Originally posted by Artol
Standards is something that can be discussed though. I would say it makes sense to have as one standard the requirement that hires live in the city or community they police and that the force reflects the makeup of that community.Your point of the veteran white officer is a good one, and that's what I meant by abolishing the organization and starting a new one from the ground. In that case it is not the veteran who got forced out, all police officers got forced out, and the veteran, depending on the standards applied may or may not be rehired in the new public institution.
I expect people to get mad, defensive, or launch personal attacks when I disagree with a point they made. But you didn't: thanks for that.
We didn't talk about it but we can explore more why it is hard to hire black people on an unbiased police force.
Part of the problem is the distrust in the black community for the police (I've posted about this, before). A black man becoming a police officer is sometimes seen as a race traitor or just a piece of shit who wants to harm his own people. This reduces the number, very much disproportionately, of black men who are willing to sign up to be a police officer.
But it gets worse.
Since, for decades now, black people come from single-parent homes in numbers over 70%, you also have far more illiterate black people than other races. Single parent homes are the absolute best way to destroy children's futures and directly impact literacy rates (it takes two parents to help them with their homework, keep after them to make sure they do well in school, and encourage them when they succeed). So now your written tests (which should be required in addition to frequent mental health examinations for those on the police force) are less likely to allow black men through the screening process.
But you were already selecting from a fraction of the black population already. Now you're barring even more black people from becoming police officers with unbiased and objective standards. Standards which they should be required to meet such as knowing the statutes and laws that will encompass at least 4 sigma of situations they will encounter. A quality standard issue which is part of the current discussion.
But we are not done making it super shitty on black men to join the police force.
You also implement criminal history standards. Well, black men come from single parent homes far more than other race demographics and crime is directly correlated with single parent homes. With between 1/4 and 1/5 black men going to jail within their lifetime (the 1/3 figure is outdated and has come under criticism), that makes their criminal record even worse. Back to our single-parent homes problem: coming from a single-parent home is actually so strongly statistically correlated with crime that it is predictive of criminal behavior outcomes:
Add in mental health issues from coming from single parent homes and that further stacks the deck against black men. Because guess what is also correlated with mental health issues? Single parent homes.
So the deck is stacked against black people especially black men.
We get to select from a fraction of a fraction of a fraction when we implement science-based, objective standards that SHOULD be implemented nationally. So if you want a more diverse police force while also improving the quality of the police, you have to make concessions.
Originally posted by dadudemon
I expect people to get mad, defensive, or launch personal attacks when I disagree with a point they made. But you didn't: thanks for that.We didn't talk about it but we can explore more why it is hard to hire black people on an unbiased police force.
Part of the problem is the distrust in the black community for the police (I've posted about this, before). A black man becoming a police officer is sometimes seen as a race traitor or just a piece of shit who wants to harm his own people. This reduces the number, very much disproportionately, of black men who are willing to sign up to be a police officer.
But it gets worse.
Since, for decades now, black people come from single-parent homes in numbers over 70%, you also have far more illiterate black people than other races. Single parent homes are the absolute best way to destroy children's futures and directly impact literacy rates (it takes two parents to help them with their homework, keep after them to make sure they do well in school, and encourage them when they succeed). So now your written tests (which should be required in addition to frequent mental health examinations for those on the police force) are less likely to allow black men through the screening process.
But you were already selecting from a fraction of the black population already. Now you're barring even more black people from becoming police officers with unbiased and objective standards. Standards which they should be required to meet such as knowing the statutes and laws that will encompass at least 4 sigma of situations they will encounter. A quality standard issue which is part of the current discussion.
But we are not done making it super shitty on black men to join the police force.
You also implement criminal history standards. Well, black men come from single parent homes far more than other race demographics and crime is directly correlated with single parent homes. With between 1/4 and 1/5 black men going to jail within their lifetime (the 1/3 figure is outdated and has come under criticism), that makes their criminal record even worse. Back to our single-parent homes problem: coming from a single-parent home is actually so strongly statistically correlated with crime that it is predictive of criminal behavior outcomes:
Add in mental health issues from coming from single parent homes and that further stacks the deck against black men. Because guess what is also correlated with mental health issues? Single parent homes.
So the deck is stacked against black people especially black men.
We get to select from a fraction of a fraction of a fraction when we implement science-based, objective standards that SHOULD be implemented nationally. So if you want a more diverse police force while also improving the quality of the police, you have to make concessions.
You make a lot of very good point, each worthy of an in-depth discussion as to historical and political reasons and potential solutions, however I believe that would go beyond the scope of a mere forum post. I will give some short thoughts to some of them and then discuss the original point a bit more.
Distrust of Police
This is a big problem, and that is one that can be addressed by splitting the police force into multiple distinct institutions. You could have non-police patrolling neighborhoods, unarmed, with limited authority, just helping neighbors out and if necessary, calling in a different institution that takes care of heavier duties. This would go a long way to reinstate trust in community policing.
Education and Single Parent Families
You are very right that single parent households are sadly a detriment to the children that grow up in them. Especially for black families the incarceration rate you mentioned is a big reason for that, but of course there are many others. I am wary of many who advocate for "nuclear families" without acknowledging that we need to help single parent families as well. Because there are policies that can help narrow the gap of results between single and dual parent households, things like investment in early child care facilities, well staffed, safe schools, free food programs, and similar. We need to be careful that our advocacy for dual parent households, does not even further disadvantage the children in a single parent household (nor the single parent themselves). Perhaps also controversial, but another thing that can help is the availability of free and easy contraception (and abortions if we want to go really controversial), to enable people to plan their families more proactively and give the offspring the best opportunities.
Incarceration
We talked about this previously, one thing I think is certainly necessary is the restoration of all civil rights to a person that has completed their sentence (barring court ordered necessary supervision). In that regard I do think it should be forbidden to discriminate on the criminal record, private employers should not be allowed to ask for these records, and public employers certainly shouldn't be prohibited from hiring based on criminal record. If an ex-convict becomes a police officer I would view that as a great success story.
Back to Standards Concessions
For example the standards for the previously laid out community police force (who would not be empowered with the states monopoly on violence, not be armed, and could not make arrests) could be different (or "lower"😉 enabling more black people to be in the pool of potential applicants (at the same times they could be framed in a way to exclude more affluent, white suburban applicants). This would also help in investing into the community, and ensuring that tax dollars are spend where they are taken and needed.
Similarly social workers have different standards than police officers.
But again I don't see it as the only policy that would help. Although this is maybe not the thread to discuss others.
Originally posted by Artol
I'd hope that many would understand that policing in the United States has gotten out of control over the last 40 years, and that more stringent democratic oversight and rules would be beneficial both to them and society as a whole.
Democratic controls are not the answer. Science-based, expert driven policy is the answer. Remember, I am a technocrat. Science-based policy is king in my book. It is also why I think jury-trials are an archaic tool.
The masses are ignorant, emotional, and reactionary. We don't want the masses controlling something as important as the police and our healthcare other than to say, "Yes, we want police, yes we want healthcare."
I do think that expert, science based policy is very important. But democratic oversight is one of the main tools we have (weak as it is) from autocratic abuses of power. And that is certainly something that science based policy is susceptible to, since you can find disagreements among scientists on most things.
But I am interested, as a technocrat, how do you envision the process of policy creation and the decision of who gets to decide what the science says in your system?
Originally posted by Artol
Distrust of Police
This is a big problem, and that is one that can be addressed by splitting the police force into multiple distinct institutions. You could have non-police patrolling neighborhoods, unarmed, with limited authority, just helping neighbors out and if necessary, calling in a different institution that takes care of heavier duties. This would go a long way to reinstate trust in community policing.
Why are you putting 100% of the responsibility on the police to fix the relationship?
Originally posted by Silent Master
Why are you putting 100% of the responsibility on the police to fix the relationship?
I don't think I am. I think the public institution should fix what it can. We do live in a democracy and our democratic institutions, including the police, should be held to the standards we set out for it, regardless of whether a community the institution interacts with behave in a way we want or not.
I could of course say "I wish that this or that community changes things", but I prefer to look at the structures that make it more or less likely that a change happens.
Originally posted by Artol
I don't think I am. I think the public institution should fix what it can. We do live in a democracy and our democratic institutions, including the police, should be held to the standards we set out for it, regardless of whether a community the institution interacts with behave in a way we want or not.I could of course say "I wish that this or that community changes things", but I prefer to look at the structures that make it more or less likely that a change happens.
Sure you are, your solution was all about what the police could do to fix the relationship. What are your suggestions for what the community could do to fix the relationship.
Originally posted by Silent Master
Sure you are, your solution was all about what the police could do to fix the relationship. What are your suggestions for what the community could do to fix the relationship.
Oh I see, yeah I suppose taking your interpretation of responsibility, I really am putting 100% of it on the institution.
I guess if I were to give advice to communities (bearing in mind that there's no particularly structure, nor an avenue to assert this control outside of institutions) I'd say they should try to build community spaces where they can talk and create a sense of neighborhood, educate their children and provide services and necessities to each other. Get organized on a personal level and implement some forms of community oversight and policing in as far as it is possible. But again something like that probably needs beneficial circumstances or charismatic local leaders with time and ability on their hands.
One thing that institutions could do again, to make these changes easier, is things like cutting the working week, shortening prison sentences, releasing non-violent criminals, investing more resources in impoverished neighborhoods, particularly schools, open more community spaces for use by everyone, etc.
So not only do you want the institutions to make all kinds of changes but you also want them to provide resources to the communities in the hope that the community will make use of them.
Sounds like you're saying the institutions are the parents and the community are the children who are unable to do anything for themselves
Originally posted by Silent Master
So not only do you want the institutions to make all kinds of changes but you also want them to provide resources to the communities in the hope that the community will make use of them.Sounds like you're saying the institutions are the parents and the community are the children who are unable to do anything for themselves
Yes
I'm not sure I'd view it in that paternalistic way you said, but I don't mind your characterization of it necessarily either.
Originally posted by Silent Master
Children don't get to legally make their own decisions. The parents do.
Yeah, one of the reasons why I don't see it in the paternalistic framing you made.
I see it more as a citizen - democratic institution dichotomy. The decisions for institutions lays with the citizens, and the institutions are the avenue by which democratic change can be enacted. Citizens can not directly force other citizens to behave in the way they want outside of the democratic system. That's why my ideas of improvement focus mainly on institutions, not individual changes in citizens.
You often seem to think in very black and white terms.
The inter- and super-communal institutions that exist should be reformed to the highest standards we can achieve regardless of how we think the community should or should not behave. I'm not even sure what mechanism to apply to decide which community does enough and which doesn't do enough to be deserving of good government services.
Originally posted by Artol
But I am interested, as a technocrat, how do you envision the process of policy creation and the decision of who gets to decide what the science says in your system?
We have a veritable mountain of research and data at our finger tips to help us decide which policies are best for police.
This includes research into rehabilitation, confrontation, deescalation, mental health, medical care, emergency response, etc.
And to everything else about scientific community disagreeing about policy: we have the Socratic method. We also have the Delphi method for truly disagreeable topics.
Also, the right-wing conservatives are sometimes anti-science. They correctly point out the bias and shitty science in much of the social sciences. So, clearly, people would object to "communist child murders" dictating public policy. It's a major weakness in my stance as a technocrat.
Originally posted by dadudemon
We have a veritable mountain of research and data at our finger tips to help us decide which policies are best for police.This includes research into rehabilitation, confrontation, deescalation, mental health, medical care, emergency response, etc.
And to everything else about scientific community disagreeing about policy: we have the Socratic method. We also have the Delphi method for truly disagreeable topics.
Also, the right-wing conservatives are sometimes anti-science. They correctly point out the bias and shitty science in much of the social sciences. So, clearly, people would object to "communist child murders" dictating public policy. It's a major weakness in my stance as a technocrat.
I mean we could quibble about some of those things, but I'm really more interested in how the decision making process would change in a society you could reform it in a technocratic manner. Obviously the system we have now does not lead to scientifically supported policy at all times, so some of the institutions would have to change, right? And then I would be interested how they would change, who would be in charge, like you said you view a lot of the social sciences as biased, and that may be true to some degree, but who gets to decide which of the social sciences are biased and which ones are not.
I fundamentally also just believe that there are differences in values that are harder to quantify with a science based approach, but that's a different topic.
Originally posted by Silent Master
No. I'm saying everybody, IE institutions and the community need to step up. You're the one saying oh well just you know if the institutions reform maybe someday eventually the community might possibly get off their ass and do something maybe
How do you want to ensure that the community steps up though? What if they don't step up, should the institutions not be improved then? I don't really understand what in specific you are arguing should happen, and how you propose that society can make it happen with the mechanisms at its disposal.