Rules for Preventing Abuse of Power

[Deepbluediver]

DBD you missed gender, income, political stance, work history... I don't know if we can find an end to it.

I actually mentioned income and education in an earlier post, but what I was looking for was the list found here, I believe. It says that it is against the law to discriminate based on a person's "race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information".

And yet, favoring one person for a position over another based on their skin color sounds exactly like what that is.

It says, more, that historically we've recognized that police departments do the job of racial integration extremely poorly and the black community is extremely distrustful of it as a result and are unwilling to aid them, rendering them rather useless.

And yet, despite the apparently horrible job that the police are doing, crime rates have been on the decline for the last 2 decades. Including in minority neighborhoods.

We also recognize that the training of the police is already not optimal, since they do things like choke people to death, pick on black people far more often than whites. Their skill at the job isn't producing great results so whatever selection criteria aren't producing that great a job. Trust of the police by the community is a major factor in their success rate- they should be helping out a community not harassing it.

I'd prefer better or different training rather than a lowering of standards.
If police-on-cop violence goes down but the civilian-on-civilian crime-rate goes up, is that better or worse?
Also, I don't want to turn this into a repeat of the last thread, but in the Eric Garner case it was the shopkeepers who had reported called the cops to the scene. Do they not count as members of the community as well?

As such, moderately valuable black people are more valuable than highly valuable white people by whatever criteria the police use to select, and will far better enable them to do a good job.

Violent crime-rates are at an all-time low. I'll be more inclined to believe that things would be even better if black people only had to deal with other black people if you can provide me with some factual proof.

They will have to deal with people of different races due to it being mixed race. If similar situations arose with sexual orientation or age or religion similar things could be done.

This feels like it's feeding into people's negative beliefs though- saying that it's perfectly acceptable to think poorly of people who aren't exactly the same as you.

[Nepene]

And yet, despite the apparently horrible job that the police are doing, crime rates have been on the decline for the last 2 decades. Including in minority neighborhoods.

You're focusing on a metric that isn't directly related to the the police's abuses or lack of abuses of power. Obviously if you don't think there are any abuses of power or problems with the police there is little value talking to you about solutions. If you chose to focus on unrelated metrics and dismiss the problem entirely I see no point in continuing this discussion.

[Deepbluediver]

And yet, despite the apparently horrible job that the police are doing, crime rates have been on the decline for the last 2 decades. Including in minority neighborhoods.

You're focusing on a metric that isn't directly related to the the police's abuses or lack of abuses of power. Obviously if you don't think there are any abuses of power or problems with the police there is little value talking to you about solutions. If you chose to focus on unrelated metrics and dismiss the problem entirely I see no point in continuing this discussion.

They are directly related though, because a large police presence and aggressive policing tactics are most prevalent in areas where there is a lot of crime. These complaints aren't coming from black neighborhoods because the police are racist, they are coming from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods because that's where the crime is.

[Tem]

2) Any and all government positions should have term limits.

Whether municipal, provincial or federal, if you're taking taxpayer funds to oversee something, you shouldn't be more than ten years in any given position, and no more than twenty years working in government total. Been a cop for two decades? Sorry, it's illegal for you to continue wearing a badge. Go flip burgers.

That would make it highly unattractive to put years of education into becoming a cop.
Also, I think that there can be no prevention of power abuse without limiting the amount of money one person or company can own. Money is an ever-present power. Cops can change while those who bribe them remain the same.

The solution for this would be the thing that was considered in Switzerland: Everyone is paid a certain amount of money by the government, which gets the money from taxes. This reduces the risk of bribe of the soon-to-be-jobless cops, and serves to take some money away from the rich and give it to the poor.

[vvn]

That would make it highly unattractive to put years of education into becoming a cop.

I am not sure what it takes to be a an actual LAPD officer, but to be a cop at LAX (not TSA) only takes a high school diploma. (And pays $50,000/yr. starting salary!)

Also, I think that there can be no prevention of power abuse without limiting the amount of money one person or company can own. Money is an ever-present power. Cops can change while those who bribe them remain the same.

I agree, but I don't think its practical. People are happy to be influenced by very small bribes. Sometimes only hundreds of dollars. If I recall the Falcon and the Snowman story correctly, he took only a few thousand dollars to commit treason. But, even if we assume tens of thousands of dollars are required to bribe someone, that is very small to any company working on a major project. If we were to limit companies to say $1 million, no significant projects could ever be accomplished.

The solution for this would be the thing that was considered in Switzerland: Everyone is paid a certain amount of money by the government, which gets the money from taxes. This reduces the risk of bribe of the soon-to-be-jobless cops, and serves to take some money away from the rich and give it to the poor.

I don't think giving everyone money will ever keep people from wanting more. At any level of income people want to stand above the rest.

[Satinavian]

1) Whistleblowers should always be protected.

yes.

2) Any and all government positions should have term limits.

No. You lose way to much specialized knowledge this way and spend way to much time with educating people for a job. And if that wasn't bad enough in itself, it would make it difficult to recruit people. Why would anyone be willing to get a five year eduction to do a certain gouvernment job, then be able tpo work 15 years and then being on the street with no job prospect at all ? Especcially for jobs where the gouvernment is a monopoly employer that would be bad.

And yes, That is also true for cops. In Germany we simply don't have events like in Ferguson. Our police is different. The following viduo does illustrate this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTjwcyvzqvg
And the main reason is : It takes a lot of education for policemen here. We have even compulsary university courses for every higher police job. People learn the laws and things like deescalation methods before they are allowed to get a badge. And it works. Usual way is this :
3 Years Training and "Readiness Police"
half a year police school (legal stuff and such)

At least 6 years patrol officer duty
2-3 years police university or college of public administration before you are even remotely allowed authority beyond a normal patrol officer
And after that is even another higher qualification which takes even more experience another year at the Federal Police Leadership Academy.

Another reason for the difference might be that our police is organized on state level, not community level and thus far less involved in local politics, but i believe, the very long and academical education makes the real difference.

20 years maximum in police service ? doesn't seem that reasonable any more.

And if we move from police to more specialised jobs, it gets even more complicated. It's good that elected officials have limited terms. But all experts and advisors too ? Very bad idea.

3) Any and all government bodies should demographically resemble the people they govern.

That does make sense for big minorities. But it soon becomes unreasonable for small minorities. Anything below 5% won't reliable offer candidates suited for the job. Also many gouvernment bodies aren't even big enough for that.
It's a topic here in respect to women but it's still awfully difficult and doesn't really seem to solve anything so far. Whereever a quota exist, there immediately is the suspicion that people only got the job because of the quota, not because they were qualified. This makes it actually harder. Also, for many jobs with worst female representation you don't get any applications from women, which is always a big problem, if a quota is in place.

4) Hell yes body cams.

No

Simply no.

Maybe that you have not yet experienced abuse of this data, but believe me, it is so incredibale easy to abuse, that mass data collection will create way more of those cases you actually want to prevent that any good it might do.

I grew up in East Germany under Stasi supervision and believe me, no one should have this kind of power.