It would also help if police were not tasked with enforcing a litany of nanny state laws that shouldn't even be on the books to begin with. Any cop that wants to mess with a citizen can always find some excuse; with all the laws we have, all of us are violating some law every day.
I apologize, but I don't quite get how you arrived at the conclusion you have, specifically this point. Help me out here?
Here's a good example. Sheriff, under the influence, attempts to interfere with the arrest of a stabbing suspect, buddy of his. https://youtu.be/pKraZkl0-eA
We know about this one sheriff because his staff stood up to him and he got arrested but it tells you a lot about the quality of local law enforcement in small towns.
This isn’t to say that federal policies don’t also have issues. If we think something is a right of all citizens (Such as to not be subject to abuse by the police), that only really takes hold if it is applied across the nation, which is federal.
For example, if I live in a small town that where 80% of the people intent their C code with tabs and I use spaces, they could theoretically elect a police chief who espouses tabs-jingoism and treats spaces-programmers less fairly.
> Leaving it up to local voters makes it sound like it's ok for a police dept to misbehave, eg harass minorities or evade accountability, as long as the majority voters in that city/county are ok with it.
In the extremely unlikely event that a majority are ok with it, yes, that would be correct as far as local laws are concerned. That's what "freedom" means: it means people are free to make mistakes. Note, however, that if the corrupt local cops are violating state or federal law, they're still liable even if a majority of local voters are ok with it. I don't have a problem with, for example, local cops being prosecuted for violating a citizen's Constitutional rights.
However, I strongly doubt that a majority of voters in these localities are actually ok with police corruption. I think they either don't bother voting because they don't think it will make any difference, or don't know about the corruption because they haven't personally experienced the consequences. Even in a large city like, e.g., Chicago, the majority of voters will never have a personal encounter with a city cop.
> going to a couple levels in governance (state or federal) makes total sense given the systematic nature of some of the problems
You're assuming that the state and federal levels of government don't also have systematic problems that would prevent them from fixing corruption. That strikes me as a highly unlikely assumption.
While state and federal government aren't devoid of corruption either, at least more homogeneity can be achieved at these levels. Local jurisdictions are more prone to extreme population disparities just by virtue of being smaller.
"Let local residents handle it" was how America went through Jim Crow laws.
Bad officials unwilling to prosecute bad cops is a second symptom
Apathetic electorates electing bad officials unwilling to prosecute bad cops is a third symptom
Municipalities spread all around the country are suffering from the same combination of symptoms. Whether that suggests one national problem or the same local problem in replicate is a question of semantics.
Well, no, we nationally have gay marriage because of federal court decisions voiding state actions prohibiting same-sex marriage as violations of the federal Constitution.
And we don't have legal marijuana anywhere in the United States (we have states which have chosen not to layer state prohibition on top of federal prohibition for some acts involving marijuana, an federal law mandating deferring prosecution for certain acts involving medical marijuana that are consistent with state law. Anyone who actually makes significant money in marijuana would still be subject to the federal drug kingpin laws were the policy deferring prosecution ever to be lifted, and technically without that if any part of their business involved any acts not entirely within the required deferral of prosecution.)
No, "let Democratic State governments of the Southern states handle it" was how America went through Jim Crow laws. Localities would never have gotten away with it if the State governments had not supported them and helped them crack down on local citizens who pushed back.
Moreover corrupt cops thrive because of close knit relationships between local DAs, local law enforcement, local judges and local politicians. A national wrecking ball is needed to break these toxic corrupt relationships and a strong, national institution is needed to create the institutional inertia against systemic police corruption from arising again.
You can't vote corruption out of office. It has to be rooted out from outside. Even the cleanest politicians cannot operate from within a corrupt system.
In other words, if the corruption is not just particular localities, but infects the national government as well, then we're all screwed?
They get stuck with it because 1st world countries insist on continuing to send aid even though the corrupt governments take all of it and it never benefits the people. Not to mention 1st world countries giving legitimacy to those corrupt governments in many other ways.
In other words, on a global level, the idea that corruption in 3rd world countries is "a global problem" has made the corruption worse, not better.
The US is a union of states. Although we have a pretty massive and powerful federal government, many things are the responsibility of the states and the federal government has limited ability to intervene. Using the FBI is one of the avenues I believe though.
I wish more people understood that the reason the USA was set up the way it was was to allow individual States and localities to compete. Corruption doesn't stand up well to competitive pressure: if all the productive people leave your town because the cops and the local government shake everybody down, your town won't survive. So where you see corruption, the first question you should ask is: what barriers are being put in the way of people just leaving?
This "solution" is exactly what created the troubles of inner cities to begin with.
How much did they buy them for in the first place if the place is corrupt and everyone is trying to get out?
If the place became corrupt after all those people moved there, well, whose fault is that? If your answer is "corrupt politicians and corporations who took advantage of the people", well, there's your barrier to free and open competition between localities.
> This "solution" is exactly what created the troubles of inner cities to begin with.
No, what created the troubles of inner cities was completely unrealistic political expectations. People thought that using the government to fix social problems was a wonderful idea. Inner cities today are tragic evidence of how wrong they were.
Overall, no. But the overall averages conceal a huge variation in risk by locality. I agree that "it's a dangerous job" doesn't excuse shooting innocent people or their pets. But the danger of the job in particular localities should not be underestimated.
> Changing their mentality from a warrior to a guardian also does wonders in lowering use of force.
Can you give specific examples? I agree with the general idea but I have not seen much actual data on specific localities where this is done or what effect it has.
> almost half the country think those who got shot by police probably deserved it
Citation needed.
> Almost the same crowd protests wearing masks as stepping on their liberties.
The protest is not against wearing masks where it makes sense to do so; it's against being ordered to wear masks whether it makes sense or not, and subjecting people to criminal penalties for non-compliance. For example, according to some orders (fortunately for me, not the one currently in effect where I live), you are subject to arrest for simply walking out your front door without a mask on, even if you remain on your own property and nobody else comes anywhere near you.
And don't forget that the same cops whose corruption and lack of judgment you and I both deplore will be the ones to enforce these orders. Frankly, it strikes me as illogical for people to be talking about defunding the police on the grounds of corruption on the one hand, and talking about issuing draconian orders that would have to be enforced by those same police on the other.
I reject the idea that all problems have a national solutions, which this seems to be a part of.
Federalism is good, and we should not continue the path of destruction of our federalist society
I think what would be more powerful would be to empower citizens to bring criminal cases against police offers acting in their official capacity. Then at least we could be assured that the prosecutors are motivated to win the case for their clients.
In a national department? You get to the top by putting dirty cops in jail. Your boss's boss does not need to maintain an good relationship with a judge in Georgia. They win in their career by putting more dirty cops in jail.
The more national and centralized and separate from the rest of the police a department like this is the more ruthless it can be.
I'm not really familiar with the details, but it's my understanding the Seattle PD are under some sort of probation system with the DOJ, which I'm guessing the FBI was involved with. So I think this sort of thing does happen, though I guess not enough.
They have a certain amount of ability to do that if the state or local government is violating Federal law. But they do not have general oversight or police powers, since the Federal government as a whole does not. Nor is it supposed to.
Aside from activating / deactivating the camera (with clear guidelines and penalties for doing / not doing so), and connecting it to a network at the end of a shift, it should be a black box. None of the IT functions should run out of the same police force.
Consequently, this also protects officers in the case of equipment failure: timestamp the activation / deactivation signals in a separate log file. If the footage isn't there, but they activated, then it's no longer their reputation on the line, because they had no involvement in the chain of custody.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_bureau_of_investigation
I agree it should be a black box. Rule #1 for accountability is that you don't rely on the entity that's being examined to give absolutely correct info. Whether that's debugging a process or reviewing an organization, outside instrumentation is essential.
The closest thing (and its fairly close, though it doesn't answer to the states or the President directly) is the US Department of Justice, particularly the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division, which addresses "1) the rights of people in state or local institutions, including: jails, prisons, juvenile detention facilities, and health care facilities for persons with disabilities; 2) the rights of individuals with disabilities to receive services in their communities, rather than in institutions; 3) the rights of people who interact with state or local police or sheriffs' departments; 4) the rights of youth involved in the juvenile justice system; 5) the rights of people to have safe access to reproductive health care clinics; and 6) the rights of people to practice their religion while confined to state and local institutions." [0]
But weakening oversight of local law enforcement by DoJ was a major early priority of the current Administration, so it hasn't been particularly active in the particular role you are concerned with for the last few years.
> If Biden is looking to score some points this would be a good way.
I can't really imagine a Biden Administration not ramping activity regarding law enforcement oversight back up.
If only a significant % of america didn't refuse to acknowledge police abuse of power was a big deal (or even happening)
Not... entirely accurate.
Many states possess their own military forces [0], and state National Guard units are dual-chained to both state and national military leadership [1] (in different scenarios).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force#Active_sta...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Guard#N...
They could purchase, maintain the body cameras, collect and handle the footage and be trusted.
If Biden is looking to score some points this would be a good way.