
If You Want to Fix Policing, Listen to the Pragmatists - jseliger
https://reason.com/2020/09/03/if-you-want-to-fix-policing-listen-to-the-pragmatists/
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tynpeddler
There are a lot of good points in this article, but few of them really seem to
cut to the core of the problem. For the record, here's the high level of their
proposals:

> abolish qualified immunity (page 18), bust the police unions (page 22),
> better regulate the use of police force (page 25), rethink crisis response
> (page 28), end the drug war (page 32), release body cam footage (page 35),
> stop overpolicing (page 37), and restrict asset forfeiture (page 40).

While all of these should be done, none of them solve the systemic issue.
Qualified immunity? Definitely should be abolished but many of the issues
around policing are not civil issues, they're criminal issues. A civil remedy
for a criminal problem is insulting at best. Regulate the use of Police force?
Who's going to enforce it consistently? I think we all see the pattern here.
The problem with policing is that there's no mechanism to enforce the law
against police and most of the proposals listed in this article only address
the issue tangentially at best.

Here are more serious proposals.

Abolish the difference between prosecutors and public defenders. All city
attorneys are required to play defense and offense. Ensure that they are
judged on both sides of their performance. This is intended to disrupt the
inappropriately chummy relationship between DA's and the police. DA's will be
a lot less forgiving of police shenanigans if it hurts them.

Police oversight boards can not contain active or recently retired law
enforcement officials. The Seattle Office of Police Accountability is an
example of what not to do. They have 9 active duty police sergeants who
perform most, if not all, of their investigations. Since they're active duty,
their promotion and pay depends on their superiors in the police department.
That's a non trivial conflict of interest.

One of the major missions of the FBI should be enforcement of the law against
law enforcement employees. Federal law enforcement was a major player in
rooting some of the issues in the Baltimore police department. We need more of
that.

Police must be required to promptly file criminal complaints against
colleagues who commit crimes. Civilians are forbidden from concealing crimes,
they same must be true of the police.

