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Reforming police, the Blue Wall of Silence


Ser Scot A Ellison

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On 2016-12-06 at 5:06 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Stealing always runs the risk of violence.

So does pretty much any crime.(by definition) Theft is specifically a nonviolent form of larceny. (if it actually involves violence, it's robbery)

 

 

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"So does pretty much any crime.(by definition) Theft is specifically a nonviolent form of larceny. (if it actually involves violence, it's robbery)"

 

That is incorrect both terms only meaningful if you  are considering the actual definitions of the words in the criminal codes of the US and other countries. In the US there is a wide varience in whether Theft is deeemed a "violent crime". Robbery is normally defined as theft of property directly from a person. Theft on the other had can cover both violent and non-violent instances. If you break and enter into a home then "theft" is almost always viewed as a violent crime because of the probability of an encounter between the thief and the homeowner.

 

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On 12/5/2016 at 11:21 PM, Cubarey said:

"I realize his hands were tied, I'm just frustrated that any rational person could see that as anything but murder, and how monumental a task criminal justice reform will actually be. "

 

The actions of a single jury or even juries in general should be seperated from the general discussion of criminal justice reform. We can do a lot by decriminalizing certain things or changing the requirement for minimum sentences. There will always be rogue juries. Question is the juror in this case any worse then the jury that refused to convict O.J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife and Mr. Goldman?

 

That is actually not the question.  Using your spot on a criminal jury trial as an avenue for political activisim is not okay no matter what side you are on.

 

The question is whether or not this was a rogue jury, adn whether cops can be confident that there will always be one person who will refuse to convict no matter what they do.

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Regarding the hung jury due to a single holdout - I read in the thread about jury duty that New Orleans/LA has a 10-2 jury system, where you need 3 jurors to hang a jury.  I'm not sure 3 is the right number, but 2 certainly would be a lot better than 1, I've long believed in the 10% rule, where 10% of people in professions in any field, are inexplicably IN that field, and completely incompetent.  It's a lot more rare to find 30 or even 20% complete incompetency, and that IMO should be applied to the US jury system.  I'm not sure how it works in the USA and the New Orleans example, if there are differences in your local, state, and federal court systems, but IMO a single idiot should NOT be able to stand in the way of justice.  This current example being used, that officer had NO legal reason to shoot a man running off who was unarmed and hadn't done anything other than possibly touch his taser weapon, and even if that did happen, was 5 seconds before he shot him at 10 yards+ running away, and not a threat to anyone, much less him.  As Commodore said, Brown and a couple other incidents were completely different.

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  • 2 months later...

Reviving this thread. Caught a local story here in Massachusetts about a police department trying to do some community outreach

Quote

Northampton Police were giving kids high fives on Fridays at each elementary school from December until last week.

The short lived high five program quickly became controversial.

It ended after more than a dozen people complained that the good natured gesture, started making kids of color and undocumented immigrants feel uncomfortable.

For some context, Northhampton, MA is one of the most progressive cities in the country. Well know for all kinds of kooky behaviors so this in not really that shocking. I do think there is an issue with this though. You cannot complain about police behavior and then penalize or denigrate them for trying to make connections. In our town the school resource officers are always around in the morning greeting the kids and talking with parents. Everyone knows them and values them for the work they do. 

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On 12/6/2016 at 5:49 AM, The Brandon Stark said:

Duh,  there are about 4 times more whites than blacks in the USA . Stop looking at over all numbers and look at percentages.  The site you link switches between the two to fit it's own narrative. 

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On 2/23/2017 at 6:16 AM, zelticgar said:

 I do think there is an issue with this though. You cannot complain about police behavior and then penalize or denigrate them for trying to make connections.

Why not? This is akin to saying that you can't complain about men being sexist assholes to women and then instead of being sexist assholes, they just hang out and stare at you instead. Yeah, it's better than the first part but it still isn't welcome behavior.

To me this sounds precisely like the kind of problem that came from them not talking to the community in the first place to try and find out what would, ya know, actually work. There are plenty of police connection programs that have worked, and worked really well - and most of them started with them not saying what they'd do, but asking what to do. As an example, one of the things that works really well in our town is them hanging out at the coffee shop at certain points of the day and having people come and ask them questions then. People know them by name, they know what's up, they know that they aren't there to patrol or watch out, and they're just there to be a resource. 

And that happened because they asked how they could get a better response as well as observed that people were more likely to come up to them when they were getting starbucks. 

I don't think anyone's denigrating them for wanting to do it, but execution isn't the same thing as intent, and if you're genuine in wanting change you have to be genuine about accepting criticism when your well-intended effort doesn't work out. 

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These towns receive funds to have a school resource officer in the schools. Part of the requirement for that program is for the officers to be present at the schools and facilitate programs around community engagement. How do you propose they acclimate their presence with the students? Stay invisible and don't talk to anyone?  

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1 hour ago, Relic said:

Duh,  there are about 4 times more whites than blacks in the USA . Stop looking at over all numbers and look at percentages.  The site you link switches between the two to fit it's own narrative. 

Yeah, that's a lovely piece of horrid argument. Also it raises the fact that blacks are charged with so many more crimes in proportion as a means of countering police racism without, apparently, considering how the latter would almost certainly lead to the former. 

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57 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

These towns receive funds to have a school resource officer in the schools. Part of the requirement for that program is for the officers to be present at the schools and facilitate programs around community engagement. How do you propose they acclimate their presence with the students? Stay invisible and don't talk to anyone?  

I already said - they should ask the people around. I don't have to propose anything because it isn't my problem, and more importantly me proposing a solution to some people 3000 miles away without talking to anyone doesn't make fucking sense at all. 

Or perhaps they're kind of a shitty thing period, and shouldn't be there at all

My point is that if the goal of the police is to acclimate the kids and make people feel more safe and more comfortable and they're not doing that, it doesn't matter what their intent is at all; they're not doing what they want to do. And the notion that you shouldn't complain about that is completely bullshit. You don't get a participation trophy for trying hard as a police officer. You have a job, and you need to figure out how to do your job. 

My personal opinion is that the police officer there should be at best there to guard the school from external threats. They should not be there to break up fights or detain anyone, because it encourages people to think that they have to go to the police to handle discipline issues. They shouldn't be there to deal with that at all; they should be seen and represent guards for the kids, and do that. Once you have them as the ones giving discipline and punishment they are always going to be the external threat to the kids and their families. Always. So instead, make it a policy that if you have to bring in police to deal with something internally it is never that SRO officer and is instead called in. And that's it.

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Horse is out of the barn with the school resource officer program.  With anti bullying policies, school gun violence and the liabilty involved in disciplining students there is no way the SRO's are going away.  You can argue that issue all day long but it is not going to change. Now you have to deal with the reality of them being on campus and interacting with kids.  You cannot hide them in a broom closet or a Starbucks down the street because a few parents complain.  

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On 2/24/2017 at 7:39 PM, zelticgar said:

Horse is out of the barn with the school resource officer program.  With anti bullying policies, school gun violence and the liabilty involved in disciplining students there is no way the SRO's are going away.  You can argue that issue all day long but it is not going to change. Now you have to deal with the reality of them being on campus and interacting with kids.  You cannot hide them in a broom closet or a Starbucks down the street because a few parents complain.  

I didn't say to hide them in a closet, did I? Explicitly I wanted them to interact with the kids and be there. And in fact, thinking on it more I'd do even more - make it so that that specific officer can never do anything to enforce, but is there always to interact and take questions and be the entry point for any issues that the kids have. So if they see something, they can go talk to her. If they have issues at home, they can go talk to her. If they are afraid for themselves or others, they can go talk with her. Again, she isn't the one who does enforcement of the school. 

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3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I didn't say to hide them in a closet, did I? Explicitly I wanted them to interact with the kids and be there. And in fact, thinking on it more I'd do even more - make it so that that specific officer can never do anything to enforce, but is there always to interact and take questions and be the entry point for any issues that the kids have. So if they see something, they can go talk to her. If they have issues at home, they can go talk to her. If they are afraid for themselves or others, they can go talk with her. Again, she isn't the one who does enforcement of the school. 

utterly impossible, and completely impractical.

Cop sees a fight, does nothing, a kid dies, you'd have riots in the streets.

And that's just one example.

if you're gonna have cops in schools, they can't ignore crimes and particularly violenct crimes.  They just...  can't.

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6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I didn't say to hide them in a closet, did I? Explicitly I wanted them to interact with the kids and be there. And in fact, thinking on it more I'd do even more - make it so that that specific officer can never do anything to enforce, but is there always to interact and take questions and be the entry point for any issues that the kids have. So if they see something, they can go talk to her. If they have issues at home, they can go talk to her. If they are afraid for themselves or others, they can go talk with her. Again, she isn't the one who does enforcement of the school. 

I understand the theory but once you go down that road then you are talking about police officers turning into the guidance office for the school. It blurs too many lines and besides the points Swordfish made you would probably also run some issues with the union agreements if you limit officers from enforcing laws. 

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2 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

I understand the theory but once you go down that road then you are talking about police officers turning into the guidance office for the school. It blurs too many lines and besides the points Swordfish made you would probably also run some issues with the union agreements if you limit officers from enforcing laws. 

Officers can enforce laws all they want; if they see a specific crime, they can attempt to stop it. But they aren't there to be the rapid response team and enforcement for a school issue. You see this all the time in real life too - where police have specific priorities such as traffic enforcement, and only respond to other issues in emergencies.

As to blurring lines, that's precisely the point. The goal is to make these officers into parts of the community and allow them to be more integral, and the only way you can do that is to make them overlap with other aspects. This is exactly one of the things that is missing in current policing and one of the cornerstones of community policing - developing relationships, talking with people, knowing actual people in the area. You see it as not their job, but the point is to make it their job. If you only see police as being enforcement, then they will only ever be used as enforcement - and naturally kids will distrust them, parents will distrust them, because all they do is enforcement.

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