The All Things Political Topic - A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

46 minutes ago, alanschu said:

It really does seem to be the case I find.

It's interesting because I used to be more naturally supportive and inferred that it was typically a difficult job, with the aggravating circumstance that even if you're a victim no one is happy to see the police (i.e. they have some external event in their life that will make them feel primed to already be agitated). But then I learned that sometimes police officers indeed make mistakes, and our default state is that they are seen as more trustworthy than you or I and it became trivial to recognize how that can lead to abuse. And it's extra bad because it's abuse by an organization that is granted extraordinary powers, including often lethal force.

It's funny because I "get it." I feel that there is the implicit belief in trustworthiness because if you step back and say "we're giving these people, who are as (un)trustworthy as anyone else in society, extra privileges and protections" then I feel the natural response would be "whoa wait... why!?"

Although maybe I'm just being extra optimistic on that last point...

I think you may be too optimistic. Frankly, you have people that will support the police regardless of wrongdoing for ideological reasons.

Regarding the specific of cops lying, I think that the general public perception of police as being trustworthy and the (perceived) lack of consequences for lying emboldens police to lie more rather than less. Looking at the article you linked, I don't see any mention of discipline for the officers involved and well "paid leave pending investigation" is a meme for a reason.

Edited June 16, 2022 by KP wants Blue Velvet

[alanschu]

18 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

you folks are doing the same thing o' which you deride bruce and am suspecting you don't see the hypocrisy or inexplicable believe is different. 

Are you referring to drawing conclusions of a few bad examples and then summarily generalizing it towards police forces?

I just need to better understand where you're coming from before I can respond.

[Gromnir]

16 minutes ago, alanschu said:

Are you referring to drawing conclusions of a few bad examples and then summarily generalizing it towards police forces?

I just need to better understand where you're coming from before I can respond.

sure, lets' start with the hasty generalization and the failure to offer any support other than feels.

keep in mind, in the US alone there were 10 million arrests made in 2019 'ccording to less than perfect fbi data. near 500k o' those arrests were for violent crimes. 'ccording to not fbi sources, is 'bout 700k personnel employed in US as law enforcement. golly.

if we are going anecdotal, is not difficult for us to name more than a few occasions from this board wherein posters reached conclusions 'bout law enforcement malfeasance way before any real info were known and in more than a few such cases the s'posed police wrongdoing were revealed to be not what were being claimed. 

got stats to back up the i find and i think stuff... something other than gut level confirmation bias?

HA! Good Fun!

ps in absence o' stats or academic studies regarding the unique untrustworthiness o' police, we would be willing to at least consider the logical specious but nevertheless persuasive offering o' years o' personal experience gleaned working close with law enforcement. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Gromnir

[alanschu]

2 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

sure, lets' start with the hasty generalization and the failure to offer any support other than feels.

keep in mind, in the US alone there were 10 million arrests made in 2019 'ccording to less than perfect fbi data. near 500k o' those arrests were for violent crimes. 'ccording to not fbi sources, is 'bout 700k personnel employed in US as law enforcement. golly.

if we are going anecdotal, is not difficult for us to name more than a few occasions from this board wherein posters reached conclusions 'bout law enforcement malfeasance way before any real info were known and in more than a few such cases the s'posed police wrongdoing were revealed to be not what were being claimed. 

got stats to back up the i find and i think stuff other than gut level confirmation bias?

HA! Good Fun!

Entirely fair that I didn't provide citations, and I'll dig some up (though I'm about to cook dinner so it'll be later today).

To be clear, there are indeed 100% good police officers. Anecdotally (which is feels again, but in this case is at least contrary to my general skepticism towards police forces) I know some, and I know people that know some, and so forth. I consider the issue to be one that is more institutional, where even if you have attempts to be more transparent and critical from within police forces can be difficult. I liken it to critiques towards the Catholic Church. There are many, many good people within the Catholic Church that do good things and help people. I have a cousin that is a Catholic Priest. But issues arise because it too is an institution that is afforded a lot of benefit of the doubt and often resistant to criticism both internally and externally and so forth. And definitely not just these two. You can see it within health care, education (especially post-secondary), or even things like unions as well.

But I do think it's important to hold many of these organizations (especially ones that in some way represent the state) to a standard that is higher than one I would hold you, Bruce, some Marxist blogger, or some QAnon supporter to. Especially because a group like police forces have particularly unique powers that often are not available to us (and exercising said powers can have very impactful consequences).

[Gromnir]

am not sure about the justification for expecting better. 'cause o' their extra training? 'cause o' their high pay? why? regardless, expecting better already undercuts the initial premise, no? 

gonna also observe police mistake is frequent conflated with police untrustworthiness.

Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on Eyewitness Accounts

"In one well-known study, Loftus and her colleague Jacqueline Pickrell gave subjects written accounts of four events, three of which they had actually experienced. The fourth story was fiction; it centered on the subject being lost in a mall or another public place when he or she was between four and six years old. A relative provided realistic details for the false story, such as a description of the mall at which the subject’s parents shopped. After reading each story, subjects were asked to write down what else they remembered about the incident or to indicate that they did not remember it at all. Remarkably about one third of the subjects reported partially or fully remembering the false event. In two follow-up interviews, 25 percent still claimed that they remembered the untrue story, a figure consistent with the findings of similar studies."

the problem with a few stats about police inaccuracy is the fact all witnesses is horrible untrustworthy and not necessarily 'cause o' self interest or ill-intent. inevitable any police situation which garners media attention as well as most police encounters which end up in court is gonna include a high pressure situation. eye witness accounts o' such events should always be deemed less than perfect reliable. mistake is common if not the norm. get wrong is not necessarily matter o' police being especial prone to lies.

repeat: fbi stats

have personal seen any numbers o' studies showing dozens o' verified police inaccurate statements for such n' such department over years and decades. but again please recognize the real numbers involved. gonna average tens of millions of arrests in a single year and near five hundred thousand for violent crimes. if you found no liars, or near none we could only explain as coverup. 

*chuckle*

also, keep in mind cops is having one o' the handful o' professions where the lies is actual tracked via public records. am recalling our high school years and the number o' times we caught teachers and coaches making stoopid lies. we worked as a ranch hand/cowboy from almost the time we could ride, and is possible no other job we has ever had which attracted so many fabulists, but we chalked that up in part to the alcoholism and broken marriages. we had clients who we explained they had protected confidentiality with US which were more iron clad than what they had with their spouse or priest and we nevertheless had clients lie to us all the time; these folks would literal lie to us when doing so could only hurt their legal efforts and they did anyway, and such were common. have heard thousands o' lies from liars over the years. tell us cops is preternatural subject to lies when they is one o' the few professions wherein doing so has actual oversight crafted into the system, if flawed, makes little logical sense.

HA! Good Fun!

ps forgot to mention the psych eval and polygraph which is prerequisites for many law enforcement jobs. sure, those is crude tools (although polygraphs is much better than many people realize) but they do weed out more than a few applicants. such pre-employment checks is a reason to expect truthfulness is actual more common 'mongst law enforcement as 'posed to less.  

Edited June 16, 2022 by Gromnir

[Malcador]

Speaking of cops in Canada - https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/06/15/read-the-landmark-toronto-police-report-on-race-and-officer-use-of-force.html

Not all that shocking, really, but good on them to identify a problem. 

[Gromnir]

we cannot speak to kanada, but you are preaching to the choir if you wanna criticize cop violence as delivered by law enforcement in the US.

edit: avoiding the double, but is unrelated to cops and lies.

ff to 1:29ish if you want the meat

*chuckle*

somebody sure seemed to think eastman's plan, which were being advanced by numerous wh personages, were gonna be resulting in criminal prosecutions.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited June 16, 2022 by Gromnir

[alanschu]

4 hours ago, Gromnir said:

am not sure about the justification for expecting better. 'cause o' their extra training? 'cause o' their high pay? why? regardless, expecting better already undercuts the initial premise, no? 

It has nothing to do with extra training and definitely not pay, and everything to do with the level of harm that comes from things like bias, corruption, and abuse of power given the level of privilege and extraordinary power with a degree of legitimacy granted by the state itself. Some implicit, probably even not deliberately malicious racism by Bungee leads to an offensive skin in a video game. Implicit, and possibly not even deliberately malicious, bias in policing can see people overly incarcerated by the state. IMO the latter is a lot more harmful. You can even find police unions that agree with the concept that "society holds cops to a higher standard, and it should." https://nationalpolice.org/benefit-of-doubt/ (The author believes police are held to a higher standard, but I guess I'll have a better idea if my hypothesis about that not actually being the case a lot of the time since I do not think that they are).
 

You'll find no argument from me that police eye witness testimony is unreliable, because as you say eye witness testimony across all of people is very unreliable - here was a link to a study that I found (just to show I was doing my homework too) https://www.petervankoppen.nl/ewExternalFiles/2016 The thin blue line-up.pdf. I know in Voir Dire this actually is instructed to juries in an attempt to not overly weight police testimony. And again, as you also point out, not even because of maliciousness... but because there's a lot of factors that can impact our recollection. Innocence Project talks about this a lot too.

I'll concede the point though as I did say that police officers were lying. I do want to note however that the ringing of the (non existent) door bell was evidently not part of the police report, but was an addition (for some reason) to the RCMP's public explanation for what happened and when called out on that specific fact, the apologized saying there was an error in stating that the doorbell was rung though every other aspect of the report is still "completely accurate." I can't necessarily presume that it was a deliberate case of embellishing a story because (like I'd say most humans) there's an inclination to understate mistakes in self-reporting. But I do recognize that social desirability bias is a thing that undermines self reports and it is not difficult to imagine that a police officer (like most human beings) is either unable to recognize a mistake was made, or reluctant to admit it if that is the case. PSMAG talks about it here. They point out that often it's not even from bad people covering up mistakes but from good people denying new evidence to preserve their belief in being good themselves. People have mechanisms to justify their own actions and see ourselves in the most favorable light. We see examples of this as people justify their own support for things like Jan 6, or why what they or their friend did was or was not some sort of racist/sexist/etc action.

And even then, the RCMP still earnestly believe their officer's account of the story, and insist that ultimately nothing wrong was done; or stated differently, the police department has taken the recollections of their police officers as to be the accurate version of events. "Completely accurate," in their words. Are they overlooking that the eyewitness account of their police officers because there's a predisposition to not want to believe that they (and by extension the department) are wrong and in fact being bad? I think it plays a role; after all they too are human beings. But it becomes a challenging prospect when an institution that defends itself and its members (as video game companies do, as unions do, and so forth) is also granted capabilities beyond what you or I have in impacting another person's freedom and rights.
 

I do want to note, though that even in explaining to a jury that police are no more credible eye witnesses, there are still some challenges with that. One is an interesting take on how that may predispose juries to being government leaning and more likely exclude defense leaning individuals from a jury while simultaneously NOT influencing the likelihood of state/prosecution leaning individuals (this was mostly a fascinating read and shows some challenges with how trust in policing can impact juries, but I wanted to include it here: https://grandjurytarget.com/2019/05/15/why-judges-should-stop-asking-jurors-about-police-officer-witnesses-during-voir-dire/ ). Even then, police officers are still often seen as more credible. Combined with the previous point, it's not uncommon to have a jury that represents a demographic that is "about twice as likely to have a positive view of police as African-Americans." https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1167&context=jsj&httpsredir=1&referer=

The previous link also cites Justice Warren Burger, writing that "it would be a dismal reflection on society to say that when the guardians of its security are called to testify in court under oath, their testimony must be viewed with suspicion." I would tie this in to the previous point about personal/collective biases to view ourselves in a positive way with reasonable justifications for our views. Much the same way that BioWare would (I hope!) have had a predisposition to defend me if some external party alleged that I was being bad, a police force would want to protect its officers, and a country would be inclined to implicitly have faith in institutions, is that we can justify the actions and resist being critical because it'd involve us being open to accepting that we supported something that caused harm. In fact I'd go as far as to say a lot of hypocrisy, including my own, but also of say anti-abortion activists that have an abortion, is that we're good at telling ourselves that these circumstances present one of the few righteous reasons for doing this thing we're otherwise against. Other people though? They are bad.

I don't feel that the idea that people not in police forces have a bias towards trusting police officers in court is an overly controversial position, either.

https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3196&context=dissertation

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/perceived-expertness-and-credibility-police-officers-eyewitnesses#additional-details-0

Even when the NY Times reported that Confidence in police is at a record low, it was still at 48% and this was in the summer of 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/gallup-poll-police.html

Moving to 2022 Pew Research have 26% of US adults have "a great deal of confidence" in police officers acting in the public's best interests. 74% have at least a fair amount of confidence https://www.pewresearch.org/2022/01/05/trust-in-america-do-americans-trust-the-police/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2022/02/15/americans-trust-in-scientists-other-groups-declines/

Canada reports that almost half of the population has "strong confidence" in police, and almost 90% have at least some confidence. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2020001/article/00014-eng.htm

I feel even in light of pretty recent media spotlights on police abuse, in general our society is not particularly critical towards police officers.

 

4 hours ago, Gromnir said:

have personal seen any numbers o' studies showing dozens o' verified police inaccurate statements for such n' such department over years and decades. but again please recognize the real numbers involved. gonna average tens of millions of arrests in a single year and near five hundred thousand for violent crimes. if you found no liars, or near none we could only explain as coverup.

On this point I definitely agree. I'm not suggesting that the presence of liars in police departments shows police departments are bad. The issue is the institutionalized defense that often materializes in ways such as the Blue Wall of Silence. There's no shortage of examples of whistle blowers facing more aggressive punishments than those they are whistle blowing against. Sometimes there are even weird examples of a police officer demonstrating deescalation getting reprimanded for not shooting a suspect after another officer did come in and shoot like https://features.propublica.org/weirton/police-shooting-lethal-force-cop-fired-west-virginia/. The department concluded that Mader's acts represented inaction and viewed it more harshly than taking any action (including shooting someone). Not only do incidents like these paint police in a bad light, but they are expensive and paid for by citizens. In Mader's case he also secured a pledge that his former employer would not actively prevent him from working in law enforcement elsewhere.

There's also things like Garcetti v. Ceballos which had an attorney being allegedly denied a promotion as a reprimand for being critical of a warrant was a violation of his First Amendment rights... but was ruled that because he too was acting as a public figure and not a private citizen in making those statements, there was no First Amendment protections. As a result, the state was protected for taking retaliation against someone being critical of decisions it made. (aside but IMO the state can be particularly good at protecting itself from criticism which I feel often isn't leveraged in appropriate ways)

Granted these are juicy stories and I'm sure you'll find that there's a bias in journalism to report sensational stories that would attract attention. But to assume that media would be biased to want to highlight police misconduct would overlook research that shows how frequently media employs things like passive voice ("officer involved shootings") when describing police violence. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3705521. Stuff like this fuels my belief that police definitely are not held to a higher standard, and in incidents like these arguably held to a lesser standard. And I can understand why some media members would go along with stuff like this as there'd be a degree of quid pro quo where police departments would be more cooperative in interacting with the media.

I'm starting to get tired so I'm going to wrap up there. Other things I haven't gone into that I consider serious are inequitable ways police target people especially based on class, and how even in light of data showing otherwise the NYPD still insisted on continuing stop and frisk and the real material costs that can impact communities even if specific arrests aren't being made. Other things such as police being allowed to lie during interviews in order to help coerce/persuade results during an estimate.

 

I did want to conclude that while researching, I did find an interesting point that actually runs contrary to some of my skepticism towards the criminal justice system as a whole. http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/Race-based_decisions.pdf points out that police officers are more likely to cite black americans for some things like failure to produce a license or insurance, "analyses showed that African Americans were more likely than other racial groups to have their traffic tickets dismissed in court for lack of evidence or probable cause." I was looking for this one because I was trying to support the general notion that police officers have an assumed trust and we can see evidence of this in effectively "he said-she said" cases such as traffic violation. I wasn't really able to find that (I did find a quora page that had a lot of cops answer that it was 75-90% chance that your ticket won't get overturned, but that's less concrete) information, but I find it interesting that evidence of excessive citations against the black community can be inferred by the reality that increasingly the tickets are dismissed relative to other demographics.

 

Anyhoo I'm going to play some Crusader Kings now.

Edited June 16, 2022 by alanschu

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Speaking of cops in Canada - https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/06/15/read-the-landmark-toronto-police-report-on-race-and-officer-use-of-force.html

Not all that shocking, really, but good on them to identify a problem. 

You must defund the entire racist Canadian police, that will definitely solve the problem

It can be done, look at how it worked in the US ....oh wait 

But on a serious note I dont have much confidence with these types of reports and more specifically their suggestions and outcomes if you look at the US and how certain states in the US that followed BLM recommendations and you now see the crime rate getting worse and politicians   scrambling to reverse certain changes they made around  how the police are allowed to operate in these states

Your article mentions " officers to brace for a “challenging” public reaction ", what do you think that means?

Do you know in the US that 70-80% of black people dont want to defund the police and never did. You can see this represented in the  election victory of the new mayor of NY who is ex-police, black and opposed to defunding the police and thats the ticket he ran on

https://reason.com/2020/08/06/81-percent-of-black-americans-want-the-same-level-or-more-of-police-presence-gallup/

https://www.newsweek.com/eric-adams-who-opposed-defunding-police-poised-new-yorks-second-black-mayor-after-primary-win-1607379

So this raises a question, who are these people that speak on behalf of " black  people " because  the reality is they dont represent what the majority of black people want 

The best way to get an  accurate and honest view of what citizens think is to ask people. So in your personal lived experience do you find the Canadian police racist and what has been the overall experience that your family and friends have had with dealing with Canadian police

Thats much more relevant than some report which doesnt represent the overall experience that most people have with the police 

Edited June 16, 2022 by BruceVC

[Gromnir]

so, no real support for the liars accusation? a few anecdotal examples but nothing which would support the conclusion it is, "a good rule of thumb to assume cops are lying in general"?  therefore, before we get too distracted, the recognition o' the hasty generalization and how you were doing exact same thing as bruce has not in any way been diminished, yes? 

*shrug*

HA! Good Fun!

ps maybe counts as spam, but am gonna repeat, again, how in spite o' fantasies 'bout what protect and serve means and the higher standard the public always wishes cops be held to, the Courts don't see any such duty or responsibilities. deshaney, catlerock v. gonzalez and warren v. dc all make it abundant clear that the public suffers from a serious disconnect regarding cop standards and duties, and considering how US communities keep lowering hiring requirements for cops and their pay is a whopping $55k per annum on average or thereabouts, expecting heroics sacrifice and honesty is not particular realistic. in spite o' what the public imagines is the higher standard for cops, no such standard exists and in point o' fact cops don't owe any duty to individual citizens for aid or defense regardless o' obvious distress. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Gromnir

[BruceVC]

34 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

so, no real support for the liars accusation? a few anecdotal examples but nothing which would support the conclusion it is, "a good rule of thumb to assume cops are lying in general"?  therefore, before we get too distracted, the recognition o' the hasty generalization and how you were doing exact same thing as bruce has not in any way been diminished, yes? 

*shrug*

HA! Good Fun!

@alanschu

I know you mean well so dont take this the wrong way but the moment you said KP was right with his exaggerated, spurious and generalized view that  " a good rule of thumb to assume cops are lying in general"  you immediately demonstrate you dont understand the reality of the good work that the police do in the US and more importantly the police dont lie all the time and often people are guilty of the crimes the police arrest them for 

Dont believe some of  BLM rhetoric, yes their is racism in the police in the US and things like racial profiling can be abused

But its not the majority of police and we should really not believe that

Gromnir makes very good points in this debate and Im not  talking about him bringing the "BruceVC" deride into the argument. I am talking about the reality of  how the police function in the US and its not nearly as bad as some people maintain

 

 

[majestic]

28 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

I know you mean well so dont take this the wrong way but the moment you said KP was right with his exaggerated, spurious and generalized view

Says the one person in the thread who spouts nothing but generalized views on whatever 'far-left, marxist' boogeyman is currently the focus of (conservative, mostly) fearmongering. Did you find that CRT curriculum you were looking for yet?

This thread is, as always, a microcosm that eerily reflects the issues of the world at large. If art is, as Hamlet said, "to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure" then we should probably turn this thread into a masterpice of a cyclical stage play where every month we write a new script that is essentially the same characters talking about the same things, and nothing ever changes. Every now and then an actor is replaced by another, but the roles remain the same.

In a way, this is the greatest achievement of the repetitive epic.

[Gfted1]

Why not simply equip every single police officer / public servant a body cam? Turn it on at the beginning of the shift...download it into the database at the end of the shift...problem solved wrt inaccurate representations of the situations?

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Says the one person in the thread who spouts nothing but generalized views on whatever 'far-left, marxist' boogeyman is currently the focus of (conservative, mostly) fearmongering. Did you find that CRT curriculum you were looking for yet?

This thread is, as always, a microcosm that eerily reflects the issues of the world at large. If art is, as Hamlet said, "to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure" then we should probably turn this thread into a masterpice of a cyclical stage play where every month we write a new script that is essentially the same characters talking about the same things, and nothing ever changes. Every now and then an actor is replaced by another, but the roles remain the same.

In a way, this is the greatest achievement of the repetitive epic.

No I still haven't found a credible  school CRT curriculum  (I dont actively search for it )yet people are still saying " we want to teach CRT in schools " and that sentiment exists now in SA

Why would educators, outside Universities, want to teach something and talk about it if it doesnt exist? So Im still concerned about it . But if you can get people in SA to stop saying " we want to teach CRT in our schools " then I wont be concerned ...so please help me end this bogeyman because people clearly believe its a real subject 

[BruceVC]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/republican-mayra-flores-flips-house-seat-texas-special-election-rcna33652

The GOP have flipped a Democrat House seat in Texas, Mayra Flores was born in Mexico  and is another example of the reality of the success of the GOP which is often incorrectly portrayed as a party of and for  " white men " (she is also smoking hot  )

I predict this is a sign of the bloodbath that the Democrats will experience in the midterms

I will comment more on this type of political change in the US after the midterms but their are two points I want to add  about why this is occurring

• The Democrats focus on issues that arent what most  voting Americans really care about, the party is too influenced and handicapped by the progressive Democrats and their pseudo-socialist policies and things like defunding the police and name changes 
• I would normally be happy with a GOP victory in the midterms and in 2024 but I dont want to see another Trump presidency in 2024. But unfortunately the way things are going I am not  sure this can be prevented 

And then I do think Biden is facing criticism for things that arent his fault like the global inflation, high cost of living  and  how the US withdrew from Afghanistan. But I suppose in all Democracies thats how it goes, the current PM or president gets blamed by citizens ?

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by BruceVC

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

Why not simply equip every single police officer / public servant a body cam? Turn it on at the beginning of the shift...download it into the database at the end of the shift...problem solved wrt inaccurate representations of the situations?

That does seem to be the obvious solution, I think its a budget problem for all police and it will differ from state to state ?

[Gromnir]

cost and privacy issues preclude constant surveillance o' cops. not only that, but am thinking anybody who has seen wonky body cam footage realizes the body cams is nowhere near as effective as sometimes advertised. the cameras have a single viewing pov and as often as not whatever you were hoping to catch with the video is not revealed by the recording. have mentioned previous how there is near fourteen thousand different law enforcement departments/agencies in this country. most current law enforcement agencies can't even afford minimal body cam programs. have some kinda system which would record every second o' every work day and then provide storage for such recordings is a massive undertaking and would need be replicated fourteen thousand times.  

“The easy part is buying the body cameras and issuing them to the officers. They are not that expensive,” Jim Pasco, executive director at the National Fraternal Order of Police, told the Post. “But storing all the data that they collect — that cost is extraordinary. The smaller the department, the tougher it tends to be for them.”

just ain't practical at this time.

HA! Good Fun!

[Hurlshort]

Police departments are paramilitary organizations that spend an exorbinant amount of time training in the escalation of violence, rather than focusing on de-escalation. The argument for defunding the police is to put more resources into social work and mental health care, which are severly lacking in most communities. 

Cameras are cool, but if you've trained officers to pull out a gun at every traffic stop, then video footage doesn't really help that. The entire training process needs to be overhauled. 

Thank you for attending my TED talk.

[Malcador]

5 hours ago, BruceVC said:

But on a serious note I dont have much confidence with these types of reports and more specifically their suggestions and outcomes if you look at the US and how certain states in the US that followed BLM recommendations and you now see the crime rate getting worse and politicians   scrambling to reverse certain changes they made around  how the police are allowed to operate in these states

Which states and cities did that ? And to what degree did they cut ?

5 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Your article mentions " officers to brace for a “challenging” public reaction ", what do you think that means?

It means cops will have their feelings hurt by people saying bad things to them.  Maybe some will pout and quit the job, or something.

5 hours ago, BruceVC said:

The best way to get an  accurate and honest view of what citizens think is to ask people. So in your personal lived experience do you find the Canadian police racist and what has been the overall experience that your family and friends have had with dealing with Canadian police

Thats much more relevant than some report which doesnt represent the overall experience that most people have with the police 

Well, depends on the skin colour of the person you're asking.  I've not really encountered racism with cops, my family have been lucky not to deal with them (other than the roid monkey neighbour I have), just encountered them being bullies.

[Gromnir]

19 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

The argument for defunding the police is to put more resources into social work and mental health care, which are severly lacking in most communities. 

 

a gross overgeneralization. what joe biden and bernie sanders has suggested is increasing funding (edit: sanders actual is against the increased funding aspect, but he does want police departments nationwide to have, "well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals," though as is usual with bernie, am not sure how he gets what he wants w/o more money) and developing programs which focus on de-escalation training as well as increasing mental health initiatives. both o' the aforementioned is animated and vociferous in their denials that they support defunding the police even though breitbart and fox continues to claim they is defund supporters. 

some folks who wanna defund the police do indeed wanna get rid o' or diminish cop presence. others simple wanna get rid o' cop use o' militarized equipment and fed subsidized training o' overt violence. there is no singular defund argument. try and sell the notion that defund the police isn't the stoopid suggestions all too many knee-jerk lefties offered up in the wake o' george floyd is a kinda gaslighting and is beneath hurl.

tell us you endorse the joe biden and/or bernie sanders approach? fine. keep in mind they both claim they ain't defund supporters.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited June 16, 2022 by Gromnir

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Hurlsnot said:

Police departments are paramilitary organizations that spend an exorbinant amount of time training in the escalation of violence, rather than focusing on de-escalation. The argument for defunding the police is to put more resources into social work and mental health care, which are severly lacking in most communities. 

Cameras are cool, but if you've trained officers to pull out a gun at every traffic stop, then video footage doesn't really help that. The entire training process needs to be overhauled. 

Thank you for attending my TED talk.

I assume you joking but if you being  serious you confused by what a paramilitary organization is. You cannot possibly suggest the police in the US are  a paramilitary organization by the  normal definition, this is the definition of a paramilitary organization

A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces.[1] Paramilitary units carry out duties that a country's military or police forces are unable, or sometimes unwilling, to handle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramilitary

 

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by BruceVC

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

Says the one person in the thread who spouts nothing but generalized views on whatever 'far-left, marxist' boogeyman is currently the focus of (conservative, mostly) fearmongering. Did you find that CRT curriculum you were looking for yet?

This thread is, as always, a microcosm that eerily reflects the issues of the world at large. If art is, as Hamlet said, "to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure" then we should probably turn this thread into a masterpice of a cyclical stage play where every month we write a new script that is essentially the same characters talking about the same things, and nothing ever changes. Every now and then an actor is replaced by another, but the roles remain the same.

In a way, this is the greatest achievement of the repetitive epic.

[alanschu]

This is an unfortunate sequence of events, and I think it is interesting because Edmonton Police Service ended up using the incident to successfully petition city council to undo a proposed $22m (about 5%) budget cut to the EPS. Part of the justification for this cut is that city revenues are down.

This set the stage for the events that ended up leading to a double homicide.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8911677/chinatown-killings-justin-bone-conditions/

RCMP services deployed to a small rural town near Edmonton to investigate threats at a home. A domestic violence coordinator concluded that no threshold for arrest was achieved, but police were informed the man, Justin Bone, was no longer welcome at the residence. Bone had a condition on his probation that he was not allowed into Edmonton without being escorted by this home owner, so RCMP reached out to EPS to notify them that they were dropping off a man (Bone) in the area and he has restrictions on his mobility in the Edmonton area. EPS confirmed this call happened, though because he hadn't done anything unlawful there was no need to detain him (An action I am not even unsupportive of, although I'm curious about the details of his parole). He was dropped off on the west end of Edmonton at a social service facility, though (somehow, article is not clear) made his way towards Chinatown, which the article points out is actually a nexus for Edmonton's social service hub. Local residents presume that is why he ended up in the area. Unfortunately it seems like lack of space in any of the facilities may have just left him on the street, where he then murdered two residents in the area.

This is a difficult problem to unpack because you definitely can't leave Bone at a place where he is no longer welcome (the home owner that appeared to be tied to some of Bone's parole conditions). Detaining him in a jail may have avoided the murder, although there's certainly valid concerns about police doing that at their own discretion (especially as homeless people already get more than their share of police scrutiny).

 

One of the things I've found frustrating in response is that the EPS used this murder as proof that they should not have their funding reduced; this petition was persuasive towards city council who returned the funding back up to $407m. Alberta's justice minister made a demand on the city to within 2 weeks to have a plan to deal with spiking violent crimes in the area. It should be noted at the start of this year (and the previous 3 years), the UCP government has made increasing cuts towards social services. Given the concentration of social service providers around Edmonton's Chinatown, I do speculate how much of a causal effect that has had with increasing concentrations of people suffering from addictions, homelessness, and so forth and being unable to receive supports. The provincial government has also cut some funding avenues the city had to give to police that were used by police services (mostly around how funds from photo radar get allocated).

 

There's been a lot of drama the EPS has had around these discussions, as well as trucker convoy protests, that also prime me to be skeptical. Some of which include revoking media credentials of a journalist that was critical of convoy responses, and later a "leak" from our police commissioner suggesting that that same journalist is under investigation by the EPS. Also accusations that because one of the city councillors on the police commission (a former police commissioner herself) employs a staffer that has been critical of some of the EPS on their social media that that councillor is biased and should be removed from the police commission so... not super happy with a lot of their actions especially given that they make up about 22% of Edmonton's budget (the highest single entry).

[alanschu]

8 hours ago, majestic said:

This thread is, as always, a microcosm that eerily reflects the issues of the world at large. If art is, as Hamlet said, "to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure" then we should probably turn this thread into a masterpice of a cyclical stage play where every month we write a new script that is essentially the same characters talking about the same things, and nothing ever changes. Every now and then an actor is replaced by another, but the roles remain the same.

Hey man, sometimes we change!

I was curious if any of my old political takes could still be found lol.

It's funny as I doubt I'd consider those social views "far left" now. One of the biggest differences in my world view since then is that I no longer believe that there's a clear distinction between social and fiscal policies and that the two are more tightly coupled than I once thought.

 

EDIT: Oh man this one is GREAT

"Republicans will rethink their platform" after 2012 election. I mean they did, but definitely not in the way I probably would have predicted!

 

One last EDIT: Ahahahahaha

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by alanschu

[Hurlshort]

3 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I assume you joking but if you being  serious you confused by what a paramilitary organization is. You cannot possibly suggest the police in the US are  a paramilitary organization by the  normal definition, this is the definition of a paramilitary organization

A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces.[1] Paramilitary units carry out duties that a country's military or police forces are unable, or sometimes unwilling, to handle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramilitary

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/police-academies-paramilitary/612859/

I took part in a volunteer police training program and came away with a similar feeling. I was idealistic and pro-police entering the program, and by the end I was pretty cynical about the whole thing.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Hurlsnot