
Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve - paulpauper
https://theoutline.com/post/7752/victim-offender-overlap
======
dcolkitt
> Cooperating with law enforcement is often morally and practically
> unthinkable for the city’s most vulnerable

The article has a really big blind spot, in that it fails to mention the Drug
War even a single time.

If you want to understand _why_ America's police act like an occupying army-
the militarization of weapons and approaches, the festering hostility between
the police and the policed, the heavy-handed suspicion and disregard for those
under their protection- then you have to start with the Drug War.

Policing against victimless crimes is fundamentally a different endeavor than
policing against normal violent or property crime. In a rape, assault, or
robbery there's a clear victim to come forward. Crime gets reported, police
investigate, criminal gets arrested, community improves from having a violent
psychopath off the streets. It's a simple formula, everybody's happy.

But when you're trying to police the crimes of drugs or prostitution or
illegal lemonade stands, there is no aggrieved party. Just two or more people
engaged in a mutually voluntary transaction. Hence there's no way to stop this
activity besides butting into people's lives, violating their privacy, kicking
down doors, and harassing random people on the street. You're no longer
hauling away lunatics that hurt people. You're arresting mothers, sons, and
boyfriends who are just trying to make a living.

If you want the police to be respected and valued by the communities that they
police, then focus on restricting their activities mainly to victim-centric
crimes. The resolution of which provides tangible value to the policed. Adopt
a Portuguese-Style approach to drug policy, where usage and low-level dealing
of drugs is decriminalized and treated as a health rather than criminal issue.

~~~
DanBC
Other places have a war on drugs, or have regulations about lemonade stands,
and they don't have the pathologically awful policing that the US has.

The US is extraordinarily violent. That's where you need to start: why is
violence so common and acceptable in the US?

~~~
merpnderp
The US is a violent place even without guns. The murder rates for non-gun
violence are still astronomical compared to other developed countries. It's
likely always been violent place, so how does that change?

~~~
nradov
That is highly misleading. If you look at the overall per capita rates of
violent death since 1776 it's clear that on average Europeans are far more
violent than Americans. Limiting the count of deaths to just those that meet
the legal definition of "murder" is disingenuous.

------
eledumb
I'm a white male, near 1% income and I live in a small town about 30 miles
outside a major U.S. city and I'm terrified of the police.

We've stopped holding the police accountable for their actions and it's out of
control. Local government, state government, prosecutors and most of all the
Unions are to blame. Yeah, the Union, I'm the son of a Union executive and
Unions have lost their way.

The Union is supposed to protect the possibility of a loss of a job position,
the individual from unacceptable working conditions and unjustified sanctions,
but they should also be holding the individual up the standards of conduct,
but that's been lost. The union should be wanting to oust a bad cop, the
position won't go away, so there is no loss of a job position, but if the
individual isn't living up the the standards of behavior it reflects badly on
the rest of the organization, and harms their strength. I watched my father
walk union members off jobs because of poor performance, and after repeated
failures throw them out of the union.

The unions themselves have become a very dangerous criminal gang, they carry
weapons, they control people's lives, and they basically have no
accountability. The populace is afraid, the politicians are afraid, and the
legal system is afraid. The police have become paramilitary goon squads with
their own agenda.

A friend's uncle just retired from a southern police force, while he was
working he was pulled over 10's of times for DUI and was never charged because
he's a cop. Now that he's retired he's drunk all the time and is constantly
getting pulled over and driven home, but he's never been charged. He's only
had a few minor accidents that got covered up because the police threatened
the other driver. He'll keep doing this until he actually kills someone, then
it will be interesting to see if anything happens.

Until the police are held accountable the problem is going to keep getting
worse. Career criminals who are victims aren't the only people at risk, we are
all at risk.

~~~
steveeq1
The statistics don't support your concern: [https://cms.qz.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/screen-shot-20...](https://cms.qz.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/screen-
shot-2015-11-23-at-00-20-201.png?w=450&h=404.16666666666663&crop=1&strip=all&quality=75)

The "unarmed black man shot and killed by police" is heavily pushed by media
companies because, well, its an emotional issue that gets ratings, sells
newspapers, and gets clicks. Same thing with "terrorist threats", shark bites,
and airline crashes. People view it because it's dramatic and it sticks in
your head more because of it.

This bias is called "availability bias" and it causes people to see the
problem as much greater than it actually is.

~~~
overthemoon
A meme shared by Trump on Twitter isn't a remotely worthwhile source.

~~~
steveeq1
It's sourced.

~~~
overthemoon
It's bullshit.

[https://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/trump-retweets-bogus-
crime...](https://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/trump-retweets-bogus-crime-
graphic/)

Starting with the most obvious point, the Crime Statistics Bureau of San
Francisco doesn't exist.

~~~
bena
"But don't you understand, it reinforces my worldview and tells me that my
irrational fear of minorities isn't just racism."

~~~
steveeq1
You can make the argument that there's an irrational fear of police in our
society because of availability bias.

~~~
stefanfisk
but can you back that argument with any credible sources?

~~~
CompanionCuuube
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010028573...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010028573900339)

Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability

edit:

> The reality of the availability bias isn't in question, it's whether or not
> people's belief about police brutality is accurate

It would be nice to have some objective evidence showing why this example is a
special case immune to availability bias.

~~~
overthemoon
The reality of the availability bias isn't in question, it's whether or not
people's belief about police brutality is accurate and if not, why it isn't.
Sure, the AB is real. It MAY be a factor in why people think black people are
killed in proportionally higher numbers than people of other races, but what's
relevant is whether or not it's actually happening.

~~~
steveeq1
That's a straw man. Of course it "happens". the point is that people make it
out to be far bigger problem than it actually is.

------
chmod775
Some (not all) of _US_ police are uniquely unqualified to deal with this.

You need to be able to show some compassion in this job and try to actually
help people instead of just being a squad of gun wielding weirdos who show up
to cart any suspicious people away, guns blazing.

In most other countries police has an active role in settling disputes using
empathy and compassion, instead of just arresting people and locking them
away.

The way US police tend to operate fits well within a justice system that is
focused on draconic punishment instead of rehabilitation and reintegration
though.

Some people need a guiding hand to find back into society. In the US you're
liable to get kicked into the mud and danced upon instead.

~~~
Ballas
As an outsider, it seems that the way the police in the US react is the
consequence of interaction with the public.

In places where the police have an active role in settling disputes, they also
enjoy more respect from the community.

~~~
qekbg
It's because you only hear about the bad things. Sure there are some crazy
cops like everywhere else. But all in all I'm certain most cops are good
people who just want to help citizens and remove the bad guys.

~~~
RHSeeger
A friend of mine explained his viewpoint as... Sure, there's only a few bad
apples doing horrible things. But then there's a LOT of cops, and their union,
that help/stand up for those bad apples. If you're not taking a bribe, but you
are actively looking away when your partner is; you're the bad guy. There's
the well known blue wall of silence, and everyone that makes up that wall is
part of the problem.

~~~
ceejayoz
Precisely.

Defenders of police misconduct tend to cite the "it's just a few bad apples"
line without noting the _full_ adage is "a few bad apples spoils the barrel".

------
spodek
Citizens shooting each other is conflict resolution, which only becomes a
police issue when people know no other resolution than violence. By the time
conflict reaches the police, it's escalated to where third parties like the
police can only clean up after.

If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, teaching social and
emotional skills to children would help a lot, though would take a generation
to see widespread results. Our schools not only don't teach social and
emotional skills, they teach submission to authoritarian rule and remove what
could teach social and emotional skills: recess, free play, the arts (doing
them not history or appreciation). Schools are among the most authoritarian
institutions. (I recommend Peter Gray's Freedom to Learn blog
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-
learn](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn), especially
Children’s Freedom: A Human Rights Perspective:
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-
learn/201902...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-
learn/201902/children-s-freedom-human-rights-perspective)).

Schools could help a lot, specifically, teaching skills through experience,
not abstract facts to fill out bubbles on standardized tests.

~~~
Ancalagon
Commenting here for later, thank you for the recommendations

~~~
spodek
I hope they help.

You might also be interested in my books, which teach the social and emotional
skills of leadership, initiative, and entrepreneurship, based on courses I
teach at NYU.

Initiative: [https://www.amazon.com/Initiative-Proven-Method-Bring-
Passio...](https://www.amazon.com/Initiative-Proven-Method-Bring-
Passions/dp/1733039902)

Leadership Step by Step: [https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-
Person-Others/...](https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person-
Others/dp/0814437931)

One of my past students used the _Initiative_ skills to teach the _Leadership_
material to youths in Gaza
[https://leadpalestine.com](https://leadpalestine.com). Every situation is
unique and it's just one project, but his project shows promise of teaching
youths before they get caught up in violence. He tells me that the program
helps change views of leadership from command-and-control, authoritarian to
based in understanding and support, though I'm oversimplifying. I'm just
sharing one example.

------
slowhand09
One inaccuracy in the article refers to the Freddy Gray case in Baltimore. It
refers to "Police opposed the prosecutions, and many began to do their jobs
passively in protest." Police were ordered to stand down.
From.the.mayor's.office. Also, the culture there is still very much not to
snitch. Most victims there know their killers. Many are killed in view of
witnesses, and others know exactly who killed who. But they wont talk about
it. They fear and distrust each other and the police.

~~~
yardie
Baltimore is its own kind of nuts. Where every man has to be for themself. You
have the gangs looking for you, you have the police looking for you, and then
you have the corrupt police working for gangs looking for you. The safest
thing you can do is keep your mouth shut. Whatever you say is eventually going
to find it’s way back to someone who wants to hurt you.

I blame this on the war on drugs. The risk and reward from the drug trade has
gotten so high that a human life isn’t worth much. Distributing pays well.
Getting a life sentence from being caught is the risk. So, in a dealers mind,
taking life to prevent theirs from being taken is justified.

------
pardavis
Those animated paragraph breaks are awful. I can't read the content without
strategically covering them by scrolling.

------
RickJWagner
“The department seems to be assigning some blame to the victims rather than
assessing its own inability to bring the violence under control.”

How do you do any kind of fair analysis without just presenting data? If the
cops used inflammatory language, then shame on them. But if it was just
numbers, it's hard to argue against clean data.

------
DINKDINK
Because the __administration __of police /defensive-forces is monopolized by
the state, citizens don't have the option to hire alternative service
providers that might meet their needs better[1]. Similar to a municipality
selling a monopoly of ISP rights to a ISP megacorp (read Comcast, Time-
Warner), the resulting lack of competitive forces degrades the service. Like
most municipal-granted monopolies, the only way a citizen can get choice in
those services (public schools, police, road administration) is to be wealthy
enough to move, if not you're a serf.

[1] People often confuse: 1\. State-monopolized administration of 'public'
services. 2\. Mandated spending (supplied through tax) with private
administration. (This is the model Sweden uses[2])

"People Are Hiring Private Police Squads in Detroit" \-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pt6hnabnkU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pt6hnabnkU)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq3vVbdgMuQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq3vVbdgMuQ)

------
ptah
being "tough" on crime is not effective. this article reminds me of this:
[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180723-why-we-should-
treat...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180723-why-we-should-treat-
violence-like-an-epidemic)

------
throwaway5752
It is not always brought up, but the anabolic steroid epidemic among police is
having the dual corrosive effect of increasing individual aggression and
reducing respect for the law among police officers.

~~~
HarryHirsch
It's not only the steroids themselves messing with your brain, it's also the
fact that you work out in a shady gym and buy them from your dealer gym buddy.

Here's a shining example from Arlington, TX:
[https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2014/02/12/ex-
arlingto...](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2014/02/12/ex-arlington-
officer-gets-1-year-prison-sentence-in-steroids-case)

Arlington has recruitment trouble, like so many other police forces around the
country. Normal people don't want to join the steroid-addled gang, that leaves
only highschool bullies who don't mind the low pay and love hassling the
public.

