Defunding the police.....

[Yppej]

One thing that hasn't been discussed here is nepotism and cronyism on the police force. For instance, without a connection it is near impossible to get a job with the Massachusetts State Police. This leads to a less diverse workforce since people are hiring their relatives and buddies who tend to be of the same white race. It also leads to fear of reporting your relatives and buddies for wrongdoing whether it be fake overtime in my state or police brutality elsewhere. Whenever I see the feel good stories on the news about third or fourth generation officer I cringe. It should be a meritocracy. I also like the idea of a police chief in New Hampshire being interviewed today who said psychological testing is key to weeding out applicants ill suited to the job. I'm afraid in many places the testing is who do you know who already works here?

Not to mention if you are related to or friends with a cop your traffic tickets all get fixed, but if you're not you can get shot dead over a minor traffic violation.

[Teacher Terry]

In Buffalo the cops knocked down a 75 year old man and walked past while his head is bleeding. He is in serious condition in a hospital. Ugh!

[Tammy]

One idea I like is that lawsuit settlement costs come out of the police budgets. Currently they are taxpayer funded. So the public pays the public when the police are fined.

[sweetana3]

Hope you all can read this. We are not Chicago but homicides are starting to ramp back up. In our city, it is mostly young black men dying in shootings. We have had children harmed by random bullets.

Go ahead and reduce police funding. But what do you tell the crying family when they are pleading for help and no one is held accountable for the murder?

[Yppej]

Sweetana is this gang violence? If so is it caused by gang wars over the illegal drug trade? What would happen if we decriminalized the drugs and stopped the war on drugs? Some communities in my state are working to give preference to those most affected by the war on drugs in terms of licenses, locations, and jobs in the legal marijuana industry.

ETA Let's not forget the government's complicity. They introduced crack cocaine into this country to fund an illegal war in Central America and were in bed with numerous drug lords such as Noriega, in his case until he showed too much independence. It didn't matter that lots of black people had their lives devastated. Talk about treating not arresting addicts didn't start until the opioid epidemic hit white kids, and even now there are huge racial disparities in the way the criminal justice system treats drug possession. One book that really opened my eyes regarding crime in the US was The New Jim Crow.

[Tradd]

Hope you all can read this. We are not Chicago but homicides are starting to ramp back up. In our city, it is mostly young black men dying in shootings. We have had children harmed by random bullets.

Go ahead and reduce police funding. But what do you tell the crying family when they are pleading for help and no one is held accountable for the murder?

To some, those murders don’t matter at all because they were committed by criminals. Murders apparently only count when they’re committed by cops and/or white folk. No one seems to get outraged much about black on black murder, outside of the immediate families or neighborhood groups.

[Tammy]

Those who blocked Yppej just missed an excellent post.

[LDAHL]

No doubt if we replace the cops with restorative justice committees and sensitivity trainers other groups will move in to fill the void. There is a long tradition of selling protection in most of our larger cities. Or perhaps nonprofit community organizations will form vigilance committees to maintain order on an ad hoc basis.

[iris lilies]

One thing that hasn't been discussed here is nepotism and cronyism on the police force. For instance, without a connection it is near impossible to get a job with the Massachusetts State Police. This leads to a less diverse workforce since people are hiring their relatives and buddies who tend to be of the same white race. It also leads to fear of reporting your relatives and buddies for wrongdoing whether it be fake overtime in my state or police brutality elsewhere. Whenever I see the feel good stories on the news about third or fourth generation officer I cringe. It should be a meritocracy. I also like the idea of a police chief in New Hampshire being interviewed today who said psychological testing is key to weeding out applicants ill suited to the job. I'm afraid in many places the testing is who do you know who already works here?

Not to mention if you are related to or friends with a cop your traffic tickets all get fixed, but if you're not you can get shot dead over a minor traffic violation.

It has always been difficult to get onto the State Highway Patrol force in every state where I have lived.

It is not hard to get onto a city police force, assuming the candidate meets criteria. Our city forces are decimated, we cannot fill positions.

Sure, better psychological testing would be good. That is not a perfect tool. It up already is performed anyway. And I think based on what we see walking around in our fellow citizenry I think it’s pretty clear that psychological tools are limited at best.

[early morning]

Psych testing should not just be a screening tool in initial interviews, but should be built into all training exercises. Actions/reactions to complex training scenarios should be closely tracked and monitored, both for new officers and in refresher training for current officers. People change over time, based on experiences both good and bad. Good cops can become bad ones; poor cops could become good, with good training and mentoring.

I haven't worked much with cops, but with guards/officers in juvenile detention and corrections. I've seen really good people corrupted, and some that started off badly becoming stellar workers with troubled youth. Employing/training/retaining good officers takes a lot of oversight and commitment on the part of administration, from what I've seen. However, that's only my experience in my particular situation.