Some Concerns About Policing

Over the last year the 'Defund the Police' crowd's significant success in raising concerns about policing resulted in a loss of funding and support for the police in many places. This correlated with a rise in American murder rates of nearly thirty percent, suggesting that at least in urban areas police do in fact perform a service to the ordinary public. 

Likewise, the ongoing fiasco of lies being foisted especially by the White House against the Border Patrol is clearly aimed at furthering two of their agenda items: 1) Paint America, and the police, as secret white supremacists; 2) Flood the country with illegal immigrants. 

So there is reason to believe that the police are being unfairly treated by politicians and activists. That said, there are also reasons to be concerned about policing and its violence. I have tried to present this argument fairly in this space, but these concerns about violent organized criminality among police are significant enough even to name-brand 'conservatives' to now appear in National Review. The follow-up piece is even worse. (h/t Instapundit).

Meanwhile, in Australia, police are responding to protests against COVID measures with severe violence. (Warning: that link is graphic.) They are shooting at unarmed crowds with what must be nonlethal munitions given the apparent absence of many bodies, but even so are significant violations of the right to peacefully protest. 

These findings suggest that police officers cannot be assumed to be reliable, upstanding figures who enforce the moral order. They frequently form internal criminal gangs -- when I was a young man, District Attorneys in Georgia referred to the county sheriff's departments as "the Dixie Mafia" -- and can turn on a disarmed population with tyrannical brutality. 

And that's the relatively-safe uniformed police. The secret police are an obvious problem

There has to be a middle ground here between defunding/eliminating police in urban areas where crime rates will spike without them, or spreading lies about police in order to further a political agenda on the one hand; and, on the other, supporting police in spite of these significant problems. Reforms are and remain necessary, though in some city-based communities those reforms probably cannot go as far as the outright abolition of policing. We need a better approach to this than the one our politicians and activists are pursuing, both parties and all factions. 

5 comments:

  1. Incremental revisions and restorations are called for.

    "Funding" any police agency by asset forfeiture is a moral hazard. (Incentive to bad behavior) We should stop the practice, and towards a "full stop" we should at least set things up so the agency that obtains the assets should NOT be the beneficiaries.

    Somewhat ditto, funding a police, court, or public safety system bases on fines, late fees, court costs, etc is another moral hazard. Also, it's unjust in that the rich simply pay their fines immediately never accruing the "late fees" -- and perhaps because such fines are so small a share of their wealth or income, never feeling any deterrence. Punishment, when necessary, should demand time and labor, which are more equally distributed than wealth or income.

    BLM has succeeded in persuading local law enforcement to body cams. The next step should be demanding federal Law Enforcement (in particular, the FBI) video record their own activities. And "lying to federal investigators" should never be a basis for a conviction apart from some other offense.

    The taxpayers should not be alone on the hook for the malpractice or misbehavior of law enforcers. Individuals carrying badges should also carry insurance and the cost of such insurance (perhaps via their labor unions) to help recompense citizens who have been mistreated or subject to civil rights violations.

    Doesn't seem difficult to get started, here and there, at various levels, in small ways. What stops us?

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  2. I'll buy all that. It's a good question at the end: what stops us? Partly, it's incoherence in the political class. They've divided up between "Defund the Police" and "Back the Blue," when in fact a synthesis position is needed.

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  3. "A synthesis position is needed." AMEN!

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  4. Yes, and limit immunity, or end it outright.

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  5. That one may have had other causes-
    https://twitter.com/TheJJChandler/status/1442508452970987524?s=20

    I did see one where an Australian cop clearly stomps a mans head without good cause, purportedly putting him in a coma. Haven't seen it verified though.

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