Fixing the police:
Give teeth to citizens review boards:
In some cities they don’t even have an advisory capacity towards civic leaders or police leadership. Additionally these organizations often get co-opted by people too friendly with law enforcement to be a good un-bias judge on their behavior.
Continue to support and push for community policing:
By which I mean that you may only be employed as a cop in the community you live in. There have been unusually intense attempts to broaden or redefine it such that it merely means increased community interaction and engagement. Using this definition the objectives of this can be resolved with a few bits of PR.
Make security companies pay for 911:
Honestly the police have much more important things to do with their time than answer automated alarm systems. Various alarm system companies make tons of money off of our fear and sense of insecurity and they drop the bill on the taxpayers and the work of this on the police. Most studies indicate that somewhere in the neighborhood of 98% of these alarms are false.
Have review of prosecutorial discretion/mandatory minimum sentencing:
This isn’t even really a problem of police; it is a problem of prosecution. Prosecutors are allowed too much leverage under the mandatory minimums it allows them to force people into making absurd deals, false confessions, and conga lines of false accusation to reduce prosecution.
This is a problem since Manditory minimums tie the hands of the judge and throw discretion out the window. All this so some DAs can make try to look tough on crime in an effort to run for higher office. And so the rest of us can pretend that our politicians are doing something.
While we are at it ‘three strikes and your out’ laws for non-violent offenders should be utterly abolished. They likewise serve no real purpose and end up costing taxpayers far more than the crimes they commit. Here is another one that really isn’t affected by law enforcement. It really isn’t their fault that our politicians occasionally enact stupid laws
War on drugs:
At best a waste of time, at worst an irrational tool to gradually decrease our rights to privacy. This thing has all the earmarks of prohibition with a lot less reason. Reinvest in treatment half of the money spent on incarcerating these people, particularly for ‘soft drugs.’ For instance I knew a few construction workers that did their job and worked hard, physically demanding (and pretty damned good paying) work from late spring to late fall. They put money into the economy, paid taxes, and were a good natured bunch of guys that wouldn’t even touch a drop of booze while they were working (typically 12 hour days 6 days a week).
But once work season was done they would spend a lot of time relaxing and getting quite thoroughly baked. Now I don’t have a lot of use for this sort of thing. Quite frankly, having had more dead end conversations with dead-heads, I don’t really think terribly highly of the drug. I think it seems to diminish your thinking while you are on it (though I suppose no worse than alcohol), but I just think there is no social gain in putting these harmless, hard workers away and considerable loss.
-Exception- Hard drugs. I am not a libertarian or an anarchist (well not that kind of anarchist anyhow) and some things should be illegal. But the harder drugs are what we really need treatment for, and we also need to look at our lifestyle and society to see what causes people to run hard and fast from reality. Drug abuse and alcoholism occur in societies where there is a good deal of desperation and disaffection. Experimentation may occur in any society, but addiction really becomes serious when people are depressed, lost, and unable to see any positive outcome in life.
Militarization of Police:
This should be stopped at all costs. This includes intelligence gathering capacities used against non-criminals. It also includes heavily armored pepper spray happy ‘riot cops.’ Surprise assaults and no-knock warrants should also be eliminated. For the protesting set (and our petty civil liberties) the police create as much of a problem as they profess to solve. What some of the police did during the RNC and DNC protests, to both protestors and journalists, was utterly reprehensible.
Adversarial attitudes:
No cop should ever do anything that they would not proudly give their badge number for. If the police are acting like thugs, abusing their authority, breaking peoples faces, or breaking their civil liberties then I can see why they might respond this way. That being said no more anonymous police in heavy armor without identification.
Car chases:
This shit is anachronistic action movie nonsense. In an age where Helicopters, highway cameras, license plates and radio frequency chips are readily available I find it difficult to believe that we need to have cops racing the streets and risking more life than a stolen car would ever put at risk.
In some cities they don’t even have an advisory capacity towards civic leaders or police leadership. Additionally these organizations often get co-opted by people too friendly with law enforcement to be a good un-bias judge on their behavior.
Continue to support and push for community policing:
By which I mean that you may only be employed as a cop in the community you live in. There have been unusually intense attempts to broaden or redefine it such that it merely means increased community interaction and engagement. Using this definition the objectives of this can be resolved with a few bits of PR.
Make security companies pay for 911:
Honestly the police have much more important things to do with their time than answer automated alarm systems. Various alarm system companies make tons of money off of our fear and sense of insecurity and they drop the bill on the taxpayers and the work of this on the police. Most studies indicate that somewhere in the neighborhood of 98% of these alarms are false.
Have review of prosecutorial discretion/mandatory minimum sentencing:
This isn’t even really a problem of police; it is a problem of prosecution. Prosecutors are allowed too much leverage under the mandatory minimums it allows them to force people into making absurd deals, false confessions, and conga lines of false accusation to reduce prosecution.
This is a problem since Manditory minimums tie the hands of the judge and throw discretion out the window. All this so some DAs can make try to look tough on crime in an effort to run for higher office. And so the rest of us can pretend that our politicians are doing something.
While we are at it ‘three strikes and your out’ laws for non-violent offenders should be utterly abolished. They likewise serve no real purpose and end up costing taxpayers far more than the crimes they commit. Here is another one that really isn’t affected by law enforcement. It really isn’t their fault that our politicians occasionally enact stupid laws
War on drugs:
At best a waste of time, at worst an irrational tool to gradually decrease our rights to privacy. This thing has all the earmarks of prohibition with a lot less reason. Reinvest in treatment half of the money spent on incarcerating these people, particularly for ‘soft drugs.’ For instance I knew a few construction workers that did their job and worked hard, physically demanding (and pretty damned good paying) work from late spring to late fall. They put money into the economy, paid taxes, and were a good natured bunch of guys that wouldn’t even touch a drop of booze while they were working (typically 12 hour days 6 days a week).
But once work season was done they would spend a lot of time relaxing and getting quite thoroughly baked. Now I don’t have a lot of use for this sort of thing. Quite frankly, having had more dead end conversations with dead-heads, I don’t really think terribly highly of the drug. I think it seems to diminish your thinking while you are on it (though I suppose no worse than alcohol), but I just think there is no social gain in putting these harmless, hard workers away and considerable loss.
-Exception- Hard drugs. I am not a libertarian or an anarchist (well not that kind of anarchist anyhow) and some things should be illegal. But the harder drugs are what we really need treatment for, and we also need to look at our lifestyle and society to see what causes people to run hard and fast from reality. Drug abuse and alcoholism occur in societies where there is a good deal of desperation and disaffection. Experimentation may occur in any society, but addiction really becomes serious when people are depressed, lost, and unable to see any positive outcome in life.
Militarization of Police:
This should be stopped at all costs. This includes intelligence gathering capacities used against non-criminals. It also includes heavily armored pepper spray happy ‘riot cops.’ Surprise assaults and no-knock warrants should also be eliminated. For the protesting set (and our petty civil liberties) the police create as much of a problem as they profess to solve. What some of the police did during the RNC and DNC protests, to both protestors and journalists, was utterly reprehensible.
Adversarial attitudes:
No cop should ever do anything that they would not proudly give their badge number for. If the police are acting like thugs, abusing their authority, breaking peoples faces, or breaking their civil liberties then I can see why they might respond this way. That being said no more anonymous police in heavy armor without identification.
Car chases:
This shit is anachronistic action movie nonsense. In an age where Helicopters, highway cameras, license plates and radio frequency chips are readily available I find it difficult to believe that we need to have cops racing the streets and risking more life than a stolen car would ever put at risk.