https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16207890

This is police corruption, an especially harmful category of corruption that undermindes our entire legal system. It should be 5 years minimum in federal prison. Police should recieve drastically stronger charges and sentences when they violate the law, not the other way around. If someone above was found to have known about it and didn't report it should be 2x.

You show me a problem in modern america (maybe except healthcare) and I bet I could argue this one policy would fix it in one roundabout way or another.

It won't happen for a bunch of structural reasons unless a major party took it up as a major part of their platform but it would work.

Come to think of it, this is one of the very few things one of the major parties could do to get me to vote for them.

Commit a felony, lose your insurance coverage, be unemployable. Happens to doctors; why shouldn't it happen to police?

Go to work for a misbehaving department, watch your premium rise.

Act professionally your whole career, watch your premium drop.

Everybody likes incentives here. Police don't have many right now.

In truth right now, departments self insure for malpractice and spend a ton of money on litigation. They don't care how much it costs, the taxpayer always pays. You can actually get fired after being sued and you just get hired in a department the next town over, because malpractice insurance isn't going to do squat about the boys club mentality that pollutes American police departments. Doctors never protect their own over malpractice like the police routinely do, so we shouldn't even entertain using the model doctors use when it's apples and oranges to begin with.

The key point parent made was that the officer had to pay it themselves.

Every officer would (likely) start paying the same premium, but the one with 4 pending brutality charges slowly making their way through the criminal courts will be forced into retirement for lack of insurance (or outrageously priced insurance).

Not much unlike auto insurance.

And the police union has a bunch of influence over the other cops who might cause everyone's premiums to go up if they tell the truth?

I dunno, I think it's a good try but a more direct approach is warranted. Fire people with a history of complaints. Promote people who don't tolerate bad behavior. Vote for people who will do that, and if that means reconstituting the police force from scratch like in Camden so be it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-jersey-city-disband...

Presumably the same institutions that offer other forms of professional liability insurance. I wouldn't be surprised if the police union offered insurance, but they will have to compete with other insurers in the market. In this scheme, though, if they fail to adequately adjust for an officer's risk then they will either lose money or they will have to overcharge safer officers. The likely reality is that low risk officers would flee to the cheapest insurance and the police union would be unable to protect the riskier officers from higher premiums due to the lack of low-risk officers to balance out the pool.

Just solve the actual problem. Fire the cops that have lots of complaints. Promote the ones that enforce a healthy culture. Vote for sheriffs or comparable that have those priorities. Push for laws that enforce those priorities.

It's certainly no harder nor time consuming than designing and then waiting for a capitalist equilibrium. We know the actual problem, we don't need to assign a dollar value to it to prohibit it, especially since these are public employees.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/22/705914833/epis...

I think the problem is that the system has historically obfuscated a lot of the malpractice.

So I think the real reform is more transparency (body cameras and other things) to make sure infractions are actually exposed.

On other side piss poor suspect don't have a lawyer and capacity to get compensation by "police insurance".

If that's the only way that unit can investigate crime syndicates, maybe that operation shouldn't exist in the first place.

what happened in healthcare will likewise happen with policing... where many wont serve figuring its not worth it... overall, safety will be reduced.

Many citizens don't know that "qualified immunity" is a thing that protects police officers from being held accountable.

QUOTE: "Tragically, thousands have died at the hands of law enforcement over the years, and the death toll continues to rise," said Judge Carlton Reeves, of the US District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. "Qualified immunity has served as a shield for these officers, protecting them from accountability."

SOURCES: - https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/05/ask-the-author-reuters-on...

- https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/qualified_immunity

- https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/04/politics/qualified-immunity-f...

- https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/876212065/an-immune-system

The real problem is the prosecutors are tight with the cops and will never bring criminal charges against them.

Take that one cop who shot the woman in Minneapolis by accident. He was sent to jail. There was something different about that case I can't quite put my finger on.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/us/minneapolis-police-sen...

(Edit: typo)

Prosecutors and mayors wouldn't be so tight with cops if not for 1) the role of police unions and 2) optimizing for conviction rates.

Change the incentives, change the outcomes.

SOURCE:

- https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/how-police-uni...

- https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21290981/police-unio...

- https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/poli...

- https://thelensnola.org/2019/04/11/misconduct-by-prosecutors...

Of course, the conservatives will say that the unusually severe sentence was surely not due to to his name, religion or ethnic origin.

Police, prosecutors and judges are never, ever, ever prejudiced in the fantasy America that they live in.

On top of that they get a chance to have the case thrown out immediately for QI reasons and if that's denied they can immediately appeal that ruling. Also the Supreme Court essentially only takes cases that grant immunity rather than stripping it meaning it's constantly getting tougher and tougher.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/national/crime-and-courts/for-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#United_States

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...

Minor side-rant: I know the law here is that you need to have the physical sticker, but why does the police department feel that the middle of a pandemic is the right time to take advantage of the DMV being slow to mail those stickers out? I bought the damned tags months ago, and they arrived in the mail this weekend...grumble grumble.

This is roughly the same range as a public school teacher, slightly less.

Starting salary: $42,500 Salary after 5 ½ years: $85,292. Including holiday pay, longevity pay, uniform allowance, night differential and overtime, police officers may potentially earn over $100,000 per year.

Add to that: opportunities to get promoted, "private security" gigs, near 100% job security, and a lifetime pension based on their final (highest-paid) years.

As I understand it, the police investigates police abuses. I find that very shocking. My own country has lots of the same issues, but at least it is a separate branch of police which investigates abuse, not a colleague who will have to deal with the backlash if they report dirty acts.

Also DAs have to prosecute these crimes. The same DAs who have to work day to day with the same police department.

There are huge conflicts of interest in there. We need both to end qualified immunity (I did not go into this, but it has soo many issues as well) and have an organization dedicated to investigate police abuse. It needs both to have the authority to do so and to be entirely independent from the accused.

note : in the context here this is not just police corruption (even though that's something that should be taken seriously) but any kind of police abuse.

It sounds good on the face of it, but, even assuming that the public defender's office is staffed with amazing defense lawyers, it seems to me that there's no reason to believe that they'll be able to serve as amazing prosecutors.

Seems to me there's an awful lot of well documented police behaviour that totally doesn't need "amazing prosecutors" to secure convictions. A high school kid standing up and saying "Here's 40 bystander phone videos of the defendant officer using unreasonable force. There are affidavits from all the photographers in exhibit b. The prosecution rests."

(And the flip side to your argument also holds, the Das won't haver the most skilled/experienced defenders available either. Seems totally fair to me.)

The free market is an interesting possible solution. Mandate government LE cases to be tried by a law firm. The law firm cannot be paid by the city, but is only compensated with a % fee of any fines levied as a result of a conviction, as well as any civil cases pre-empted by a conviction (i.e. if you have a civil case for wrongful death, and the defendant is convicted of murder, you effectively immediately win the civil suit as well due to the lower burden of proof for the same crime). Law firms that want to softball their prosecution go out of business, and we can still have lawyers that are well-versed in the prosecution of crimes. I am wary of unintended consequences, though.

Simply changing venues would be an option (i.e. require that cases against LEOs cannot be prosecuted in the county the LEO serves in), but I worry that the level of police solidarity would cause the police in the new county to pressure the DA. It might be worth a try though.

Also in the US we have (or can have—I don't know the statistics on how many districts have them) a separate branch that investigates the police: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcem... . They're still police, though.

What’s needed is something completely independent like: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garda_S%C3%ADochána_Ombudsma...

Agreed completely. I meant to respond to this from my parent (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24358059):

> My own country has lots of the same issues, but at least it is a separate branch of police which investigates abuse, not a colleague who will have to deal with the backlash if they report dirty acts.

I meant to point out that an internal-affairs branch is still part of the police, even if it's nominally a separate branch; and, as such, as you put it very well, their job is to protect the police, not you.

Actually I agree completely, that's pretty much the problem that my home country (France) has. "Police des polices" is separate, but it still falls under the authority of the interior ministry, who also helms the police.

As a result, its mission is very often perverted and they get pressure from the ministry in order to get the result the interior minister wants.

So close .. take the same organization with a different head (somebody completely independent from the interior minister) and that would be great.

I want to suggest another framing; some of the problems current policies give way might as well be features and not a bugs. It certainly has the desired consequences for certain stakeholders. The emotional reactions and lack thereof the public has based on the general impression police casts might as well be "working as intended". Without figuring out that link, designing the best policy solution will still achieve nothing.

Yes I understand the current system benefits a lot of stakeholders. I directly acknowledge that in my post. Unless you are saying the police are going to coup the government to prevent passing legislation here than there isn't much they could do if you got support for this legislation.

This is an attempt at policy design. It sounds reasonable, but in all likelihood you are not an expert, which is important not because of credentials, but because it would have provided us with the expertise to make an informed decision. How much would it cost to implement and operate, paid by whom, at what percentage we would expect to see an improvement, by what target metric, would there be any side effects etc. Just because it seems like a clear route of action and a single piece of legislation doesn’t mean it is simple, and it doesn’t get a free pass because it sounds nice.

> Unless you are saying the police are going to coup the government to prevent passing legislation here than there isn't much they could do if you got support for this legislation

That is not about what the opposition could do, but again about the framing of the problem. Firstly, assuming police is your main opposition is overly simplistic and mostly wrong. Sure, police will be after their own self interest, but they are given that power because it aligns with other interests. Secondly, thinking that it is on us to debate and think about piecemeal legislations to fix things is already a sign of grave imbalance. You have a right to demand “think about this and fix it” from your policymakers, who already are in contact with an army of experts. The fact that you think it is on to you to take this action means whatever mechanism we use to choose and hold those policymakers accountable is drifting towards not working well. That is a more important root cause than any pet policy people feel passionate about. In fact, it is the perfect hangout for a false sense of agency and distraction, while things are rotten at a much much deeper level.

We think we are doing good by participating in democratic processes in this way, but parameters of our participation has been altered way before this particular issue. I suggest focusing on those higher order parameters than tweaking a variable here and there.

In the US alternatives seem to be

* reporting to internal affairs, which is kinda laughable and conflict-prone as that dept reports to the chief of police

* have a PR-worthy case appealing enough for ACLU or some law firm to take your case pro bono

* finance it yourself, unless it just so happens that your assets have been seized by the agency that wronged you, in which case it’s back to the other two

Edward Snowden points out the ridiculousness of his situation in “Permanent Record” - in a fair court trial NSA’s argument would be fair game, but his own counter-argument would disclose classified information and would therefore be inadmissible.

I worked with one police department once a long time ago that tried to institute a policy never letting police or police union member off with warnings. So if an officer stopped a car for an infraction, and found out the driver was police or a police union member, they had to give them a ticket for it. It was arguably pretty successful, especially since there were a lot of rumours that people were driving about with union cards trying to get tickets (no idea how true that was).

There is no perfect system to address a problem like this. But if officers/union members know they’re at least as likely to avoid the possibility of leniency as they are to encourage it, then they are both less likely to commit traffic infringements to begin with and less likely to try corruptly weasel out of them.

1. Demilitarize police 2. Make police disciplinary and complaint records public 3. Eliminate qualified immunity for police

These would be a good starting point.

The problem that most people are concerned with is implicit bias, which includes systemic racism. Corruption is important too but it’s a matter of probable intent where implicit bias is certainly not. That said be very explicit about which problem you wish solved in which priority because will not be solved in the same way.

The distinction is important because if police are to be held to a higher standard for ethics violations, such as anti-corruption, those standards cannot themselves be resultant from systemic bias, such as guilt by association, and achieve the outcome you are hoping for. It has to come from provable intent and legal common person standards (expectation of knowledge). Additionally there needs to be a clear distinction as to whether more aggressive anti-corruption is an enforcement action or a sentencing recommendation. That distinction bears its own second and third order consequences.

Getting that wrong to satisfy a hasty generalization will produce all kinds of unintended consequences not directly associated with policing.

Other problems with America stem from allowing a few people to control everything who then run rampant. Rather we should restructure things with stronger institutions that have more democratic buy in.

The situation sometimes feels bad enough to warrant drastic measures, though these feelings have increased a lot since I expatriated, but the linked article is also genuinely shocking.

No party is going to run on a platform of being tough on police. Most Americans actually “Back the Blue”. They protect the good folks from “them”.

It's only in the past 4 years that the Federal government stopped trying to reduce police brutality and started openly encouraging it.

This is not a problem with the US only and goes beyond systemic racism too, even though that's what's in focus right now.

Undermining trust in society is an enormous problem. The whole reason the west was successful is because people can go about their day without having to worry about nominal costs of corruption in day to day life.

Also, many issues can be handled at one time, and this is a pretty straight forward and quick and easy problem to fix. It’s obviously illegal, it’s obviously corruption, the only question is how much does society want to tolerate it. And the more it tolerates it, the more the parameters of which corruption is okay gets pushed.

Eventually, you end up like a third world country where you expect to pay a bribe or know someone to get anything done.

Edit: also, notice that the US currently has a president whose well known business practice was to not pay vendors and tangle up them up in court. And he’s openly proud about it. In any high trust society, brazen theft and dishonesty like that would be highly shameful, much less get you elected as a leader.

This seems clear evidence that the trust relationship with police was a critical ingredient to the Bill of Rights writers, an essentially a foundational principle in the US Constitution.

Aside: reviewing the Bill of Rights on Wikipedia there's a remark that as of 2018 the Third Amendment (no quartering of Soldiers) has never been invoked in a Supreme Court case. I cannot believe that the Third Amendment has never been invoked in a fight against "civil forfeiture" yet! [1] Yes, the wording of the Third Amendment specifically states "Soldier" and "home" but it seems to me clear that the intent should cover "police" under "Soldier" (again, given the document predates modern police), and "home" should be easily extendable to other private property. The more I think on it, the more I think civil forfeiture is directly a Third Amendment violation. But what do I know, I am not a lawyer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

It’s not obviously illegal to me. Corruption yes, but it’s legal for me to mention during a traffic stop that “my brother is on the job”, these cards are just a physical manifestation of that statement, and it’s legal for a cop to exercise discretion in handling the stop.

It’s corrupt, but I’m not convinced it’s illegal.

Not worrying about the nominal cost of corruption is not the whole reason the west was successful. There are countless of arguments from both sides of the aisle that would show that to be untrue (capitalism, democracy, reward for innovation, acceptance of immigrants, pillaging land/resources, exploiting slaves, etc). The US has always had plenty of corruption so arguing that a lack of it is what made the west successful is difficult to justify.

> Eventually, you end up like a third world country where you expect to pay a bribe or know someone to get anything done.

There are laws today that prohibit bribery of police officers and they are enforced. Not sure this slippery slope type of argument holds water in the face of that.

And I think that is still the case. Get outside, go talk to people, in the real world there is plenty of faith in our institutions.

That's really the problem with the right. Constantly downplaying issues like police reform so they can focus on climate change... wait, what?

And automated policing can be played too, just in slightly different ways.

So when people are shocked by this or talk about how this must be fixed in one way or another that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how complex reality works and how systems are implemented. And wishful thinking.

Instead it is much more interesting to understand how things work and to embrace them. And if someone refuses to accept reality, it will be to their detriment.

You forgot the "if".

It is extremely easy to get out of police incidents with social skills and high-quality ability to manipulate people if you happen to be a white male.

So while justice may be a game to you, to a significant portion of the American public, it's a game they've already lost.

Ask a black family and a white family what "the talk" means. You will get two answers. For white families, "the talk" is about sex. For black families, "the talk" is about how you might just killed because your skin is a little too dark to be walking in certain areas. The talk is about how to keep your hands visible at all times when you have any encounter with police. The talk is about how you will be treated as less than other people, you cannot let that ever make you angry, never let it cause your voice to raise, to always be conciliatory. Because you might get killed.

So I'm glad you find it interesting. It still needs to be fixed.

He got very serious and said "son: 1) Never take make any sudden movements when a cop is approaching your car 2) Don't reach for your wallet until he asks you to. 3) Always say "Yes sir" or "Yes Mam" 4) Keep your hands in your lap or on the wheel where he can see them."

I distinctly remember talking with friends and they got the same talk. We were all white, suburban kids in the southern US. I still basically do all 4 of those things anytime I'm pulled over (don't speed and haven't pulled over in prob 20 years but I know I would still act that way).

Police are definitely out of hand in this country but now genuinely curious how many people get this parental "talk" by race.

That's nothing compared to the systemic comprehensive demonization of black men and boys by police, prosecutors, judges, and civilians.

Was part of that talk, don’t walk down the street with your other Black friend to meet your classmates after a basketball game to the Waffle House because it looks suspicious unless you have your White friends with you?

Did you ever have to be careful walking in your own neighborhood because you “don’t look like you belong”?

114 unarmed Americans were killed by police in 2019. [1]

While any number other than zero is unacceptable, that is also 0.000035% of the US population, or a one in 2.8 million chance. If you are African-American, that goes up to a one in 1.5 million chance – also unacceptable, while at the same time a vanishingly rare occurrence.

You are 328 times – that's 32,800% – more likely to die of suicide than to be killed by police. You are 733 times more likely to die of diabetes than you are to be killed by police.

Police reform in the US is absolutely needed. But suicide prevention and healthy eating are objectively much greater problems that need solving, and are at very least worth as much of "a talk" with developing children.

[1] https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/nationaltrends [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Also, getting killed is only one hard-to-hide extreme flavor of police brutality. There are also beatings, rapes, and theft (both civil forfeiture and simple banditry).

We already dedicate resources to suicide and diabetes prevention.

We do not have to wait for them to be 0 before we look at the problems with the police force.

You are also using percentage of the total population. Rather than percentage of police interactions. Why, because you know that second number is really bad. Because very few people interact with the police every day.

But, you know, I'm glad you agree that it's a real problem.

Are you suggesting we embrace police giving certain members of society more rights or ability to break the rules more than others?

In the US at least, I think that this is only true for white people, or at least for people who appear to be high-status. I don't see any way a homeless person could avoid being moved out of a park or, more dramatically, George Floyd could have avoided being murdered, by social skills and manipulative ability.

Maybe if you're trying to get out of a speeding ticket or something then that can help you but in my experience most cops have heard it all before.

Bottom line if you're resisting arrest...in the US they're going to restrain you...often very violently.

Obviously the excessive force part is another topic altogether. Once someone is restrained no one should ever die (what happened to George Floyd after he was restrained is obviously horrific).

I'm all for being realistic. So let's alter the incentive structure in a way that realistically improves this. This is the exact kind of issua our congress is designed to be there to legislate on

Perhaps you could work as a police officer in the USA for a few years to get an authentic perspective. Based on your ideas, it seems like you're a large consumer of media narrative. There's no magic pill buddy.

This is corruption. I've never understood how things like this can happen in the US - why is this tolerated?

If this happened in the UK I'm fairly sure it would be raised in the press, then parliament and then the Home Secretary (in charge of policing) would be forced to make a statement and likely do something about it.

There is a culture in the US that the police are pristine warriors of justice and any accusations of wrong-doing are denied and ignored. There are also many laws that specifically protect LEO and government officials in general because there is a natural ethos that everyone working for The Good is always Good and whatever Bad they did must have been in the duty and service to The Good. Immunity is easy to achieve when the entire legal system wants you to be immune as a class and we are currently having a debate about qualified immunity regarding police in the US.

In my view it is the entire system that is corrupt. A fish rots from its head as they say.

There is also a sentiment that there are so many laws on the books that there is nothing wrong with breaking them or LEO letting people off the hook.

If the average person is good and still commits "3 felonies a day", then it is easy to believe that LEO is giving people a reprieve from systemic injustice, opposed to carrying out injustice.

Nobody shames an individual who get out of a speeding ticket with a warning, when the individual was randomly selected from 10,000 other speeders the same road that day.

It’s the same people arguing for maximal support of the police (e.g. to beat the shit out of people for no reason, to confiscate innocent people’s cash and just keep it, to threaten people with made up charges and get them to sign false confessions, to fabricate evidence, to illegally stalk and harass anti-police-brutality activists, etc., and suffer no consequences) and arguing that friends of the police shouldn’t get punished for their infractions if they have the special card. (And also the same people arguing against both things.)

More realistically, the little “courtesy cards” are a result of tribalism and corruption, and have nothing whatsoever to do with “systemic injustice”.

I am saying that the general public is not very offended by "courtesy cards" because they think the law is bad to begin with.

If I don't think speeding and jaywalking should be a crime, I certainly don't care about people using cards to get off the hook for these crimes.

I see this as a separate issue from police brutality, confiscation, ect.

You have diametrically misunderstood the point of the “3 felonies a day” book/argument, and you are shoehorning it in here to confidently promote your pet theory, without evidence.

I agree on both counts. They are proponents of police discretion to let them off for crimes they dont want to be charged for, and have no problem with it.

>to e.g. constantly pull black people over and give them tickets for made up infractions just for the fun of it. It isn’t the “friends and family” of the police who want to end stop-and-frisk, decriminalize minor drug offenses, end cash bail, stop funding police departments from speed traps, ...

I disagree and dont know where you are getting this from. The characters in the article clearly wanted to get off the hook themselves, but that doesnt mean they want to see minorities targeted and abused. I want to get off the hook when stopped for speeding, but that doesnt mean I want police to be shooting and terrorizing minorities.

>You have diametrically misunderstood the point of the “3 felonies a day” book/argument, and you are shoehorning it in here to confidently promote your pet theory, without evidence.

Again, I disagree. The point of the book is that everyone is a criminal and LEO can currently use their discretion to go after anyone they choose to. MY POINT, is that by making 100% of citizens criminals, we have eroded public support for the enforcement of the law. Those who get get caught for everyday crimes are considered unlucky, and those who get off the hook are celebrated. We should enforce the laws we have uniformly, and get rid of the ones we don't want. This is far superior to unwanted laws on the books and rarely enforcing them hoping we wont be affected. Infrequently enforced laws are terrible for a number of reasons, but a big one is that those without power and connections are the ones who are most likely to be affected.

I'm not saying lawbreakers or corrupt police are freedom fighters, just that the root cause is garbage laws which neither the police or citizens believe in.

I think this type corruption is inevitable when you have legal system where the police are responsible for arbitrarily enforcing the law on an arbitrary subset of offenders.

If you remove or universally enforce the law, the grey area for this type of corruption will go away.

They want the law enforced against people who don’t look like them.

See the “War on Drugs” vs. “Drug Abuse is a Disease” when it hit “rural America”.

I'm certainly not advocating for these arguments, but I believe it's important to accurately understand that which you fight against.

I suspect a lot of the counterproductive emotional reactions are a result of the fact that so much force is involved, but I'm not sure how to mitigate that.

Usually when I disarmingly unpack the "rule of law" issue with people, their argument is more akin to "if we crack down on police, then it will empower criminals" which is a different disagreement than whether all cops are good or all cops are bad. Their argument is perhaps more aptly described as "we have to choose between mostly good cops and mostly bad criminals and we'd rather take the former". They would rather police rough up a few protesters if it means dissuading rioters from burning the neighborhood down.

Of course, I firmly believe we can have our cake and eat it too--after all, better policing seems to exist in Europe, but it takes some faith and imagination, especially when I'm honest with myself about the ways in which we differ from Europe (wealth inequality, diversity, corruption, 2A rights, etc). I'm a pretty educated, articulate person who has thought a lot about these issues. I can certainly appreciate how the every-man would see things differently.

I think that means it's incumbent upon us to communicate a vision of things working properly that addresses our unique challenges, and I certainly don't blame people for failing to be persuaded by the riots, protests, and generally demeaning rhetoric.

1: https://time.com/3644168/new-york-police-de-blasio-wenjian-l...

The stated desire is to prevent government abuse of powers by keeping the governments small and limiting the powers of the larger ones, but if you look at actions rather than words, it's less about restricting government and more about preserving existing power structures.

Reconstruction is one of the most egregious examples.

And even were it not: the unquestioned (and, tbh, often profoundly racist when not merely corrupt) localized governmental structures in question are still wrong, so attempting to sandbag criticism of them by pointing at the federal government, regardless of its status, smells a mite bit fishy.

Its current primary function appears to be taking in tax dollars from regular middle class people and transferring them to corporate campaign donors and special interest groups, or whatever the people in swing districts want to the detriment of everybody else. That this may not legally be corruption doesn't mean that it's doing something good or that we wouldn't be better off on net if it would simply stop doing that.

> Always room for improvement--but the critical difference is that, when it is not, there...

...is nowhere to hide because whatever harm or corruption is implemented at the national level can't be avoided by moving to another neighborhood or another city.

> And even were it not: the unquestioned (and, tbh, often profoundly racist when not merely corrupt) localized governmental structures in question are still wrong, so attempting to sandbag criticism of them by pointing at the federal government, regardless of its status, smells a mite bit fishy.

When something is wrong and someone proposes as a solution something that not only doesn't remove the problem but actually makes it worse, they're not saying that the problem isn't a problem, they're saying that the "solution" isn't a solution.

And given that Florida is disproportionately retirees and a major swing state, all you're doing is proving the point.

There are real benefits to small local government. Yes, there are also problems but that doesn't mean the system is wrong fundamentally. This sword cuts both ways.

Speaking broadly, and particularly of the late 20th century, when the federal government has stepped in to unilaterally overrule state and local government, it has been on the right side of history. There are, of course, a number of infamous exceptions, but the fact that I would likely be unable to converse with you w/o the federal gov't's historic interventions speaks loudly to their efficacy in suh matters.

That local government also tramples rights is more an argument for checks and balances than a reversal of federalism.

I think it's funny that you would use torture as your example, considering that several municipalities (most infamously Chicago and its PD) have been caught torturing suspects and have been placed under federal watch if not control in order to curb their abuses.

What's important about federal oversight is that it is accountability. The ultimate fact is that few institutions, let alone local ones with limited budgets and moral hazards/incestuous conflicts of interest galore, are capable of effectively policing themselves.

The USA has substantially lower taxes and higher salaries, including for the poorest, than the rest of the Western world.

The USA policeforce seems focused on policing, whereas Police Forces in countries like the UK spend time monitoring online behavior whilst ignoring child grooming gangs.

Its also interesting that in the original article, the examples listed are mundane traffic offenses, and the only serious abuse is entirely fictional - from the Sorpranos.

In my experience, they seem mostly focused on figuring out how much time they can get paid for standing around chatting. Others experiences vary, but I don't know many people who would put "policing" high on the list of things US Police focus on.

Police unions and a strong pro-police "thin blue line" culture.

Doctor/surgeon? I think most of their patients are unarmed, hehe :)

Joke aside, police outside the US generally can't do that either.

If they kill someone they shouldn’t, then they get in trouble (yes, I know not always).

"... the agendas of police unions mostly reflect the interests of the institution (the police department) rather than those of the working class."

"Labor unions exist to protect people; police exist to protect property."

[1]: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-to-know-police-unions-l...

Just in our area there was a case where the longshore union organized slowdowns at the docks that eventually made them lose their contract with the only shipper in the area.

What they were fighting for? Stealing two jobs from another union: https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/11/29/longshore-union-faces-...

This is a point of contention between unions. Some (especially the traditional trade unions like the one you mention) see themselves as exclusively representing their current members. Others (typically the newer service industry unions like SEIU) see themselves as promoting the interests of a particular category of workers, whether currently members or not.

When they do, they discover that the police, despite being employees of the city will just refuse to do what they are told. Sheriffs magically turn into constitutional scholars, and start unilaterally choosing what laws to enforce[2], start blatantly violating the city's bylaws, and instructions from the mayor[3], and when pushed in the only way they can be hurt (The budget), engage in malicious compliance.

Picking a fight with the police union is generally speaking, not a politically savvy move.

[1] Mostly by doing a deliberately poor job in the district they represent, and being incredibly vocal that the reason they are doing a poor job, is because the politician is causing them problems.

[2] A number of sheriffs across the country made it clear that they won't issue Covid mask/gathering citations, despite state and local law, because the law is an obvious violation of... Some constitutional amendment that they can't name.

[3] After weeks of violence, Seattle city council banned the use of crowd control weapons. The SPD celebrated the very next day by gassing and blast-balling crowds.

[1] The SPD has been under federal censure by the Department of Justice for the past 8 years, due to fragrant constitutional violations, excessive use of force, racist behaviour, lack of accountability, and a pattern of disciplinary failures. Because of this decree, federal permission is necessary for any large policy changes to be made to the department.

Firing it, and starting from scratch would almost certainly qualify as a 'large policy change'. And, ah, the current administration has made it very clear as to where it stands on these sorts of questions.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-06/lapd-laf...

http://lacity.payroll.finance.socrata.com/#!/year/2018

It was a bit of a head scratcher for me. I remember, for example, when it was uncovered that one official had been gifted a very expensive custom-made shotgun. The news anchor was very solemn in reporting this outrageous misdeed. Rewind 9 or 11 months earlier and the exact same anchor was cheerfully reporting a public ceremony in which a visiting Olympic dignitary was presented with a gift from the organizing committee formed to win the bid. It was a happy day filled with optimism and hope for what might soon be. Lots of flash bulbs. That publicly-presented token of good will was the custom-made shotgun.

Here's another example: When was the last time you saw a big shiny 4-door 4x4 with a company placard hauling a boat on a weekend? The company placard is for a construction company or something that is unrelated to towing boats on non-business days. Does it even register with you that this is probably committing some kind of tax or business impropriety? The truck is written off as a business expense, but its main purpose is personal. Do you even care? Does anybody care? Probably not too many who pass the boat doing 10 miles over the speed limit. Probably not the LEO who passes the people passing the boat. Probably not the guy at the marina who notices that the registration on the boat is expired, but sells beer to the 20ish-year-old kid driving the truck without ID.

I think it shows that a sizable portion of the citizenry considers this acceptable. I.e., they're enamored with the idea of getting preferential treatment for themselves or their friends, with little regard for the implications. It makes me figuratively (and a bit literally) want to vomit.

That only makes sense if you assume a sizable portion of the citizenry knows about it.

I think people assume that cops are imperfect and let people off if they know them, or feel like it (the average hetero male cop probably lets disproportionately more pretty girls off with a warning), but that as a judgement call it's hard to alter (and there are good reasons to allow judgement calls). That it's often formalized and systematized into cards that are given out is another thing entirely, and I think you need to prove the average person knows it's happening before you can use it as evidence as to how average people feel.

Are you kidding? At least growing up in the 90s every teenager knew about PBA cards and any kid with cops in their family would eagerly whip out their collection of PBA cards for bragging rights. There were even different levels of cards, associated with different levels of officer you had connections too.

I was honestly surprise to see this as 'news' since at least where I grew up this was widely known.

Have you considered that it might be affected by locale, and be more prevalent in some areas than others? I grew up in the 80's and 90's, and I never heard of this and have never seen a card.

What makes you think your experiences with this when you were a teenager scale to everyone in the United States?

Cynically, the answer is "what are you going to do about it, punk?"

Because "police" in the USA can mean a lot of things, from county Sheriff, to city police to state police to FBI or one of the other 2 dozen armed federal agencies. It's a patchwork. There's no central authority to enforce some kind of standard of behavior.

Consider for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_Policing_Inquiry

« In 2012 Theresa May had commissioned Mark Ellison QC to review allegations of corruption » « The Undercover Policing Inquiry or Pitchford Inquiry … is due to report back in 2023 »

Whether ‘get out of jail free’ cards are acceptable is a yes/no question.

Also keep in mind police force generally targets minorities more. So if your country doesn't have an obvious minority population that has systemically been kept behind, you're not going to see as much police corruption. But it's there.

As a brown person, my worst experiences with cops was in UK and Germany. When I tell people this they're quick to dismiss it by "This shit doesn't happen here"

I don't buy this. There are plenty of ethnically homogeneous countries that also has rampant police corruption (e.g. in Eastern Europe), and there are tons of other parameters that affect police corruption overall. We can't single out presence of minorities as a factor.

I'm quite confident the police don't treat them particularly well, either.

What first comes to our minds doesn't constitute data, and is prone to create availability bias.

Percentage of Roma for several Eastern European countries are; Bosnia And Herzegovina: 0.36% (2013), Serbia 2.1% (2011), Macedonia 2.7% (2002), Albania 0.6% (2011), Croatia 0.4% (2011), Ukraine 0.3% (2001). There is no substantial Roma minority, in fact Roma is usually one of the smallest among other minorities in these countries.

Bulgaria: 10.3%, Romania: 8.3%, Slovakia, 9.2%.

This same source has Serbia's percentage as 8.2%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people#Contemporary_iss...

I would call these numbers substantial. Your mileage may vary.

Either way, if the OPs hypothesis is true, we should see a change in corruption levels with minority percentages. I’m not an expert in Eastern European criminology, but I highly doubt that is the case. There might as well be Eastern European countries with substantial Roma population, for some definition of “substantial”, but that doesn’t change my original point that high cultural homogeniety and high police corruption definiely does co-occur.

Brown lives does not matter in Eastern Europe. Only thing that saves their lives is that gun ownership is not popular and cops cannot claim that they felt threatened. Beatings though...

On the other hand, you can always find a disliked minority somewhere. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/is-e...

Citation needed.

EDIT: Also forgot to mention that cops here know not to bother car with "nice" licence plate numbers, interestingly enough, even though the numbers should be random, there is a class of people who tend to get them disproportionally often...

The police, and city councils, in the UK have tacitly permitted, for decades, systematic child rape as seen in the Rotterham grooming scandal [1] and numerous others throughout the country. How can you suggest that cops wouldn't look the other way for minor infractions when there are countless examples of them ignoring obscene and severe crimes of the worst sort against the most vulnerable?

I don't want this to come off as a "my country is better than yours" but at the same time, I don't think using the UK police as an example of anything to aspire to is a good idea.

1 -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_explo...

Defund the police for being too worried about racism to do their job. Wait ... what?

When it was widely reported in the press, the public were disgusted and the government took action.

I’m not saying that the UK police are perfect, or the UK is better than the US. Just that this kind of systematic, widespread behaviour that many/most people find unacceptable would be stopped.

The fact that there is an investigation decades after the fact doesn't really negate what I've written.

My point isn't really about the grooming gang scandals though. My point is: UK police look the other way for the crime of child rape, why should I believe they don't look the other way for minor infractions?

https://theconversation.com/northern-irelands-police-transfo...

As far as I am aware, nobody thinks LEO is letting murders go as a favor. For example, 90% of Americans ignore posted speed limits, as do LEO. When someone gets a speeding ticket, it seems bad luck and unfair. This makes it seem more acceptable for LEO to let someone off the hook.

2. You can't easily do something about it other than taking away police discretion. Unlike with a traditional bribe, where something is exchanged for something, you can't demonstrate that the person got off for the card compared to the officer just deciding to give them a break.

If someone breaks the speed limit it should be 30 day license suspension and impounding their vehicle.

I mean... that's not why the limit is there. The limit isn't "how fast can you possibly go without feeling out of control", it's "how fast can you possibly safely go". Are they still operating with 20th century cars in mind? Yeah, but it's hard to argue that a school zone should be 60 MPH.

Most people who complain about speed limits are complaining about freeways, not surface streets.

I would guess it has something to do with the strict adherence to the keep right/pass left rule.

And by car! A truck or an older SUV will have a far worse breaking distance and does not corner well compared to any sports car or sedan. So even assuming you a perfect situational analysis, you still could not post an exact limit.

So on roads with speed limits that are far too low you get people driving together at very different speeds, which results in more accidents.

[0] I can't find the source right now but IIRC in one of the experiments they increased the speed limit by 5 mph on a highway, but the speeds driven only increased by 1 mph.

In the UK, many drivers view them as targets. Driving under the limit will often lead to tailgating. Especially in overtaking lanes.

In Australia, for example, at least when I got my license, you were explicitly told that you are

"required to drive at the maximum possible speed that is: within the posted limit, appropriate for the weather and road conditions, and within your ability to maintain safe control of the vehicle".

The latter is literally encouraging the populace to commit crimes. The latter is hard to challenge the selectivity of in court because it is theoretically strict liability. The latter results in the unelected enforcement officials making up the criteria entirely instead of being given criteria by the elected officials.

If the "cards" are banned, their still would be a system for insiders to show they have access to special benefits and treatment.

I mean, I would think they'd be forced to resign, in practice.

Letting some people get away with speeding and other minor crimes isn't seen as an corruption, or something that needs to be stopped. It is also still up to the police to make the decision either way, they can still give you a ticket, flashing a PBA card could make some situations worse.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/police

This year seems to have had less focus on Britain, and more on problems abroad.

From an outside-the-US perspective, the stack of “Things I’d never believe about the USA, please, Alex” is just getting higher and higher.

How is it legal to have preferential treatment, no matter under what circumstances, for ‘friends of the police’? Is Lady Liberty not famously blind while balancing the scales of justice ? Does the maxim “justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done” somehow not apply in the USA ?

Over the last few years, it seems to me the rock that used to be the USA has been overturned, and all the slimy creepy little nasties are being exposed to the harsh light of day. What happens in a few months is going to be critical to the soul of your nation. Get it right, I doubt you’ll recover if you don’t.

The stuff Americans learn about in primary school about US history, respect for the constitution, blind justice, etc. is a very very "polished" version of what actually happened. It's a shame to hear that even people from outside the US get this whitewashed history.

[0] As a simple example, it was common until the early 20th century for police and state militias to be brought in to break up what are now legally-protected workers' strikes, often with fatal results for workers, where no one was held accountable for those deaths. Police were a tool of the elite, land- and business-owning classes. And to some extent they still are.

My son the disable vet could not seem to get a ticket. He occasionally speeds, not egregiously, but the Fort Benning parking sticker on his truck window and the military ID in his wallet made a difference in the attitude of the officer.

You get a "baker's dozen" because the baker likes you.

There is a big, bright line between “favors for valued customers” and “corruption”.

The cards are literally corruption and bleh, but being friendly with the cops (or anyone) getting you special treatment sometimes is a human thing.

Yes, we are. A public official doing a law-related favor for someone based on their group affiliation is exactly what corruption is.

> being friendly with the cops (or anyone) getting you special treatment sometimes is a human thing.

That is not a universe anyone should have to live in. If you miss out on an extra baked good because you're not buddies with the baker, it's no big deal. If a cop treats you more harshly because you're not a friend of the police, that is a big deal.

Bakers can't deprive you of your life and freedom. Cops can.

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/Bakers-dozen.html

Not literally handing it over, but I've seen this work a few times growing up.

No, in two ways

First, that lass with the scales is Justice not Liberty.

Second she doesn't always wear a blindfold, the depictions of her vary considerably in that regard, and there's a good chance there's a depiction of Justice near near you where she can see perfectly well.

And Justice is holding something important in her other hand, which artists (and perhaps other people symbolically) sometimes forget.

Liberty is the one with the book and the torch.

Unlike Lady Justice, cops are not blind at all - they can pick and choose when to enforce the law. I forget what it's called, but the police are literally given the option for some laws to just not enforce the law if they don't want to. If the cop is in a good mood, they can decide to just let it slide. If they're in a bad mood (or they don't like the color of your skin) they might prefer to enforce it.

See also the CHP 11-99 Foundation license plate frame which djmobley posted about in this thread.

You don't want every jaywalker dragged into jail "on principle".

It's probably true in most countries that if the cop likes you, you can get away with much more than if they don't. But this brazen selling of "freebies" does seem uniquely american.

But the story doesn't end there. The police in NYC are divided into 77 "precincts." Just 3 of those 77 divisions issued 40% of the tickets. Those precincts are predominant black and hispanic areas (Claremont Village, South Bronx, High Bridge). Meanwhile, 37 precincts didn't issue even a single jaywalking ticket all year.

If police officers used their personal discretion in some sort of consistent or even completely random way, it'd be fine, but clearly it is enforced in a terribly uneven way, even consciously or unconsciously.

Why not?

I think a charitable way to think about it is that jaywalking can sometime be a serious threat to public safety but most of the time its harmless. So we have a law against jaywalking in general but in practice its more like a law against jaywalking that causes a breach of public safety. But the latter condition is hard/impossible to really codify so in practice the best way to deal with it is just make a law against jaywalking and then make the second condition discretionary on the part of law enforcement. It is of course abused frequently (police may be much more likely to hassle minorities or people who "look suspect") but I'm not sure the alternatives would be better on net

Agree that jaywalking can be a threat to public safety. The law, as written, should account for that. "A pedestrian shall not cross a public road outside of a crosswalk intended for pedestrians, unless it is safe to do so." Yes, there's then a bit of wiggle room where a cop and jaywalker can disagree on what is and is not safe. But at least that's something you can argue in court, and the cop needs to argue why it wasn't safe, while the pedestrian needs to argue why it was.

As it is now, if you get a jaywalking ticket, you probably got one not because you were doing something unsafe, but because a cop didn't like how you looked; no cop is going to waste their time on a jaywalking ticket unless they have an axe to grind. But what is this pedestrian to do? Go in front of a judge and say, "Your honor, I know jaywalking is illegal, but everyone does it, I was doing it completely safely, and I think this cop has it in for me"? Right, like that'd work.

I jaywalk all the time and think it's mad that we have laws written strictly against it, even though I know those laws are rarely enforced. For me it doesn't matter; I'm financially comfortable enough that if, against all odds, I got a jaywalking ticket, I'd just pay it and move on. There are many people, some who might be more likely to be targeted by police, for whom that kind of fine would be a financial burden. Not to mention that taking time off work to go to court for it would be impossible.

I do take your point though. It is easy for legislators to pass laws against all manner of things because they know that the police won't be patrolling their neighborhoods enforcing them.

...it remains one of the more blatantly shady-feeling things I remember encountering in the US.

Though obviously lesser significance than the same behaviors from your police force.

I recently got a camera citation for not stopping completely behind the line before turning right on red. Fine was $125. If I paid the fine, it would be treated as a parking ticket. If not, it would be a moving violation and points would hit my license, if I lost the case.

I feel like, if a cop thinks I broke the law, they should stand behind that. If $125 convinces the cop that I didn't really break the law, that sounds like corruption to me.

It was a system blatantly established to prevent people exercising their right to contest a fine. New government abolished this arrangement as it was blatantly unfair and illogical, and also reduced compliance.

They also removed on-the-spot warnings and fines, having all interactions reported and justified-to and reviewed by a separate governing body before an infringement or warning is issued. Taking a great deal of power away from the transport officers.

These all seem like pretty straightforward measures to avoid corrupt or even just unfair practices.

There's no reason why the state should go to court over every infraction. You hopefully learned a lesson about stopping the car, why should the state spend thousands of dollars on a court case and make you spend a lot as well?

That would be very different if they said "you can get a ticket or you can donate the money to my wife's charity."

They're essentially saying "you can get a ticket or you can donate money to the city".

The way this applies to someone who can't afford the ticket is a bigger problem, similar to cash bail. If you can't throw them some money, you get shafted 10x worse.

The only reason cities and towns abuse speed traps is that it's profitable. If the costs exceed the money they bring in they might shift those resources to real crimes and fix the artificially low speed limits.

I'd say that period was likely the birth of the American tendency toward litigiousness. The legal profession exists and is so lucrative specifically because of the shape of government and the law.

[1]: As far as I know, being a lifelong New Yorker.

[2]: https://twitter.com/placardabuse

Officially they're just to support the LEO orgs, but there's also anecdata in my friend group that having one (or more) makes you more likely to get out of most things with just a warning.

[0]: https://the100club.org/about/#what [1]: https://twitter.com/sighborgs/status/1246113527158497282

[1]: https://the100club.org/newsroom/

Even the signal it is sending stinks. The law should apply even to other cops (on and off duty but that is another story) equally as any other citizen. If just being friends with a cop gets you some special entitlement then what does being a cop mean, near total immunity?

That's been more or less the case, yes. That and the systemic racism exhibited while they get this near-total immunity is a large driver behind the recent protests.

Regardless, the police officer doesn't benefit directly from being shown a "courtesy card", so it's not like a cop is going to pull someone over just for the hope of getting shown one of these cards. But in countries where police bribery is prevalent, police will often stop people who are doing nothing wrong, simply because they want a bribe.

So I agree that these two practices aren't the same, but not for the reason you state. Both practices are awful and disadvantage people who are unable to participate (don't have police friends, can't afford a bribe), but the "courtesy card" garbage at least doesn't create a police-citizen extortion situation.

In places where cash bribes are common, police will pull people over -- even if they've done nothing wrong -- in order to solicit a bribe.

That sort of thing isn't possible with the "courtesy cards", so police stops are more likely to be for legitimate reasons (or at least no more or less legitimate than in an ideal system), but people who shouldn't get away with things often will.

I mean, its not the same as bribery. But its the kind of thing that creates the mindset of people like Rittenhouse (Kenosha Shooter).

Showing off a "pro-police" political affiliation (be it a FOP sticker or a PBA card) makes the cops go easy on you for minor infractions.

The problem happens when people who are "pro-police" start showing up at protests, staying past a 8pm curfew, and then shoots three people in self-defense (allegedly).

On the one hand: the Sheriff of Kenosha refused to deputize these people and had the foresight to see what issues the behavior would cause. On the other hand: there's a low-level expectation "friends with benefits" with Police culture. If you're a friend of the police, the police reciprocate that friendship back to you. And one can argue that things are unfair in that regards. (Ex: failure to enforce the curfew on Rittenhouse)

----------

With that being said: I've been to countries with explicit bribery. The American way is better. Period. There's no comparison between this behavior and bribery.

But there seems to be an unfairness even in the American way, which is discussed in the core article and exemplified in Kenosha (and IMO: the Kenosha shooter is just the highest-profile example of this debate).

I’m not sure I understand why this is even mentioned - it seems like you’re giving him credit for it, but why on God’s green Earth would he have done that? That would’ve been crazy, right?

>With that being said: I've been to countries with explicit bribery. The American way is better. Period.

I’ve been to (and lived in) countries where there’s pretty much neither - surely that’s where the bar should be?

Well, if the question is "Is this better than bribery", I can say without a doubt that its better than bribery. When EVERY traffic ticket is really a request from the local officer to shake you down for money (you may have not been speeding. Doesn't matter, the local cop wants his breakfast or whatever and knows that bribes are widespread. They stop you for a ticket, which is really a request for a bribe). There's simply no comparison.

> surely that’s where the bar should be?

Well yeah. But the people I was responding to was comparing the behavior to bribery. And bribery is what I have experience with.

You really, really don't want to live with a bribery culture. In this case, you're declaring friendship with the cops (through the use of an FOP sticker or PBA card, or whatever the local police union is). And that's where you get exceptional behavior.

Yeah, the USA has civil asset forfeiture, but given the red tape behind that, its still a step up from bribery.

-----------

> I’m not sure I understand why this is even mentioned - it seems like you’re giving him credit for it, but why on God’s green Earth would he have done that? That would’ve been crazy, right?

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2020/07/01/cla...

Its not crazy in America. These things come down to the local sheriff's decision. I think people underestimate the power of the Sheriff in many cases.

I bring it up because Sheriff of Kenosha seems like a reasonable person, compared to other Sheriffs across the country. On the one hand, the Sheriff of Kenosha is responsible for the actions of his own officers (and in this case: responsible for the failure of his officers to arrest Rittenhouse for violating curfew).

On the other hand, the Sheriff of Kenosha cannot fight the "greater police culture" that's across America. The expectation for pro-police people to be treated with leniency is endemic in virtually every place I've been to in America (again: FOP decals or PBA cards): along with "Police Bill of Rights" (special protections to officers that normal people don't get), and so forth.

The original comment bizarrely asserted that bribery is more democratic than the cop-buddy system; that's what I was responding to.

I'd of course prefer a third choice where neither of these things happen.

This exists, but is relatively small in scope. And no, I don't agree with the "universal bribery is democratic" argument, because the end goal is to arrive at 0 bribery.

Outright bribes can be demanded on the spot for infractions that’s don’t exist. They incentivize stopping more people to demand them. They directly benefit the responding officer and can become a core part of their income. Once that happens you’re really screwed as the only people willing to become cops are dirty cops.

> It's still corruption.

I didn’t say it’s a good practice. But just because it’s bad does not mean it’s worse than living with a “police tax” every time you’re stopped.

> The article shows you can buy these cards on eBay for <$100.

That’s be pointless and is for suckers. The cop is supposed to contact the source to verify the relationship.

> Mike works in an industry that regularly puts him into contact with police officers, which gives him the opportunity to form personal, trusting relationships with them. As such, he said, he frequently receives PBA cards as a thank-you for extending cops small business favors and deals; currently, he estimates that he has somewhere between 10 and 12 unexpired courtesy cards in his possession.

That is literally a bribe.

Is it not possible for both things to be true?

Would it be? Buying bribe credits ahead of time doesn't seem inherently any better than on-the-spot bribes to me. Arguably worse; if it really is the case that small business owners get these with favours, then unless they're reimbursing the company personally for the bribe purchase, they are purchasing personal items through their business. So add tax evasion to the list of sins.

There should be one law for everyone, and if two random people with similar criminal histories break the same law in different places we should expect their outcomes and sentencing to be very similar. Right now this is far from the case.

Maybe the big problem is not the discretion, but that it isn't recorded? For example, i think it is complete corruption that LEOs and their families generally get "professional courtesy". I've heard the argument that it is a perk of the job. I disagree, but if you accept that argument, I would say: let the judge and courts handle the forgiveness of the offense and have it recorded in documents. Make it an official procedure and it will not look like corruption.

I think it’s unfair to use term zero tolerance to describe equal enforcement. Zero tolerance is a specific sentencing pattern which uses harsh punishments for crimes. Equal enforcement is about making sure all groups have the same relationship with the law. If the laws on the books are overly harsh once enforced than we should change those laws.

Debating whether this is bribery or nepotism is pointless, because the appearance this gives should be plenty to fire officers who hand out such cards.

Conveniently, they supposedly write their name on the cards they hand out :)

[0] https://priceonomics.com/can-you-buy-a-license-to-speed/

Although its now 2020, where every 300 gram toy drone will automatically refuse to fly anywhere near an airport. It took 0 drones taking down 0 airplanes to do that. Modern cars can trivially enforce the speed limit, but we have ten thousands of deaths and counting every year and it's not happening.

Not sure about everywhere, but speed limits are first glance limits in at least some places, where other evidence can prove that a speed above the limit was not "speeding". Speed limits don't know what traffic is doing, they don't know road conditions, they don't know if you have an emergency. They're just a number set by ideally an engineer, or less ideally a party with conflicting interests (revenue).

I had to drive someone to an emergency room once. There wasn't time or money for an ambulance. If my car was automatically enforcing speed limits, they might have died.

Moreover there are far, far, far fewer no-fly zones than speed limit zones. A no-fly zone is a fairly simple polygon -- are you inside or outside. Every street has its own speed limit, which can vary from 5mph to 80mph in the US, and traffic on some freeways is consistently higher than 80. Some highways have dynamic speed limits, e.g. 65 at night and 55 during rush hour. School zones and pedestrian crossings have limits based on whether someone has switched on a light, or times of day, or even just the presence of children.

So no, you cannot have, and do not want, automated in-vehicle enforcement of speed limits.

Also the "no simple polygon" is more an issue of time, right? If I enter a 40mph zone and do 60+mph for a sustained 1min perhaps it should lower my max speed by 4mph per min or similar.

I don't think these are simple problems, but I also think they are far from impossible and if it both makes traffic safer and removes a human corruption element it might be worth it.

That's the point here: you can add cities as simple convex polys and you are already 80% of the way there. Drones don't need to listen to air traffic either.

Plus, this is all assuming such a system could be implementing flawlessly. In practice, such a complicated and messy system would have a million bugs. Who keeps the speed limit database of every single road in country up to date? How are all of the precise boundaries of every single speed limit zone going to be defined and recognized by every vehicle?

That's not true legally speaking and I'm pretty sure it's not true from a driving standpoint. Why would it be acceptable to break the speed limit to overtake somebody? If you need to speed to be faster than somebody you shouldn't be passing them. If they speed up during the passing manoeuver you should probably slow down and fall back.

If they speed up during the passing manoeuver you should probably slow down and fall back.

If there's oncoming traffic, sure, but not as a matter of principle. Once you start passing, you should definitely finish unless it becomes dangerous to do so.

Also, even if the traffic you're passing is at the speed limit, there are perfectly legitimate reason to pass them. For example, you may want to keep some distance from a heavy truck.

The reality of it is, as someone who has driven thousands of kilometres on unrestricted autobahns, speed is just a trick your ape brain is playing on you. It feels fast, but going 30 mph faster than everyone else just drains your tank excessively while the GPS is not fooled and ticks down the arrival time only by a few minutes by the end of it.

Most people speed (including myself), it's just not a big deal. I mean sure people die, it happens, but that's almost exclusively from distraction.

The police waste far too much time on the issue, but it makes money so they do it. Fully automated enforcement around schools ? Sure. On a 4-lane motorway ? No (Germany has it right)

But to your point, you are correct, the only people left on the wrong side of the law are law abiding productive people who do not have personal connections to law enforcement. Ever other group gets treated with a light touch and has excuses made for them and criminals are now getting off the hook left and right, while the anarcho-tyrannical administrative state increases it's abuses of regular productive and peaceful people.

It's either by design, out of desperation, or due to incompetence; but it will not end well for any of us, regardless.

The entire administrative bureaucracy is in on this racket and it's unfair to pick in the police alone for it. In my state it's not just the police that peddle influence like this. Many state agencies have little identifiers that range from IDs to bumper stickers that they give to their employees with the unspoken purpose of signaling "don't screw me, I work for your team". The most coveted are the court system ones because no matter what agency is trying to screw you none of them want to piss off people who work for the courts. My state also has all sorts of ways to wave fines and whatnot for economic hardship reasons (which I fully support). This creates effectively three classes of people, those who are part of the in-group and treated decently by government. Those who have money and are preyed upon by government. And those who don't have money and are ignored by government unless they are committing serious (i.e. violent) crime because the government gains nothing by cracking down on them. Why can't the government just treat everyone like the former or the latter or, even better, repeal all the stupid laws that have wildly low compliance rates?

A friend of mine who used to get into trouble all the time when he was a teenager got away with a ton of stuff. His father was a chief or something, so every local cop just knew who he was.

You don't want to arrest your boss's son.

I think it kinda stopped when they started giving away the stickers on "enthusiast" car/motorbike magazines etc

That said, being stopped by cop who notices that it's fake probably isn't a good idea :)

https://www.straightdope.com/21341883/in-los-angeles-why-do-...

I suspect its for a similar reason, that either if you get your plate's picture taken or local police can see that right away.

https://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/vehicles/lice...

https://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/vehicles/lice...

Stack that up with a bunch of bumper stickers and, if you're brave, hang a checkered headband on your rearview mirror and you'll have a cop thinking you're a cousin of someone on his squad. (Just make sure you're white)

So a bribe then. Wow.

As citizens of the country we live in, we should all be subject to the same laws and restrictions. Anything less than that is a form of corruption and undermines the whole concept of democracy and a fair society.

/s I think the real issue is that it has been decided somehow that it is our fault for being policed and experiencing the frequent resulting injustices. A police officer can pull you over, stop you walking down the street, etc. etc. and fine you, jail you, or brutalize you at will, and in all but the most egregious cases (that also must become a cause celebre), they can just do it again tomorrow. There's always some justification, no matter how flimsy! That's not to say this violence is evenly distributed among the population. POC, the poor and working class, those who work odd hours and have to drive at 3 AM etc. certainly have a much, much, much harder time than e.g. the median HN commenter. But the answer to the question "What's stopping a given police officer from e.g. breaking my arm while pulling me out of my vehicle?" is much less "they will suffer consequences if they do" and much more "they haven't decided it's what they want to do today"

https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Sticker-Support-Enforcement-Of...

Philosophically, government is supposed to serve everyone equally, but depending on the political views of the alleged criminal, or the self-proclaimed cause that they are supporting while performing allegedly illegal acts under the banner of "civil disobedience" or "peaceful protest", there is an availability of bail funds, selective prosecution, and all sorts of other features of the justice system available on a selective basis - i.e. the banner under which the illegality takes place.

If the principle of selective/unequal dispensation of justice is wrong, it ought to be criticized irrespective of the form it takes. When it is ignored in some forms but other forms result in outrage, it's difficult not to question the motivations of whoever is amplifying this particular flavor of bias.

If it is acceptable for the system to consider banners and offer different features to offenders depending on which banner they are flying when they interact with the system, then this is also acceptable.

I personally would prefer a conversation that looks at the problem of selective enforcement across many spheres.

Otherwise, I don't think you're going to solve the issue of "people only donating bail money to people they like." Because people are going to spend money the way they want.

I put the sticker in the window of one car but not the other.

In the car without the sticker... I got pulled over in West Texas visiting relatives, and the cop literally had his gun drawn as he came to my window. Alone on a dark and empty road, guy with a gun on you -- probably the scariest moment of my life.

In the car with the sticker, in a similar small town in West Texas (lots of speed traps between Austin and Midland)... as the officer was walking to my car he saw the sticker and his whole body language instantly shifted. He got to my window, "Hope I didn't scare you with the lights, you don't seem like you're from around here. Are you lost? Just trying to be neighborly."

I was going 20-ish miles over the speed limit both times.

I looked into getting another sticker and it literally only cost me $25. Significantly better treatment from police doesn't cost very much. Anyway, yup corrupt as fuck... but as long as these exist, for a simple $25 donation, might as well have a CLEAT sticker in your window.

Also, what really bugs me... Police in Texas are allowed to unionize, but Teachers are not. Oof. Been here almost 20 years now, I love a lot of things about Texas, but some of the politics still suck.

PS: Also I keep a Book of the Mormon in my glove compartment, that way if I ever do get pulled over I just casually grab the book when looking for insurance papers. For some reason seems like a lot of cops in Texas are Mormons...

When you find a flaw, do you fix the system or game the system?

That's a pretty broad claim. The cards aren't even big enough to LIST everything wrong with modern policing.

The cards "are an expression of" everything wrong with modern policing. Not sure if you are just being pedantic, but this seems to fit.

Same thing worked with the small silver shields you could give out. I don't really agree with how policing is done in the US and it has started more than one fight with my long retired former police father but as a matter of practicality I still carry his silver shield with me.

He hasn't been an officer since I was 5 or so but even in high school the active police families and the families with ada's or prosecutors all had PBA cards and would give them out.

"If there's a problem, you can check with my friend Officer so and so. Here's his card."

It seems plausible that anti-corruption NGOs could request the bodycam footage (anonymized, I suppose) under public records disclosure laws. (e.g. see https://www.rcfp.org/bodycam-video-access/, though I'd be really interested in what others think about the likely legal interpretations of disclosure requirements.)

Yet another reason to push for more bodycams, and auditability/disclosure of that footage; sunlight is often the best disinfectant.

Maybe incentives for snitching on fellow police would work better?

We really need third party monitoring.

[^0]: https://smaslennikov.com/posts/enforcement/

When the border patrol asked me (the driver) for papers, it took me a long time to produce them and one of my friends woke up, asked what was going on and pulled out his official "bridge operator" badge. Showed it (before I was even capable to find my driving licence and passport) to the trooper and just said "Hi partner": we where waved through.

When I asked what the actual F just had happened, he told me his job made him an "non commissioned officer" and that was all it took for us to be treated as part of the blue family, who go to great lengths to "help each other".

Different times, different continent, same rules.

Having friends in an industry is hard work, so it a meritocracy, it is well earned to have made contacts that will help you.

In this article it's perhaps family, but a family that supports their childrens career in a blue collar job like policing, in a meritocracy, also deserve the reward.

In policing perhaps it's illegal or should be illegal. But it's still a meritocracy.

Society is made up of humans and humans do unfair things. That doesn’t mean that tech companies aren’t generally meritocracies.

Knowing someone at Google/Apple who can help you out with a totally legal tech support issue is nothing at all like police corruption.

But semantics aside, I think this often works without violating company policies. It’s more about having a connection to get the attention of someone who has authority to override or initiate a friendly appeal of some prior judgement call.

It's not a conspiracy where all members of group x get a direct line to Jack Dorsey to take care of things, it's you knowing somebody who knows somebody and that somebody wants to help an innocent person out.

The problem is that Twitter is a private enterprise, and it's okay if they choose to run their system that way. The police aren't, and they're not supposed to favor anyone, no matter who they are. There's a saying in Germany, Dienst ist Dienst und Schnapps ist Schnapps (literally "Duty is duty and liquor is liquor") that articulates that. You might drink with somebody, but you must not let that influence your judgement while on duty. In a private company, that's somewhat different, you can't damage the company, obviously, but you're not bound by law, and company policies are -at best- rough guidelines.

Racial bias in police encounters is a symptom, not the disease.

- The police need social capital. It helps enormously if they can be take at face value for "just doing their job". And this would help in the minor day-to-day interactions that makes up the majority of their working lives.

- Not only is it blatant corruption, the very existence of such cards harms the whole police forces social relationship! It is a "associate infraction with a cop!" card!

If I were a true friend of the police, I would:

- let them do their job fairly (while not letting them get away with unfair)

- not try to associate a cop buddy of mine with my poor decisions!

But a non connected person can get pulled over for something minor and get every ticket they can. This snowballs for poor people that then have more fines on top of fines.

I was given it not having slightest idea what it was for (was only in the NYC/US about two years at that point). I was told its meaning a couple of years later when I found it again during a move.

I've thrown it out.

While I appreciate the gesture from the person who gave it to me, I was repelled by what it represented in terms of how privilege and the police system work.

“Policing was never meant to be held accountable in the first place, not in a meaningful, substantial way,” Wall said. He cautioned against focusing too much on the injustice of PBA cards. “Be careful that the outrage [doesn't] become directed in too narrow a way. The real outrage should be directed at the nature of policing itself.”

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...

A literal get-out-of-jail-free card!

Here in Australia, my receptionist has got out of a few minor traffic infringements because her husband is a friend of a cop.

<edit: elaborate>

In 1997

Unlike meter maids, police officers should be given leeway to let people go. It’s the mandatory minimums and fines you should worry about... cops doing revenue generation for the city. And when their department doesn’t get enough from taxes and tickets, police departments across the country turn to civil forfeiture.

Ideally, the officers should act as if everyone has these cards.

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/local/20100607_Police_s...

Totally agree with this. I think part of the reason they are in issue is it reduces the political pressure on this happening if some people can get this treatment anyway.