A) Broken Windows Policing

Part 1) How New York Developed a Computerized Anti-Crime System to combat 1970s-1980s crime

  • Crime was out of control in NYC in the 1970s and 1980s.
  • Police only cared about press cases: crime against white people or the wealthy.
  • Police leadership withheld true crime rates from the mayor.
  • Jack Maple innovated with decoy units to make the subway unsafe for criminals.
  • Jack's actual "big idea" was to map crime and computerize these maps to isolate the small fraction of criminals responsible for a disproportionate amout of the crime.
  • Jack's goal was for the police to treat every crime seriously.



Part 2) How COMPSTATS's original intent was subverted by "Broken Windows" Policing

  • Jack was very hard on police leadership.
  • Pressure on police to reduce crime backfired because police are responsible for generating the statistics they are judged by.
>> Goal: "Low" Crime Rate with High Police Activity
  • Police downgrade real crime to make the mayor look good.
  • Police aggressively ticket for minor issues in minority neighborhoods to make mayor (leadership) look good.
  • Police only ticket aggressively in poor/minority neighborhoods because a white architect riding bike on the sidewalk likely has connections and will complain.

Goal of Police Reform: Get to trial where you can force the institution to defend its practices.

An important goal is to end the use of quotas.

  • "The great thing about being a cop is that when you're right, no one can tell you what to do."


B) TERM: "ICPPUL" #

This is description of a type of malignant authority.
(This is not representative of all police, or other forms of authority)

  1. ignorant: The only group of people for whom ignorance of the law is an excuse. This license to be ignorant of the law promotes laziness.
  2. conflicted: The institution has a conflict of interest. They consistently investigate themselves and find no wrongdoing.
  3. privileged: Qualified immunity gives them special status, They are not expected to follow the same laws as the public.

  4. power over: They do not exercize "power with", but they see themselves as a class separate and above the public.

  5. unaccountable: Only in the most egregious and well documented cases brought by people with good representation are police meaningfully held accountable.
  6. lazy: They don't put in the work neccessary to know the law, like they should. (and partly because they don't have to)

1) IGNORANT: #

Many security guards and police are ignorant of the law and especially the spirit of the law:
(most of these are lower ranking officers)

IF YOUR GOING TO UPHOLD IT, YOU HAVE TO LEARN IT!


2) CONFLICTED:

  • police departments are a revenue center in many communities, resulting in badly motivated police actions.
  • police have an incentivee to raise revenue (salty language) through civil asset forfeiture when their departments benefit from the proceeds.
  • there is an incentive to justify budgets by "activity".
  • offers are sometimes incentivized to compete to have the most number of arrrests and are able to nitpick to manufacture faulty evidence.
  • political leadership such as mayor have incentive in looking good to their base (which can include real estate owners).
  • police do not have a strong incentive to address serious crime if reporting crime results in the statistics being counted against them.
  • police systems sometimes twist "broken windows" policing into punching down on poor/minorities.
  • while not necessarily taking more significant crimes seriously.
  • police sometimes enforce the interests or feelings of the powerful, rather than the law
  • when complaints are made against them, they typically investigate themselves and find no wrongdoing

3) PRIVILEGED



4) POWER OVER:

5) UNACCOUNTABLE:


6) LAZY:




OTHER:

abuse:

There is no petty situation that a police officer cannot make worse by their presence.


Better Cops

Some cops are protectors some are punishers.



Defense against false claims

  • the proliferation of Dash cameras is a sign of a breakdown of trust. If it can be determined that a significant number of defendants are defending themselves with dashcam footage, outside help may need to be brought in to reform the department.


Common False Charges:
  • officer safety pretext
  • never admit wrong
  • police-retaliation (contempt of cop)
  • police-revenue-generation
  • non-disclosure gag orders on settlements
  • threaten for threatening ego (including threaten to tase)
    • conflict

    WAR ON DRUGS:

    • Kansas Two-step tactic: target out-of-state cars: you're suspicious because your car has cameras and you're not telling me what you're doing: call canine unit


    Reform Suggestions #

    • An equal or greater amount of attention should be paid to improving the "fabric" of America, so that police receive fewer calls.
    • The reason why police abuse is such an issue is because of the ways bad police behavior exacerabates underlying problems and distrust in government.
    (Some of these suggestions are from other sources)

    1. Instill in officers that laws are employed for a purpose and their job is to serve a larger good for the community. They should enforce the spirit of the law, not use the letter of the law or twisted version of the law to increase citations/arrests/generate revenue/power trip, etc.
    2. End private prisons as they create an incentive to generate new offenders. a disincentive for offenders to be released early for good behavior, a disncentive for rehabilitation, and a further incentive for repeat offenders.
    3. End/vastly reform qualified immunity.
    4. Require Malpractice insurance. The more offenses the higher the cost to insure oneself. (This idea was suggested. I'm not so certain this won't create more problems)
    5. Create a National Brady List, so LEO can’t just move and go to another city, county or state.
    6. All incidents causing injury, especially lethal or requiring hospitalization, must be evaluated by independent outside Authority (federal perhaps)
    7. Create a Federal code to follow like US Military UCMJ "The Uniform Code of Military Justice has Article 93 Failure to report an offence". This can be used to counter the group "loyalty" that causes LEOs to overlook misconduct.
    8. The "modern policing" philosophies, such as "Broken Windows" or "Go Beyond the Ticket" needs to be ended or seriously re-examined.
    9. End incentives to generate tickets and arrests. No fine/fee should be paid to an entity with a conflict of interest in generating the fine/fee. Instead of allowing police departments to pocket forefeited property, all proceeds must be assigned to cause that is unrelated and non-desirable, such, such as perhaps paying down the national debt.
    10. Tighten up the definitions of vague (an possibly unconstitutional) laws that are often used to trump up charges. Terms that are often used to "trump up" the charges such as "disorderly conduct" should be viewed with suspicioin if the offending party is not someone other than the responding police officers themselves. This prevents people from being charged for incidents in which there was no underlying crime.
    11. The militarization of the police is a sign of failure. Some of this is due to an excess of military equipment and police who want to play as "operators". In other cases police have legitimate fears. The government needs to be honest about addressing the underlying causes.
    12. Establish review boards with citizens from the community on it that take complaints rather than an internal investigation that is often reluctant to find wrongdoing. All members of the review board should have easy access to all dash/body cameras and all public feedback/complaints.
    13. Review boards and anyone involved with a police incident should be given immediate access to the videos at no charge.
    14. Strong disincentives should be made against police tactics to limit the transparency of both the government and the public's recordings. One such police tactic I've heard of involves deliberately reporting violations in such a way it can not be falsififed by the available recordings, such as delibrately fabricating charges that a vehicle had crossed a line on the ground because most citizens to not have cameras mounted near the ground and are therefor unable to prove that this didn't happen. This should be solved by changing existing laws and incentives for prosecution, but it is noteworthy that body cameras can be gamed.
    15. Disincentivize situtations where police make charges that they will later drop, as part of a game to get leverage, especially when police use force.
    16. Police seem to be strongly incentived to collect IDs for their paper work, even if they aren't legally entitled to personally identifiable data. This leads to police behavior that violates the spirit of the 4th amendment. Best Buy employees may claim that they need you to buy the extended warranty, but it is their problem, not yours. Police often imply that the public has a legal requirement.
    17. All police should be required to carry business cards and provide them to the public on request.
      • Police should understand that because they act as agents of the government, they are subject to greater accountability (identification/transparency) than the public who are not acting "under color of law".
    18. Provide very strong punishments for officers who bear false witness, such as saying "stop resisting" when the suspect is not actually resisting or when they plant evidence or falsely claim to smell alcohol or marijuana or that "you have small pupils," suggesting drug or get away from my weapon I've seen reports that police are coached to bear false witness about resisting arrest as a way to "play to the cameras" to claim justification for bad behavior or gain leverage.
    19. Change the law so that police can not pull you over for defective equipment such as broken taillight unless the driver hasn't responded to repeated notifications. Instead, make it easy for police to send a mail, text, or email notifying you of problem.
    20. If police already have access to information (License Plates) that allows them to determine that a car/driver is legal, they shouldn't hassel you to provide proof of registration or insurance. The only time when a driver's copy of registration and insurance should be needed is if there is a discrepancy between the data the LEO sees and the driver's paper copy. Also the government should continue to mail a copy of the registration for people who don't have printers.
      • If this is possible, it should reduce LEO concerns about drivers reaching into the glove box to get a gun.
    21. Change the law so that police can't pull you over for minor traffic infractions, like failure to signal, unless the driver has received repeated (and documented) warnings. If officer safety is so important, why take the risk of a bad encounter for a minor infraction? These minor charges are often (sometimes falsely) used as pretexts. This misuse overrides their benefit. Instead, officers should have an easy way to e/mail/text you a reminder to signal.

    22. Institute photo radar so that police do not need to enforce speed limits / have the ability to use this as a pretext. (This would test whether people want the speed limits to be enforced neutrally and without pretext.)
    23. Reconsider speed limits that have been set artificially low so as to enable leeway for exceeding the limit by 5-10 mph. Then have photo radar, strictly and non-subjectively enforce the potentially higher limits.
    24. Configure 911 calls so the operator can hand off the call to the police officer who has been dispatched so the officer can interview the caller before arriving at the scene.
    25. Attempts of the police to solicit a trespass should be viewed with suspicion and may be considered a violation of 18 USC 242 and the 1st amendment if it is being used to trespass someone who is recording the police.
    26. Retaliation against people for excercising their rights should be strongly disincentivized.
    27. Any LEO that witnesses misconduct and does not report it is an accomplice.
    28. Initiate frequent testing for drugs and steroid use with automatic discharge for failure. End steroid rage.
    29. If a LEO detains someone (ie for a reason), and the officer finds that reason to be unfounded, they should not fish for other possibile charges.

    30. LEOs must have more regular training in the constitution, the limits of their authority, stops, searching and common areas of ignorance (Legal training is much too low, especially compared to the amount of time it takes to become a hairdresser in some states)
    31. Regularly test officers on knowledge of the constitution and relevant law. If officers consistently fail, they would lose their job.
    32. Police supervisors should regularly review dash and body cameras and public feedback/complaints. Supervisers should coach LEOs on their behavior. If misconduct is shown, there should be accountability.
    33. If police turn off or obscure any cameras, no charges should be admissable, as a deterrance for bad behavior. Police should also be punished for turning off cameras belonging to the public.
    34. Insurance companies should have easy and automatic access to LEO dash/body cameras, as well as police reports, public feedback/complaints and videos from the public. (Assuming that we haven't determined that malpractice insurance doesn't cause more problems than it solves)
    35. Public review boards should have easy and automatic access to LEO dash/body cameras, police reports, as well as public feedback/comments.
    36. It sounds like you can "get a record" even if you are arrested and found innocent. This can cause problems that haunt the former suspect for years, causing various problems, including maintaining employment and housing.
    37. Employ "mystery shoppers" who evaluate departments. This is like the pastor who pretended to be homeless or police decoy tactic that made the New York Subway unstafe for muggers.
    38. Legal settlements involving officers should not have gag orders/secrecy. This can amount to the goverment paying the complaintant to be silent about government's misconduct.
    39. Lawyers need to start an app so they can instantly FaceTime anyone in a situation like this. Hold the phone up and let the attorney interpret..
    40. Goverment should study and reform how legal charges cascade, such as when someone is given a ticket and then they have transportation issues getting to the trial or paying the ticket, and so then the ticket turns into a bench warrant, which leads to an arrest, which leads to jail, but because they can not afford bail, they lose their job .. and things spiral downward from there.
    41. The 911 operators or police need to be wary of Karens or reports that do not allege anything illegal.
    42. Surveillance State: There indefinite retention of the public's personal data should be scrutinized, especially when no criminal behavior was alleged.
    43. Paint police cars teal, per Malcolm Gladwell. Call it "Sandra Bland Teal". (Demilatirization) :-)

      44. "I support law enforcement, but it needs to be cleaned up. It is a tough job and It should difficult to get into. Screen applicants better and train, train, train."

      "Transparency and accountability are the two things cops are most afraid of. When the people have both, they know they’re in deep shit." -Seattle Sasquatch

      Everything you say can and will be twisted and used against you.

      When the police break the law there is no law"

      American Occupation: When I was in theater, we treated people in Afghanistan better than most LEOs treat their fellow citizens. We also had strict ROE and the discipline to only escalate as necessary which we did from time to time and maintained a standard. Naturally during direct and indirect contact we engaged the enemy but that was not the majority of our encounters with the Afghan people. LEOs are employees who reflect the attitudes and policies of the people being elected. LEOs treat you like garbage because their employer pays them to. It is a very simple formula to follow. Joseph Turner





      Totalitarianism:

      Four things need to exist or need to be in place if you want a large-scale mass phenomenon to emerge.

      1. The first thing is that there needs to be a lot of socially isolated people, people who experience a lack of social bonds.
      2. The second one is that there needs to be a lot of people who experience a lack of sense-making in life.
      3. And the third and the fourth conditions are that there needs to be a lot of free-floating anxiety and a lot of free-floating psychological discontent. So: meaning, anxiety, and discontent that is not connected to a specific representation.
      So, it needs to be in the mind without the people being able to connect it to something. If you have these four things—lack of social bonds, lack of sense-making, free-floating anxiety, and free-floating psychological discontent—then society is highly at risk for the emergence of mass phenomenon.” – Mattias Desmet – The Psychology of Totalitarianism

      "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."

      - Thomas Sowell

      "When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals." -Edward Snowden

      "If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started with truth" - Julian Assange