> As long as there's any amount of leeway in enforcement of the law, things like courtesy cards will exist

The moment it’s standardised not only in writing, but as a physical object, it should become trivially prosecutable. The existence of these cards should trigger DoJ intervention. (Maybe the Adams administration’s recent failings will prompt this.)

There won't be any DoJ intervention for two reasons:

1. The existence of these cards has been widely known about for well over a decade.

2. The DoJ is full of cops as well.

> DoJ is full of cops as well

This hypothesis would appear to be disprovable by the DoJ prosecuting cops. (Hint: they do. Including entire police forces.)

This isn't about police exercising their judgement. It's about creating a privileged class who are above the law. This is gang behaviour.

Takes a criminal to catch one, as they say. Deputy gangs have been around since the 1970's.

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

Police are gangs, though, definitionally.

> As long as there's any amount of leeway in enforcement of the law, things like courtesy cards will exist

Do they exist somewhere else?

The police have wide discretion to issue a warning instead of a fine in most countries as far as I know. But these cards seem to be unique to NYPD. I don't mean that corruption doesn't exist elsewhere but usually it's a little less obvious!

They're not unique to NYPD. Cops in New Jersey have them too and I'm sure others.

They're quite unique to the US. I've never heard of anything like this in European or other developed country police forces.

The question is, does cops in civilized countries have them. Because them being a thing in USA is something to be expected.

In my highly corrupt country, it's enough to tell the officer you know person so-and-so. They might ask you a question or two, or even threaten to call the person you claim to know, but they rarely do.

That's what you do in smaller towns in the US. Especially in the South, but I'm sure it's pretty much the same elsewhere. Cards are a big-city thing, maybe even just a NYC thing.

Letting it slide is one thing. Letting it slide because of who someone is, is something else entirely. Just because the behavior will continue to exist doesn't mean it should be actively encouraged or systemized.

I've seen a movie where a cop gives a warning to one of the character and actually enters the warning into the system so that warnings are tracked. The guy is a bad dude that does not want to leave a trace so ends up killing the cop.

I don't know if it's an actual thing.

Edit: I remember now, it was Jack Reacher season 2.

At least in Canada, you can get an official warning where they fill out the ticket slip but don't fine you. I'm not sure how long its tracked for but it is a real thing. Also I do believe that the car being pulled over is likely logged somewhere usually in the officer's notes.

The reason he killed the cop wasn't that he didn't want to leave any trace (though he killed other people over that previously) it's that the car was stolen from someone he had murdered and he knew that that would show up when the cop ran the plates.

Most of the time when a "warning" is given it is because the cop doesnt have sufficient evidence for a ticket. Dont tell the cop how fast you were driving. If they ask, the probably dont know.

Formal corruption like this is a show of force by the enforcers that they are above others. It’s also useful for cops figure out which other cops will cover for them, rather than apply the law fairly (see article).