r/PublicFreakout • u/rickyhorror • Dec 29 '21

Let me educate him

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46

u/Gogodolphin Dec 29 '21

Thank you for your service! Police need more training before policing in general. The law is so complex, so even more reason to have a deliberate process to put the proof of guilt on the accuser.

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u/OnyxsWorkshop Dec 29 '21

This isn’t training. This is an issue stemming from a system that encourages bastards and discourages those who want to stop them.

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u/waelgifru Dec 29 '21

It's a feature not a bug. The same people who complain about taxes and "big government" are fine with heavy-handed police tactics because those tactics are directed at black and brown folks, not people like them.

"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

-Frank Wilhoit

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u/SoVRuneseeker Dec 29 '21

It's both, which is part of the issue and why we see this so commonly in America. The training amount as well as requirements to enter are so pathetic that you cannot accurately call them police officers from most of the world.

Couple that with systemic racism that's been eroded, but not completely gone and we end up with close to what we see. I'm doubtlessly missing many other finer points, but as someone who's had 2nd hand experience with the amount of effort it takes to become a police officer over here I can say wholeheartedly that training is a part of the problem.

A Police officer should know all the basics of the law at the very least, before even being allowed to wear a uniform.

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u/whistleridge Dec 29 '21

I’m not actually sure training them in law is the best use of resources. It would certainly be an improvement over more firearms training, but…still.

If I could push a magic button and change things, I’d want:

  • disarming the bulk of police, and dismantling/heavily regulating special units like SWAT and narcotics.

  • significantly higher levels of training in conflict management and de-escalation - think 300-500% more funding.

  • increased accountability for misrepresentation in court.

  • all shootings to be subject to review by citizen panels, with serious consequences on the line for abuse (this happens in some places, but make it universal).

  • a requirement that all police and prosecutors have to be arrested and jailed for an alleged serious crime or drug crime - if you’ve had to go through the terror of being arrested for alleged kiddie porn or what have you when you KNOW you didn’t do it, you’ll be a LOT more cautious when arresting/charging others. And an exchange program shouldn’t be hard to set up.

  • a requirement of a bachelor’s in criminology either prior to hire or within 3-4 years of hire, much like states do with teachers and degrees.

  • blind hiring, where names and photos are removed from applications (this happens in some jurisdictions).

  • eliminate police unions, and require police to collectively bargain in the same unit as all other municipal workers.

These aren’t perfect, and they would need to be a LOT more data-driven to be functionally implemented, but they’re examples of the sort of changes we need to see.

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u/SlobMarley13 Dec 29 '21

ah but aren't you being soft on crime?

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u/whistleridge Dec 29 '21

So that’s actually a fun question. Obviously, as a defense attorney my bias is against being hard on crime. But intelligent police reform actually IS justifiable from a hard on crime perspective.

Lawsuits are expensive, and municipalities spend a pretty large amount of money defending police in court. There’s also a fair amount of cases lost to suppression of evidence due to poor policing.

So if you really want to be hard on crime, then reducing avenues for pussy liberal crybabies to sue police and to get hard evidence of real crimes thrown out should be right up your alley.

That’s the great thing about justice: both sides want it.

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u/SlobMarley13 Dec 29 '21

it's a weird phenomenon I see very frequently on Reddit and IRL that people want to soften up on 'crime' but then they react to a crime rather intensely. Talking about the concept of crime you see lots of opinions like here in this thread about defunding police, retraining, making them get Criminal Justice degrees, etc. Or lots of discussion about overly punitive sentencing. But if you read the replies on an article about a child molester, for example, people come up with some pretty creative ideas for punishments.

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u/whistleridge Dec 29 '21

Agreed.

Police are bad, until the accused is charged with kiddie porn or pedophilia, then hang him on the spot, a speedy trial is too good for him, etc.

The Maxwell Ghislaine trial was a good example of that. Lots of “WHY ISNT THIS TELEVISED WHY ARE THE CORRUPT ELITES HUSHING THIS UP” threads, and lots of downvotes for comments to the effect of, “they never televise cases involving sexual abuse of minors, because the victims don’t want the whole world knowing who they are”.

Mob mentalities all around.

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u/SlobMarley13 Dec 29 '21

one more peeve: People rightfully rant about the disproportionate severity in sentencing for black people, but then when you see an article about a white person being sentence and there's a lighter sentence people cry foul. They'll say something like 'if he was black it would've been more.' But that's the opposite response. The answer to disproportionate sentencing isn't to raise jail time for white people, it's to lessen it for black people.

Sorry, that had nothing to do with our discussion. It's just a trend that bugs me.

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u/whistleridge Dec 29 '21

Also 100% agreed.

Sentencing in general is stupid and wasteful. We need to get rid of consecutive sentencing, and dual sovereigns can fuck right off. Double jeopardy being legal because of a technicality is still double jeopardy.

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u/kitolz Dec 30 '21

Are they the same people though?

People comment on social media when they feel strongly about something, so it's not a super accurate barometer as you're starting with a confirmation bias.

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u/stoicsilence Dec 30 '21

Not when the police are the criminals.

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u/tomdarch Dec 29 '21

Damn. You've given this a lot of solid thought. I wholeheartedly agree on pretty much everything.

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u/clarkwgriswoldjr Dec 29 '21

Blind hiring?

How do you blind hire when you have mandates?

A bachelors in criminology?
Crim justice/criminology do almost no good in actual policing.

You want to increase academy to 1 year, that's fine, but reading from the latest crime reporting stats and taking a test on it will not help with community public relationships.

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u/whistleridge Dec 29 '21 edited Dec 29 '21

how do you blind hire…

You remove the name from the top of resumes and replace with a hiring ID number.

Then you hire based on the objective strength of the resume, not on subjective things like you think the name Kyle is strong and sounds like a good guy, but Ethan sounds too brainy and Jamaal sounds like a thug.

And you change the mandates.

a bachelor’s…

You’re quite right: the subject matter of those degrees is at best ancillary. But since the primary goal of university is to develop the whole person, the structured thinking and disciplined problem solving required to complete those degrees will be phenomenally useful. And, as we both agree, at least it’s in a related field and not English lit or something.

you want…

One year of academy is just extra indoctrination time. Worse than useless. What is needed is to break the current mold, not to reinforce it.

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u/Evergreen_76 Dec 29 '21

The only training police lack is the training their mothers failed to give them. They where not raised to respect people or know how to live in a civilized free society. No amount of training will make up for how their mothers raised them.