Body Camera Study Shows No Effect On Police Use of Force Or Citizen Complaints (npr.org) 155
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Having police officers wear little cameras seems to have no discernible impact on citizen complaints or officers' use of force, at least in the nation's capital. That's the conclusion of a study performed as Washington, D.C., rolled out its huge camera program. The city has one of the largest forces in the country, with some 2,600 officers now wearing cameras on their collars or shirts. In the wake of high-profile shootings, many police departments have been rapidly adopting body-worn cameras, despite a dearth of solid research on how the technology can change policing. "We need science, rather than our speculations about it, to try to answer and understand what impacts the cameras are having," says David Yokum, director of the Lab @ DC. His group worked with local police officials to make sure that cameras were handed out in a way that let the researchers carefully compare officers who were randomly assigned to get cameras with those who were not. The study ran from June 2015 to last December. It's to be expected that these cameras might have little impact on the behavior of police officers in Washington, D.C., he says, because this particular force went through about a decade of federal oversight to help improve the department.
Not surprising (Score:3)
It's to be expected that these cameras might have little impact on the behavior of police officers in Washington, D.C., he says, because this particular force went through about a decade of federal oversight to help improve the department.
I don't think this is the real cause. What happens is that people get used to cameras, just like celebrities or people on reality TV shows forget to keep a poker face after a while because the cameras are always there.
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It's to be expected that these cameras might have little impact on the behavior of police officers in Washington, D.C., he says, because this particular force went through about a decade of federal oversight to help improve the department.
I don't think this is the real cause. What happens is that people get used to cameras, just like celebrities or people on reality TV shows forget to keep a poker face after a while because the cameras are always there.
Yep, part of it is that it is easy to return to the old ways, even if someone is watching. It part two of the Hawthorne effect.
Also it might be pointed out that the sensational cases that caused people to cry out "cops need cameras on them" are quite rare.
There are about 900K cops in the USA, so there are a few million police interactions every day, and for the vast majority, things work as well as can be expected considering that people don't like getting arrested, or even just stopped for a ticket.
Almost
Re: Not surprising (Score:2)
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It can also help the police against charges of police brutality. If a suspect is shot and there's no video, it's easy for a "he was unarmed and shot" narrative to spread regardless of the truth. With bodycam video, you can get quick evidence out to the public that the shooting was justified. On the flip side, if the police claim it was justified and the bodycam shows it wasn't, it can help the truth to come out despite police claims to the contrary. It's more about proof of how incidents went down to the co
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"I don't think this is the real cause. What happens is that people get used to cameras, just like celebrities or people on reality TV shows forget to keep a poker face after a while because the cameras are always there."
The decent ones among them never needed cameras in the first place and the other ones never change, no matter what you clip on their sleeves.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
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I've found some statistics for 2010. I don't know if the rate of police misbehavior in DC has gone down since then, but it was pretty bad.
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So, perhaps hypothesis still holds.
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That's in one year.
Let's look at it a different way: In one year, 1% of all sworn police officers in the United States had misconduct charges brought against them. $300 million was paid out by police departments to the victims of that misconduct, excluding sealed settlements, court costs, and attorney fees. Since most of these cases are sealed settlements, we're over half a billion dollars paid b
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In 2010, there were approximately 650,000 sworn police officers in the United States. 6,826 of them were accused of misconduct. I'm not sure how you figure that's "less than 0.002%"
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Let's round DOWN to one million (the number is higher than that, and MUCH higher if you include bonded, armed private guards with the ability to detain, all sorts of federal agency types that aren't FBI or Park Police, etc, and others
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No, And why should we include private guards in a discussion of police misconduct? Next, you'll want to include middle school hall monitors.
https://en.wikipedi [wikipedia.org]
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No. The best, most recent estimate is 765,000 (see link above)
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Absolutely not. Let's go back to the report from 2010:
So we're only talking about complaints against sworn law enfo
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The "bad behavior" (a nice euphemism for killing people) may be attributable to only a small percentage of cops, but the much larger percentage are part of a system which is designed to protect the bad cops.
The fact is, cameras have no effect on bad cops because bad cops know ain't nothing gonna happen to them.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com... [huffingtonpost.com]
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The "bad behavior" (a nice euphemism for killing people) >
No, I was not referring specifically to killing people. In fact, that would be even a much much smaller percentage of behavior than unacceptable/unprofessional behavior.
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You make it sound like there are no consequences. You should re-think that.
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To be fair, there are many people who do things without considering the consequences. If a police officer is going to shoot an unarmed man simply because the man is black and the officer is going on a power trip, he's not likely the kind of guy who's going to think long term about his actions.
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Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
And, you know, that's fine. If cameras don't deter bad behavior, so be it. But in that case, FFS, use the footage, both against criminals who otherwise benefit from the ambiguity the lack of footage would bring, and against bad cops.
Cameras aren't just about deterring bad behavior, they're also about being able to reliably deal with he said/she said situations where there are severe consequences for believing one party over the other.
I heard this story on NPR and at the end the head of the DC Police said much the same and offered a real-world example. They broadcast the audio ('cause it was radio) of a real encounter where a man was threatening his wife with a knife. After repeated calls to drop the knife and back away, he continued and was shot by the police. Afterward, some people questioned if the guy actually had a knife, but it was readily visible in the video. Cameras can "protect", perhaps after the fact, both civilians and police.
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When cameras repeatedly show sociopathic cops shooting non-dangerous people for being disabled or black, and get away with it, that's what makes them useless.
Yeah (Score:5, Informative)
Because most district attorneys are too chickenshit to bring charges against a cop. If a DA does bring charges all the cops turn into instant crybabies and threaten to stop doing their jobs. Also notice how the charges are rarely direct, mostly its a grand jury who decides and the DA can influence how its run. Then you have the police unions.
Ever read about how Jeffrey Dahmer was almost caught? A naked and intoxicated 14 year old boy ran out of Dahmer's apartment and the police were called. All the black neighbors said the boy was underage and didn't belong there. The cops didn't listen and gave the boy back to Dahmer to be murdered. Google his name John Balcerzak.
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Interesting but probably part of a different problem: that police tend to return runaway children to their abusive parents. Silent abuse is better than a whining parent making a ruckus at a police station about their missing child, apparently. They should've confirmed who his parents/guardian actually were, though.
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They never thought the underage child was an underage child. Dahmer told them he was his 19 year old lover and the cops believed it without doing any investigating and just handed him back over to Dahmer.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Informative)
Also notice how the charges are rarely direct, mostly its a grand jury who decides and the DA can influence how its run.
Note that DC is under federal jurisdiction, so all terms of the fifth amendment apply. This means that in DC prosecution of any "infamous crime" (i.e. felony) requires indictment by a grand jury, per the opening text of the 5th, which reads "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury".
Since the grand jury clause has not been incorporated into the 14th amendment against the states, states are not required to follow this process. Many do, but not all.
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Also note that when the 5th amendment was written *anybody* could bring a matter before a grand jury and obtain an indictment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Going back to this would fix - overnight - the issue with criminal police officers. It would bring its own set of problems to work through, but it would totally fix the problem of prosecutors going light or refusing to prosecute criminals working in the justice system.
Re: Yeah (Score:1)
You are as stupid as any lefty moron can be.
Correct zero approximation assumption is that police actually in vast majority are honest servants of public, and the only crybabies are scum of the street and scum lives matter organizations that have an ideologicak awareness of cavemen.
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Because most district attorneys are too chickenshit to bring charges against a cop. If a DA does bring charges all the cops turn into instant crybabies and threaten to stop doing their jobs. Also notice how the charges are rarely direct, mostly its a grand jury who decides and the DA can influence how its run. Then you have the police unions.
Ever read about how Jeffrey Dahmer was almost caught? A naked and intoxicated 14 year old boy ran out of Dahmer's apartment and the police were called. All the black neighbors said the boy was underage and didn't belong there. The cops didn't listen and gave the boy back to Dahmer to be murdered. Google his name John Balcerzak.
You need to stick to things you know. Washington DC is run by a bunch of Democrats and black people. They will charge a cop if the cop needs to be charged. I know from personal experience. Everything I said checked out, cop was arrested and charged. Turned out that cop was dirty and I didn't even have to go to court over my complaint. This was over 20 years ago. Thing is, a lot of people, usually black people believe the bullshit from the left and think they can do whatever they want. Good black people don'
Of course not (Score:5, Insightful)
Because police officers will happily turn off the cameras whenever they know they'll get in situations where they'll look bad. And given that there are no consequences for doing so, this will continue to be the status quo.
Re:Of course not (Score:5, Interesting)
police officers will happily turn off the cameras whenever they know they'll get in situations where they'll look bad.
Also, cameras malfunction when you least expect it. Odd how that happens.
Quick google search shows that, for example, 80 percent of Chicago PD dashcams videos lost audio due to 'officer error' or 'intentional destruction' [washingtonpost.com]
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But they will happily turn on their camera in situations where they look good and you look bad
The study is about use of force and citizen complaints. Not just excessive use of force and justified citizen complaints.
Sometimes, use of force is justified, and cops will definitely use their cameras in these situations in order to cover themselves. And frivolous complains are a thing too.
Turned out that cameras didn't change a thing, even in situations that don't put cops in a bad light.
Re:Of course not (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance the first time I ever got pulled over, my back window was frosted up and I was on a street with a lot of streetlights. The cops decided to pull me over for nothing (they literally never gave me any reason for pulling me over whatsoever, I just looked suspicious to them for some reason) and I didn't see the lights, I pulled over immediately after they hit the siren but they both came up and pointed their guns at my face.
The most likely explantation is that they were looking for a potentially dangerous criminal and your vehicle matched their info. They couldn't give you the reason because they didn't want to reveal details about their investigation.
I did get pulled over once for apparently no reason. Later, I learned that there was a kidnapping in the area. No guns though, but no frost on the rear window either.
This or they were acting like cowboys for no good reason. But don't jump to conclusions.
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2 years ago it was report 93% drop!! Who is right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2 years ago it was report 93% drop!! Who is rig (Score:5, Informative)
Could be both are right, thanks to this gem from the article you just posted:
"Against all expectations, there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without."
Yep, that quote came straight out of the article (and, in fact, the summary) that claimed the 93 percent drop.
The difference in claims is subtle, yet significant. The 93 percent drop is a before and after comparison. The "no difference" is a with and without comparison. Put simply, once the cameras were rolled out, ALL officers started behaving better, whether they were wearing cameras or not. So there was a huge drop from before, but no difference between officers during.
The more recent publication does not make it clear whether they are comparing before-and-after or with-and-without. Though the wording definitely suggests they may just be comparing with-and-without.
Furthermore, there is this statement "because this particular force went through about a decade of federal oversight to help improve the department." So the officers were already in the spotlight before the cameras were rolled out, receiving oversight that would, presumably, be keeping them on their best behavior. If that oversight was effective, we would expect a drop in complaints when that oversight began, and no drop in complaints when the cameras were rolled out (since everyone just stayed on their best behavior).
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People seem to ignore the fact that a decade of oversight actually creates an organizational culture where doing shit that makes the whole force look bad isn't tolerated.
In cities where oversight is lax, you end up with an organizational culture that works to sweep things under the rug, stonewall journalists trying to find information about incidents, etc. The community stops trusting the police force to protect them because it isn't.
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Threads like this are why I read comments first, article second. I come here because there is always a good chance someone has already debunked or analyzed the article before me. Good job, thanks.
Was that ever the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Frankly I'm far more terrified of a white woman in her pajamas [vox.com] who specifically called the police for help in the first place.
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Needs more research (Score:2, Funny)
"We're hoping to run another study, this time with the cameras turned on."
So let me get this straight (Score:2)
The researchers could not detect any change in police behavior with or without body cameras.
So the explanation is "Those police officers were straightened out by the Feds earlier...."
Then why the hell did you study that department?
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It's a shit explanation in the first place, having read their theory data they've ignored the methods of policing and criminology beliefs that were long-held. The police officers weren't straightened out by the feds, it's a shift in policing as old police officers retire and newer policing methods come into play. The US is around 20 years behind community oriented policing compared to other western countries. COP is based on "ground level" officers doing what needs to be done without oversight of someone
They need to do a study in St. Louis, or Baltimore (Score:3, Interesting)
Like St. Louis, or Baltimore.
At least the mayor of Cleveland had the guts to fire the cop caught on video.
Re:They need to do a study in St. Louis, or Baltim (Score:5, Insightful)
To be useful, they need to do a study where police misconduct is rampant.
No, they just need a study where they can prove that all footage was recorded and processed. Can they turn off cameras?
What was the percentage of damaged recording (audio or video)?
Chicago Police Hid Mics, Destroyed Dashcams To Block Audio, Records Show [dnainfo.com]
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Of course the altered footage never shows a beating. You can count on those being valid.
With current tech, the camera could be a button, or a shoulder pip, the cop might not know.
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To be useful, they need to do a study where police misconduct is rampant. Like St. Louis, or Baltimore.
You mean, where violent crime is rampant, and cops' lives are far, far more at risk? Yeah, that's what you actually meant.
False conclusion (Score:1)
If you don't know how much use of force was before there were body cameras, how do you conclude there was not reduction? You cannot control what cannot be measured is a basic science given.
Re:False conclusion (Score:4, Interesting)
The conclusion was that it did not reduce complaints. That's different than reducing unreported abuse. It's possible that these cameras did in fact reduce real and actual police abuse when the victims did not report the crime.
I'll hear stories of police beating people after they've been cuffed. It will go something like an accused child abuser will be cuffed and then "trip" down the stairs on the way to the police cruiser. How do you catch that? Even if on camera it can be difficult to tell if it's really a misstep on the staircase, police pushing the accused, or the accused trying to get the police in trouble by intentionally falling down the stairs.
Even though the study concluded no change in officer behavior the DC police intend to keep the cameras. It must be that they see value in the cameras outside of the potential to reduce police abuse.
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A lack of reduction of complaints means little in itself. It may be that the cameras reduced misconduct, but also made citizens more confident in filing complaints, balancing out. If we knew if the ratio of misconduct to complaints was over time, the number of complaints would be far more useful.
NPR does necessary research - asks wrong question (Score:4, Interesting)
NPR's studied a topic which needs some study - "What are the affects of body cameras?" Then it presumes the correct question is, "Does this affect police behavior?" Of course, that question in the end does not matter. What matters is whether citizens unjustly treated by police offered a better final outcome for police brutality cases and whether police officers unjustly accused by citizens with whom they interacted also provided a better final outcome in their cases. It's a shame NPR didn't seem to ask THAT question. (Or the person posting here didn't suppressed this portion of the question...)
{^_^}
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would resolve most cases of police brutality almost instantly.
Unfortunately it is usually resolved in favor of the police. When evidence goes missing, it is treated as missing, no matter how questionable the circumstances. Take this case for example, when a Baltimore police officer allegedly raped a woman, the condom vanished from the evidence locker [baltimoresun.com], and the prosecutors moved to continue the case without the DNA evidence. This stuff is scary!
Predetermined conclusion? (Score:3)
I have to wonder about anything from a government agency looking after another government agency. I do believe that we need government agencies keeping an eye on other government agencies, but I won't place too much trust in such reports without something backing it up. What we have is an agency created by the mayor to do what they claim to be independent and scientific observations on other city agencies. Just how much corruption, abuse, fraud, and so forth is such an agency willing to find? If they find something wrong then the mayor looks bad, and I'm pretty sure these people have an innate tendency to not bite the hand that feeds them.
So they claim to do a scientific and statistical analysis of the data they collect. Well, statistics can tell you anything if tortured enough. So they discovered no decrease in complaints of misconduct against the police after body cameras were deployed. There's so many things that can be veiled in this conclusion. Perhaps a lot of police misconduct simply went unreported. Were the cameras always on when they should have been? Was there any punishment of officers based on the footage from these cameras?
If the city of DC wants to keep crime down then I'd like to see them do a study on their weapons laws. They had what was an effective ban on the ownership of firearms struck down a decade ago, and the ban on issuing concealed carry licenses struck down in the courts fairly recently. The DC government seems to think that keeping firearms from the city was an effective crime control method. Did they do a study on that? I suspect that they did but they didn't like the results so they kept it to themselves.
I'll have some faith in this government department actually doing their job of keeping the government in check when they release a report that is critical of how the government is performing.
Maybe the police weren't doing anything wrong. (Score:2)
If the cameras show no difference in the number of complaints against police even when there are now video records of what happened, this could mean that the police were not doing anything wrong before, and the cameras are just proving that. Would that be so surprising? The police have undergone endless training programs and public scrutiny for accusations of overly-violent behavior for many years now. Maybe their accusers are just not telling the truth.
Doesn't matter (Score:2)
Doesn't matter. So long as the police are not culpable to anyone but themselves, police misconduct will continue.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/02/us/baltimore-police-body-camera-videos/index.html
Consider this, which includes a video at the bottom of police officer planting drugs, walking away, turning on camera, then "finding" those same drugs.
A Baltimore news station showed the internal police department procedures for actually going through this footage. They are of course understaffed and there's way too mu
Another way to look at this (Score:3)
Or perhaps there was nothing broken with police procedures and the whole thing was overblown. Now they have video evidence to back it up.
the outer matrix (Score:2)
Once the cameras are ubiquitous, the police legacy of he said/she said system abuse (from either side) is permanently put onto a better track.
It's always the case that the most effective deterrents are the ones so effective, they never get used.
Contrary to displays of mind-numbing stupidity (intentional or inadvertent) that one sometimes encounters, one can not cross these "inactive" rows out of the game theory matrix without changing the equilibrium solution.
As for early adoption, probably the first rat on
Operational failures..... (Score:2)
Maybe that's why Ferguson is dragging its feet (Score:1)
It's been 6 months since Ferguson voters overwhelmingly approved bodycams for Ferguson cops. It's only been in the last week or so that the city website has even acknowledged the vote happened and the requirement exists. And less progress has been made on acquiring them, as best we can tell.
We'll see how long it takes for the next step to occur.
Idiotic headline ignoring the idiocy of our police (Score:2)
It doesn't surprise me AT ALL that the cameras aren't (reported as) changing police behavior at all.
BECAUSE THERE IS NO WORKING METHOD TO HOLD POLICE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.
Period fucking dot.
People know this. Cops know this. Politicians know this but pretend otherwise.
After numerous cases with full video of police doing things directly against their own rules, laws, and ethics and the cops almost universally getting nothing more than a slap on the wrist ... why would one more video of the same act
Re: Privatize the Police (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck you. Privatized police would be incentivized to do whatever maximized profit, which is likely increased incarceration when the prison system is privatized but publicly funded. Privatize the funding of prisons then maybe.
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How would you privatize police? Who would make sure to privatize the police fairly? You or some politician?
What about the people who can't pay for police? Like the homeless and the poor? Those non-customers would be harassed like crazy. I don't see how this would be an improvement over what we have today.
http://sanfranciscopolice.org/... [sanfranciscopolice.org]
Re:Privatize the Police (Score:5, Insightful)
When this country was founded there were only private 'police' forces. You could hire a night watchmen, or a locality might pay for one. It's one of the reasons for our adversarial justice system: the idea is not that the government was tracking down evildoers, but that you personally would go to a magistrate with sworn evidence, obtain a warrant, and if necessary obtain the bunch of thugs necessary to arrest the person who wronged you (dueling was also an accepted alternative). It does have a certain libertarian appeal to it, but as law enforcement is a service which is required to be universal, [1] privatizing it amounts to a private tax, and [2] it's less efficient. Police forces were introduced originally (in London, by one Robert Peel, from whence they derived the nickname 'bobbies') as a cost-saving measure.
Anyone wishing to return to the days of private police is an idiot, an anarchist, or more frequently both.
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Speaking of Robert Peel, his principles of policing by consent [wikipedia.org] are pretty damned enlightened and we could really benefit from paying attention to them today.
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Kinda sorta. Read this [wikipedia.org] to get an idea of what it was like in London prior to the Met. You had night watchmen, constables, beadles and other parish officials, volunteer laymen, and various degrees of hired thugs. You can explore the differences between those things and what we consider a police force these days if you like. New York City also had some sort of more-or-less official system of night watchmen before the NYPD which you should be able to find more information about if you choose.
As to the clarity
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How would you privatize police?
Because we already have private police we know how it's done. We've long had the concept of "citizen arrest" so a private police officer is just someone hired to enforce the law, including arresting those that violate the law.
Who would make sure to privatize the police fairly? You or some politician?
The courts. While citizen arrest allows for short term detainment the restricting of a person's freedom is itself a serious offense, so people typically don't arrest another for minor matters.
What about the people who can't pay for police? Like the homeless and the poor? Those non-customers would be harassed like crazy. I don't see how this would be an improvement over what we have today.
Why would the poor be harassed like crazy? Presumably they'd have some ability to defend th
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That's what I don't get about this conspiracy theory of a private police and prison industry putting people in prison to make money. Everyone in prison must have a trial, often before a jury. If people want to see this system short circuited then demand everyone be put before a jury. Even if there is a claim of a judge being paid off then the jury should stop this short.
I have a couple of questions for you.
1. Which country has the largest proportion of private prisons?
2. Which country puts most more of its
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You are about 7 times as likely to be thrown in gaol in the land of the free than in China.
China is a prison. Their prison population is over one billion.
I'm not going to say that the USA is perfect, it's obviously not. Comparing the USA to China just does not follow. The Chinese government is not above killing political dissenters. They'll shoot people that speak out against the government. The government has developed a habit recently of destroying houses of worship. There are suspicions that they've done this with people still inside. There's no bill of rights there. There's no trial b
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China is a prison. Their prison population is over one billion.
No it isn't and no it isn't. While you keep denying the facts, things will never improve.
I'm not going to say that the USA is perfect, it's obviously not. Comparing the USA to China just does not follow.
Kind of the point though. Lots of people here hold up China as "the big evil" and yet you're still much, much more likely to be thrown in prison in America.
Look: your country has the highest proportion of incarceration in the world. You can pick
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That's the problem, you're so obsessed with what everyone else is doing wrong that you can't see the wood from the trees.
I think you are so obsessed with comparing the incarceration rate with that of tyrannies that you can't fathom that perhaps we enjoy such prosperity and freedom in the USA because we have such a well functioning justice system. Did I say the USA was perfect? No, I did not. I am simply questioning the claims of a conspiracy to arbitrarily jail so many people. I'm sure a lot of people in prison right now don't belong there. I'm sure we could do better. I just find it hard to believe that private prisons
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I think you are so obsessed with comparing the incarceration rate with that of tyrannies
And you're too busy chanting USA! USA! USA! in your head to see that the USA! has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Higher than places like China, higher tha Russia, higher than any of the Western democracies in Europe, higher than the worst shitholes and higher than the happiest countries.
Stop obsessing over china and fix your shit.
By the way, did you know long term solitary confinement is generally considere
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Stop obsessing over china and fix your shit.
I didn't bring up China, you did.
You think I can snap my fingers and fix the problem? That's assuming that this is s problem. Maybe those people belong there.
It's not like we aren't trying. We got the federal government interested in enforcing immigration law again, and we're building that wall on the Mexican border, that's got to help. I expect drug law reform to help too. We're seeing stupid laws against firearm report suppressors go away, that means we won't be putting people in prison for protectin
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I brought up china as a stark example: a notoriously repressive regime has one seventh the incarceration rate. You're not free if you're in prison and an awful lot of you are.
You think I can snap my fingers and fix the problem? That's assuming that this is s problem. Maybe those people belong there.
Of course not, but until you and others like you admit there is a problem, it'll never be fixed. It's interesting though that you still entertain American exceptionalism to such a degree. If indeed they all dese
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Of course not, but until you and others like you admit there is a problem, it'll never be fixed.
I admitted three or four times now that there are problems with the current justice system. I also spelled out a dozen of reforms in laws coming to address the problem. WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Perhaps it would help if you could be more specific on the problem. The imprisonment rate is just a symptom, that's not the problem. Unless you can point to some of the problems then I find it hard to see that there's anything to fix. Again, maybe those people belong there. Not all of them belong there, I'm quite sure
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I also spelled out a dozen of reforms in laws coming to address the problem.
No, you spelled out dozens of reforms only one of which will address any problems. The rest will most likely be neutral at best or make things worst.
The imprisonment rate is just a symptom, that's not the problem. Unless you can point to some of the problems then I find it hard to see that there's anything to fix
It's a symptom of a financial incentive for imprisonment, elected prosecutors, puritanical mindset and fetishisation of
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It's like if someone came in to hospital bleeding profusely from every orifice. Clearly that's only a symptom so until someone spells out what the disease is, you should send him away.
With your example the patient has "too much" bleeding, so we stop the bleeding as much as we can while looking for the cause. We don't care much where we stop the bleeding, or which blood cells escape, because blood is blood and people need it to live. With "too much" prisoners we have people, not all identical blood cells. We care very much about which ones we let go. Until we can identify which ones don't belong there it's in our best interests to keep them there.
Yes, maybe Americans are much more crooked than anyone else.
Or maybe Americans take law enforcemen
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. Until we can identify which ones don't belong there it's in our best interests to keep them there.
Land of the free: guilty until proven innocent. .Or maybe Americans take law enforcement more seriously. I remember seeing a documentary where a police detective in the Soviet Union
Land of the free: Better than Soviet Russia.
Well don't, you've managed to clear the bar of not being the worst country. Now try comparing yourselves to a modern western European democracy.
The symptom is that the USA imprisons more
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You just keep repeating that the USA has "too many" prisoners but give nothing to indicate that they should not be there. I did a quick search on what these people were convicted of doing and here's some rough percentages.
About 50% of the people in prison were convicted of a violent crime, that's rape/sexual assault, murder/manslaughter, robbery, and felony assault. I'd think most people would agree people belong in prison for some time for committing these crimes. The best means that I'd think to reduce
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Just to explain the private prison issue:
1. Private prison companies (along with prison guard unions) lobby the various state governments for harsher penalties for victimless crimes like drug use and prostitution and such.
2. I was just reading recently where private prisons are also able to harass inmates and get them to do something stupid so that their "time off for good behavior" is reduced, resulting in a longer sentence and thus more revenue for the prison.
They're incentivized to keep non-violent peopl
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1. Private prison companies (along with prison guard unions) lobby the various state governments for harsher penalties for victimless crimes like drug use and prostitution and such.
Well, they are doing a terrible job at that because marijuana is now legal in some form in 30 states, that's well over half of the population. I suspect it's closer to 3/4ths than 1/2 but I'm not going to do the math right now. That's not saying we don't have a long way to go yet for removing these victimless crimes but if the goal is to pass more laws to create more prisoners then they seem to be losing a lot of ground on that lately.
Lobbyists and unions don't vote, people do. If people are tired of see
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Everyone in prison must have a trial, often before a jury. If people want to see this system short circuited then demand everyone be put before a jury.
Sure, except everyone in prison awaiting trial and everyone in prison after a trial was bypassed by plea bargaining. So, according to this result of my quick search [thefreetho...roject.com], maybe 5% of people in prison have had a trial. After you first convince the citizenry to pay for 19 times more due process, then try and sell me your other ideas.
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The whole idea of government police is the problem. Private security actually cares about serving customers because they are responsive to the profit motive.
What if "maximizing profit" means taking bribes? That's not solved by a private police force. This is a complex problem and there is no simple solution.
In some states in the USA there is an official recognition of private police. They are often required to meet the standards of a publicly employed police officer but they are employed by some private entity. I like the idea of having a mix of private and public police forces. That's not all that different than having professional and volunteer firefight
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Fired on the spot? How about making them equally accountable as any other citizen for their actions? When police were introduced, it was not necessarily intended that they be armed -- in Britain where the concept originated, they still aren't. Over here, of course, we have the Second Amendment, so police required no-one's permission to carry guns. Being permitted to carry a gun is implicit permission to use it, but giving these people an additional shield of law means that we are accepting that the governme
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That's hilarious. Have you ever worked at a corporation? Ever notice when all the lower pegs get fired, but not the managers or executives? All of us office workers have seen that. There is firing on the spot if you have no real political power, but the people who are encouraging such a thing would be off the hook. So yeah, maybe individual bad egg might get fired most likely because they got caught, but there would still be a systemic policy encouraging bad egg behavior.
People who believe privatized p
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Well there's your problem: huge cameras!
Did you expect anything else in Trump's America?
I have to ask, wouldn't these "huge" cameras make his hands look even smaller?
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Maybe we have so many Slashdotters having run-ins with police from buying all that crack they smoke before posting here.
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