would want them arrested, and you're against these laws that decriminalize such things?
Decriminalization is more complex than you're reducing it to. No one's made it legal, they've reduced the criminal classification. If you're not a lawyer or can't admit when you're wrong, then maybe you shouldn't speak about something as if it's a concluded fact in regards to an issue more complex than you appear to realize
Shoplifting is a crime, no one is saying otherwise, because decriminalization /=/ legalization, just as defunding/=/ abolishing. I'm beginning to think you just don't have the sense of nuance to consider that words don't have a singular prescribed meaning, they change because they're social constructs to describe concepts and applications
Not really. Are you saying that the cops are racist? Are you saying that the policies are racist? What are you saying?
The system isn't a living thing. It doesn't have a mind, it doesn't have ideas, it doesn't form racist thoughts.
If you think the cops are racist....just say so.
The culture encourages racism in the implicit sense, a concept that seems to fly over your head because you can't conceive of the idea that one might have prejudices that affect how they treat people even if to them it seems like they "don't see color" (which is nonsense)
No one said the system was a living thing, we've been over this. It conditions ideas in that it is seen as normative and encourages such things by people's adherence to it without questioning it.
Racism is one manifestation, it doesn't mean that an institution that disproportionately has negative effects and injustices on a minority group isn't enabling and perpetuating racial prejudices. Just because Jim Crow law didn't explicitly invoke black people doesn't make them less racist. Or are you unaware of how those disenfranchised black people post Civil War?
I'm simply pointing out that there's no job that every employee does perfectly without any mistakes. There's no job that doesn't have some criminals working it.
Wow, so I guess we just don't need to hold anyone accountable when they hold inordinate amounts of power AND are seen as bastions of justice (because I think we'd be in agreement that politicians and elected officials should be taken to task, but they're elected, police aren't, barring the chief, if even that). Expecting the best of police officers ignores that there's an abusive power dynamic pushed by a system that systematically oppressed black people for over 2 centuries in America and continues to in insidious ways
Sure.
Is that the problem? A racist "culture"?
Are we going to continue to perpetuate the idea that culture is somehow a nebulous word now?
More white men are arrested for methamphetamine possession than any other race.
Does that law implicitly target white men?
Only if you assume whiteness is innately tied to ethnicity or other factors you're likely implying with that. Also, that's a reductive cherry picked example, because it fails to consider why white men are being caught with meth more often than black people. Could it be that meth is something more "affluent" people engage in as a drug to abuse?
What in the world are you talking about? Do you honestly think that cops are walking around missing the days of slavery?
Not explicitly, but the ideas of how black people were treated don't just go away because we made slavery illegal anymore than the idea that discriminatory and prejudiced ideas about black people as "uncivilized" and such disappeared when we made such racist treatments illegal in 1964. MLK Jr. and Malcolm X, among others, were assassinated (albeit under different circumstances respectively) AFTER that was passed. It's been over 50 years since then and yet we seem to have MORE out white supremacists engaging in intimidation. What does that tell you? I certainly don't have this assumption like some that racism just went away after the CRA of 1964 was passed, it just went underground until we elected a pedagogue that peddled in white nationalism lite.
I don't think you would be able to explain the "social conditioning" of cops if I gave you all day.
Pretty sure I'm not claiming expertise here, so...maybe you could make an effort to consider this position, do some research. Unless you're afraid you might be found wanting in this enabling of an abusive system that treats ALL citizens like they have to be whipped into submission. Police brutality affects every group to some degree, some are more insulated from it than others. To say otherwise is not even naive, it's outright damaging.
Flagrant disregard for the law huh? So out of the hundred million encounters with the public...you imagine that a large number of these are flagrant disregard for the law?
When police target people for perceived infractions, even exaggerate charges (in spite of having bodycams that could invalidate that testimony?), you don't think that's a problem when they're doing what would be considered harassment, singling out groups because they're seen as more "criminal"?
Perfectly? No. All I can do is judge the cop's performance based on the information available.
In both the cases I presented...I don't see what they could have possibly done better.
This assumes THEY are the only ones involved in the situation, you're stacking the deck in your favor to act like police shouldn't be scrutinized in a way that isn't just from outside, but from inside. That's the thing lacking here: policing as an institution actually admitting a problem and trying to fix it, especially by cooperative efforts and not the equivalent of wolves being a jury for a fox.
If someone is swinging a knife at someone else? Yes.
Then that's the issue: a knife is not as deadly as a gun. And there are ways to address the situation that don't have to involve immediate deadly force that is disproportional to what is happening. If someone has a freaking bomb or a gun, then sure, match force with equivalent force. Not using an elephant gun for a deer.
Some people followed the suggestion of activists and raised the standards for a prosecutable shoplifting offense.
The result was immediate.
Mass gangs of criminals began looting stores because even if they were caught by police, prosecutors declined to press charges.
The result is, of course, that the stores they've been looting are leaving....and the services and jobs they provide with them.
If you think people are all a bunch of angels then clearly you have no idea how bad things have been in the past, or could be in the future.
It's almost like a purely retributive justice system doesn't actually work, which is why policing needs to be taken into perspective as well for enforcing that attitude and the norms that encourage such an idea where as long as you can get away with it, the law doesn't matter
Never did I claim people were innately good, if you want to mischaracterize me, at least be able to quote me saying something to that sentiment instead of reading into it dishonestly
Are telling me that only the cops are ever responsible for their actions? People aren't expected to know they are breaking the law?
I'm pretty sure I've figured out the problem.
Ah because cops can just be considered okay because they BELIEVED they were following the law? You can be wrong even if you're considered someone that isn't often wrong. Hero worship is the issue here and you're a prime example of it, blaming citizens as the core instigator instead of holding everyone accountable equally and not with this white glove treatment for cops
What are the problems? You said you don't expect perfection. The number of wrongful shootings is extremely low.
What is the problem?
"Wrongful shooting" by whose standards? The internal investigations that aren't going to be treated well if they actually call out the biases or mistakes done by officers in regards to disproportionate treatment of black people in a way that doesn't reflect the same for white people? That's like expecting Trump to not hire someone he trusts to do his "taxes" and expect the same result as a brown noser
But you expect a cop to just turn all that off and always act in a perfectly moral manner without any mistakes ever.
Nope, you're strawmanning again, because the goal is never perfection, it's accountability and an attempt to be better instead of just maintaining a comfortable status quo
There's several. There's the cop who went into the wrong apartment and shot the guy living there. Remember her? Want some more examples?
Problem is these happen more often than they should with situations that don't require this kind of reckless abandon these thugs utilize in pursuit of "justice", as if that'll help things instead of creating a toxic climate where we treat the cops with "respect" out of fear and not respect out of them being humble
Do you want cops to enforce the law or not? You seem to want them to police themselves and ignore all other crimes. You just said above that they should be treating everyone the same without exception.
The two aren't mutually exclusive: if they want to enforce laws, they enforce them on themselves with the same standard they do with the citizens: they're not above the law, they're not special in terms of violations, even in the exercise of their duties. Qualified immunity should be far stricter than it is, yet we treat cops like some golden child a narcissistic parent thinks can do no wrong even when it's clear as bird crap on the asphalt.
Oh ok....compassion fatigue. Well I'm sure that the next time you call 911, if they respond that they don't have any cops to send because they're all suffering from compassion fatigue, you'll understand.
As if cops are permitted the idea of being "vulnerable". You keep acting like the idea of admitting any kind of problem is tantamount to a catastrophe, a cognitive distortion that's especially prominent when trying to deflect responsibility from a group accused of wrongdoing. Though that's just as easily done by projection anyway.
I'm not at all surprised that you don't agree on the problem.
So what do you think my position is? Just take a shot
Name a "norm". Tell me what these evil norms are.
So there's no prejudices that assume black people are all the same, that go with vague descriptions to pin someone as the suspect (like a guy who was charged with stealing his own car because the cops apparently went with a description that mostly fixated on him being black and not the clothes he was wearing?). If I have to explain what a norm is and then point out that they can be implicit, then I don't think you're equipped to even start discussing this, because you're working on elementary school level understanding of civics and social issues
It's not perceived. They are given authority. They can't really do the job without it.
Problem is authority is not absolute, it can be taken away when it is shown you are not taking it seriously, when you are not being consistent, when you are abusing said authority. Or is it fine because...they're given authority, right?
And yet when they let a cop off the hook for a minor traffic violation....you're upset that they didn't act like a mindless automaton.
You still haven't identified a problem.
Letting anyone off the hook for a minor traffic violation is case by case anyway, my dad ran a stop sign and cop just gave him a warning as I recall. But do you think they'd do the same if a black guy in the 95% white area I live in did the exact same violation?
You want one singular problem, that's the naivete, it's manifold