There's no good reason that reform should be restricted by the need to avoid making cops feel indignant. In exchange for cops obeying the law, we offer nothing whatsoever, including respect for their pride. It's not a negotiation.

I am not the one who brought up race.

But in any case, Police pride is a real thing and you need to account for it in your arguments. Otherwise, actual police reform becomes impossible.

I don't think the police actually are this way, not most of them. But if they were, then the answer would be to start over from a clean slate, not try to work around their delicate feelings.

There's been a drive-by shooting in Baltimore a few weeks ago, but Officer Morale (from the protests / etc. etc.) is so low that none of the officers wanted to do anything about it. Anthony Batts was fired for it, but a change in leadership doesn't change the fundamental morale problem going on with the Baltimore City Police Department.

Officer morale in Baltimore is so low that nobody wanted to respond to a drive-by shooting? Anywhere else, if your morale is so low that you don't feel like doing your job, you get fired and they find new people who do feel like doing their job. Did any Baltimore police get fired for failing to respond to this drive-by shooting? If not, why not?

What recruiting pool do you imagine we get new officers from? And how do you imagine that having a force completely made of inexperienced cops will improve things?

More likely, some of them are prideful and the rest go along. Start disciplining them and you'll get rid of the bad ones and fix the rest. For the example of the Baltimore shooting, no need to fire the whole department, but every officer who was on duty and refused to respond should be fired instantaneously.

At no point did I say that. Hacker News doesn't lend itself to discussion very well, and if you want to stuff words in my mouth, I will refuse to partake in the discussion.

> For the example of the Baltimore shooting, no need to fire the whole department, but every officer who was on duty and refused to respond should be fired instantaneously.

You clearly have awesome leadership skills. You should run for Police Sheriff, clearly you know more about running a police department than everyone else.

Now as to the actual discussion, you said that if we don't keep pride in mind, it will be difficult to get officers to reform. You further presented the example of the Baltimore drive-by which the police refused to respond to after their pride had been hurt. That, to me, sounds like you're saying that if we hurt police pride they will turn on us by failing to obey us and by failing to protect us. Is that not what you meant?

As for my "awesome leadership skills," are you saying that firing police officers who refuse to respond to an incident because they have hurt feelings due to protests is the wrong action to take? If I understand that correctly, please elaborate. In any other job, refusing to do perform a critical duty required by your job without a very good reason is generally a firing offense. Why is that not the case for the police, and what action do you suggest should be taken?

If this is your level of maturity, then I shall have no part in the rest of this conversation. Your "awesome leadership skills" can't even comprehend the concept behind "morale" anyway, I'm not sure where to even start a discussion with you.

There are plenty of people who would be very grateful for the kinds of money police officers can make in a typical city. I seriously don't think there would be a problem.

In any other organization, people who didn't do their jobs would be disciplined or fired. Why are the police different?

I'm just trying to fathom a situation in which another type of employee could use 'pride' as an excuse for failing to do the job they are tasked to do in a way that is not injurious to their customers.

I think there are good arguments in support of the police in the way they effectuate their job responsibilities, but "pride" is, in my opinion, not a terribly good one.

It's left as an exercise for the reader to determine which is which.

Keeping that in mind, and educating them of the viewpoint is more important than yelling at them or breaking them down.

If they don't believe those things, fire them and get cops who will do their jobs.

Your solution to an uptick of 48% more murders is to fire all the cops. Break the Police pride down, punish the cops. That's totally how you get people to risk their lives and patrol the West Districts of Baltimore.

Absolutely brilliant. I wonder why no one has implemented this outstanding idea before. /sarcasm

Let me give you a hint: If you Fire a Cop, they'll just work in another district. There are _plenty_ of safe districts looking for experienced officers, and there's almost no reason why an officer has to keep working in West Baltimore aside from pride.

They can very easily jump to another richer district, one with fewer murders and higher-educated populace. And frankly, the smarter cops tend to do that. I think officers prefer to work in safe places and hand out speeding tickets all day... rather than taking on armed drug dealers in the worst parts of Baltimore.

So offer some alternatives instead of just knocking everyone else down.

As stated before, my solution is to create robust independent police review boards. It'd be something like New York City's model with an independent "Civilian Complaint Review Board", complete with subpoena power against officers.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/html/home/home.shtml

Anyway, Chicago's review board has indications of weakness, and the article above is simply a note of what is going on in that agency. Maybe the review board needs to hire more non-cops and more lawyers from the ACLU.

The correct action depends a lot on the politics of the Chicago review board are. If the review board is appointed by the direct election, then the leaders need to be voted out and reformed.

If the review board is appointed by the local mayor / city counsel, then we should organize political protests and bring up the Chicago Independent Police Review Authority as an actual issue during Chicago elections.

If you don't live in the city of Chicago, then of course the article posted here doesn't apply to you. They don't apply to me either, but if it were happening in my city, that's how I'd start.

I didn't advocate firing anybody. I think you're confusing me with other participants in this thread. That's pretty ironic, coming from someone who said elsewhere in the discussion, "if you want to stuff words in my mouth, I will refuse to partake in the discussion." [1]

EDIT: I also don't think the up-thread proposal was to fire everyone. Just the bad actors. And, really, do you want someone who's malicious and has a power trip walking around with a gun and the authority to use it?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9918408