Interesting article. My uncle was a cop back in the late 60's- early 70's. I believe he was taught community policing, although he worked in San Diego.
I have no problem with it and most small town cops and county sheriff's are the same way. They'd rather give someone a break than have to arrest them and have to go through all the paperwork. But, that will be harder to do now because of the police car cams and body cameras.
To go about it in a bad way, look at what DeBlasio of NYC wants his police officers to do...go door to door and lecture people on "hate" speech.
The bloggers' remarks on the early history and evolution of policing remind me both of "Fire Watch" duty in the basic training barracks of the military, and the Discworld Grimes/"Night Watch" tales of Terry Pratchett, themselves modeled on the history of Robert Peel and the London Metropolitan police force.
The remarks about the very rapid changes in modern policing from "Broken Windows" theory to "Stop and Frisk" practices -- both pioneered in New York City, our very own analog of 19th century London -- seem comparably well thought out. I am concerned that policing according the needs and experiences of "The Met" or the NYPD is not applicable to the U.S. at large. At least half, and perhaps 80% of, the geographical jurisdictions of our nation would be much better served by the Sheriff Andy (Griffith) Taylor example. A Mayberry-style approach would never work in the densely and anonymously populated city, and NYC's impersonal and rules-first RoboCop mode would fail in the 'burbs and towns. Another advantage for Federalism; but another driver that may, ultimately, lead to a breakdown of our traditional systems.
The big fight is over the suspicion that one's own group will get the "stop'n'frisk" treatment while the fair-haired boys get the Mayberry kid gloves. And I'm sensitive to that concern, but perhaps more sensitive to the need of cops to be able to figure out which situations are dangerous enough to quit indulging in Mayberry fantasies about root causes and conflict de-escalating social workers. That process of sorting neighborhoods out along a spectrum will inevitably lead people to become furious over implications that some neighborhoods are messed up big-time, because we're not allowed to think that if any particular ethno-socio-economic group can demonstrate a disparate impact, no matter what our lying eyes tell us.
That may be the big fight in a given context, but it's not necessarily so across contexts. There's no reason why most of America can't be very lightly policed, particular cities policed differently, etc.
The Federal police do provide a kind of unitary context, but at this point I'm hard pressed to think of a good reason to continue to employ them. Aside from the fact that we have no choice, of course; but given the obvious corruption at DOJ and the top of the FBI, and the serial bad acting of the ATF and the DEA, maybe if we get the chance we should make law enforcement a state and local business. That's where the Founders intended the general police power to reside anyway.
Reminds me a lot of a point you made long ago- it's an interesting trend that we've moved away from referring to police as "Peace Officers" and instead as "Law Enforcement Officers".
6 comments:
Interesting article. My uncle was a cop back in the late 60's- early 70's. I believe he was taught community policing, although he worked in San Diego.
I have no problem with it and most small town cops and county sheriff's are the same way. They'd rather give someone a break than have to arrest them and have to go through all the paperwork. But, that will be harder to do now because of the police car cams and body cameras.
To go about it in a bad way, look at what DeBlasio of NYC wants his police officers to do...go door to door and lecture people on "hate" speech.
Yeah, Mike, that approach can definitely go wrong. But the ordinary beat cop is probably smarter than the mayor.
The bloggers' remarks on the early history and evolution of policing remind me both of "Fire Watch" duty in the basic training barracks of the military, and the Discworld Grimes/"Night Watch" tales of Terry Pratchett, themselves modeled on the history of Robert Peel and the London Metropolitan police force.
The remarks about the very rapid changes in modern policing from "Broken Windows" theory to "Stop and Frisk" practices -- both pioneered in New York City, our very own analog of 19th century London -- seem comparably well thought out. I am concerned that policing according the needs and experiences of "The Met" or the NYPD is not applicable to the U.S. at large. At least half, and perhaps 80% of, the geographical jurisdictions of our nation would be much better served by the Sheriff Andy (Griffith) Taylor example. A Mayberry-style approach would never work in the densely and anonymously populated city, and NYC's impersonal and rules-first RoboCop mode would fail in the 'burbs and towns. Another advantage for Federalism; but another driver that may, ultimately, lead to a breakdown of our traditional systems.
The big fight is over the suspicion that one's own group will get the "stop'n'frisk" treatment while the fair-haired boys get the Mayberry kid gloves. And I'm sensitive to that concern, but perhaps more sensitive to the need of cops to be able to figure out which situations are dangerous enough to quit indulging in Mayberry fantasies about root causes and conflict de-escalating social workers. That process of sorting neighborhoods out along a spectrum will inevitably lead people to become furious over implications that some neighborhoods are messed up big-time, because we're not allowed to think that if any particular ethno-socio-economic group can demonstrate a disparate impact, no matter what our lying eyes tell us.
That may be the big fight in a given context, but it's not necessarily so across contexts. There's no reason why most of America can't be very lightly policed, particular cities policed differently, etc.
The Federal police do provide a kind of unitary context, but at this point I'm hard pressed to think of a good reason to continue to employ them. Aside from the fact that we have no choice, of course; but given the obvious corruption at DOJ and the top of the FBI, and the serial bad acting of the ATF and the DEA, maybe if we get the chance we should make law enforcement a state and local business. That's where the Founders intended the general police power to reside anyway.
Reminds me a lot of a point you made long ago- it's an interesting trend that we've moved away from referring to police as "Peace Officers" and instead as "Law Enforcement Officers".
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