
Code of Silence - w1ntermute
https://theintercept.com/series/code-of-silence/
======
feklar
Police seem to only want to manage the war on drugs not defeat it, as was
explained to me by a friend who's a cop and became totally disillusioned, just
counting out his days until retirement. This means working with one criminal
group to help arrest the other groups. Of course by interfering in the drug
dealing free market by propping up various mid level street gangs and
arresting the others they create an extremely dangerous powder keg where these
targeted groups go to great insane lengths to survive, and the propped up
group is often dismantled and arrested by police whenever they become too
confident and do something stupid like their untouchable gang members
terrorizing too many innocent people. The demise of the dominant group once
propped up by police means a power vacuum forms and streets become a warzone
as all fight to take over the dominant position of police protected status.

I'm pretty sure that without police 'managing' these mid level street gangs,
they would just exist as smaller decentralized crews that would be much less
violent as we would stop creating Tony Montanas and instead just have
disorganized criminal activity on a smaller income scale since honest police
would be able to easily disrupt these networks into bankruptcy. Instead we get
police helping to form supergangs, with multi millions to spend on weapons and
corrupt all aspects of a city with criminals getting into mafia-like
construction industries to influence city tenders, bribe city employees or
unchecked extortion of local business. Either legalize it all or end the
strategy of selective enforcement, which means we likely need to double police
budgets as cost is a major factor in this strategy of enforcement that relies
on criminal cooperation.

~~~
pixl97
>Police seem to only want to manage the war on drugs not defeat it

Because they cannot defeat it. _You will never win a war on vice_. We didn't
learn our lesson when prohibition was enacted. When you target vice and
addiction a violent black market is created.

>they would just exist as smaller decentralized crews that would be much less
violent

Being sure is pretty different from knowing. It's just as likely the street
gangs would congregate power because there is a whole lot of money in illegal
drug sales anyway you look at it. This is no different than non drug gangs,
and even businesses themselves.

Decriminalization of most drugs, and clinics where drugs are given in free,
metered doses is probably the best way to remove massive amounts of money from
the drug black markets.

~~~
kapitza
_You will never win a war on vice_

That would come as news to Singapore:

[https://www.mfa.gov.sg/content/mfa/media_centre/press_room/p...](https://www.mfa.gov.sg/content/mfa/media_centre/press_room/pr/2014/201409/press_201409261.html)

~~~
abandonliberty
Wow, I had no idea.

How do the facts back this up?

It helps when your country is smaller than most international cities.

[http://www.travelersdigest.com/7390-how-big-is-singapore-
in-...](http://www.travelersdigest.com/7390-how-big-is-singapore-in-
comparison-to-los-angeles-new-york-london-hong-kong/)

~~~
greggman
Smaller than most international cities? Which cities are these? Singapore us
bigger than all but 4 European cities and 1 U.S. city

------
whack
It still boggles my mind that police misconduct is supposed to be investigated
and prosecuted by the accused person's peers. How is this not an obvious
conflict of interests?

Mandate body-cams for every single cop nationwide. Have all misconducts
investigated by a completely separate department. Convict a few cops for
perjury if they lie on the stand to help their peers. These three steps should
go a long way towards mitigating gross misconduct.

~~~
noobiemcfoob
It's not that it isn't an obvious conflict of interest. I believe it stems
from the same realm as the military courts. Namely, civilians and
noncombatants are not the peers of soldiers (or cops) because of the vast
difference in experiences and mission.

That's not a statement of support. Personally, I reject all military-esque
ideas within a police force and consider them terribly dangerous.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's not that it isn't an obvious conflict of interest. I believe it stems
> from the same realm as the military courts. Namely, civilians and
> noncombatants are not the peers of soldiers (or cops) because of the vast
> difference in experiences and mission.

I don't think that's right, which is why we don't have police courts with a
separate system of law and judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys that are
also police officers, the way the military is.

Instead, the theory is the opposite, _overlooking_ the inherent conflict of
interest and just holding that police are _just like everyone else_ , so that,
just as it would be the police department that handled the investigation,
arrest, etc. if any random person was accused of a crime, so to, if a police
officer is accused of a crime, its the police department that performs those
functions.

To have someone _else_ do that when police are the subject of the accusation
would be an acknowledgement that there is a _difference_ between the police
and everyone else when it comes to criminal investigations.

------
kldaace
Worth reading about the Invisible Institute
([http://invisible.institute/](http://invisible.institute/)) which is the
journalistic company Jamie Kalven, the author of this article, started.
They've been the driving force behind most of the public oversight of the
Chicago Police Department in recent years. In addition to calling for the
release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video, they've published a database of
over 56,000 misconduct complaint records against Chicago police officers.

------
gremlinsinc
So is it safe to say if you want to lead a life of crime, become a cop first?
Nail that get out of jail free card, then do whatever you want?

~~~
wu-ikkyu
The best way to rob a bank is to be a banker.

~~~
Phlarp
The quote you are looking for is "Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank. Give a
man a bank, he can rob the world"

------
bpchaps
Invisible Institute is an incredible group. They are one of the few journalist
groups who are interested in solving complex problems rather than simply
reporting on them.

If anyone is interested in doing similar work, it's surprisingly easy to get
into by using FOIA. Just submit a request for something that interests you and
pursue it when (not if) you get resistance. My contribution to the ongoing
lack of police oversight was a request for police complaints that was never
responded to. Since I received no response and Illinois FOIA has actions based
on unresponsiveness, my lawyer - who I think the invisible Institute shares -
had something extra to build a case for the release of police complaints. It
didn't lead to anything being released, but it was still helpful. Every bit
counts!

------
RankingMember
If you like this story and/or are a glutton for punishing tales of bad cops
hammering good cops, check out the "This American Life" episode about a guy
who recorded corruption in the NYPD:

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/414/r...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent)

------
throwaway98237
God bless good journalism.

------
cryoshon
Profit-seeking collaboration with drug dealers. Targeting of rogue cops trying
to expose the dysfunction. What else aren't we hearing about?

How much more evidence do we need that a lot of these malfunctioning police
departments need to be liquidated and the perpetrators put into prison?
Federal law enforcement exist specifically for times like these when the local
law enforcement agencies have been co-opted by criminals and cronyism...

------
pstuart
Yet another of countless examples of why the War on Drugs is a catastrophe.

------
forgotpwtomain
> _I recall talking to an American who worked for the Aftosa Commission in
> Mexico. Six hundred a month plus expense account: "How long will the
> epidemic last ?" I enquired. "As long as we can keep it going.... And yes...
> maybe the aftosa will break in South America," he said dreamily._

Naked Lunch, William Burroughs.

------
moeketsimhlongo
I can't read the original article? Is police blocking it?

------
koverstreet
Jesus. CPD needs to be burned to the ground.

~~~
angersock
One of the problems with modern police politics is that there is basically no
way for occupied populations to actually purge their corrupt police.

Time was, theoretically, you could at least mobilize to throw the bastards out
(see the Battle of Athens) within reason and let the community heal itself.

Nowadays, though, the militarization of police and the desire of the .gov to
crackdown on that sort of thing helps create this sorts of festering pockets
of corruption that cannot be replaced because to do so is highly illegal.

(On a related note, this is part of the reason a great _many_ people are
reluctant to disarm or to accept legislation that would put them further at
the mercy of police.)

------
devicenull
404?

~~~
tempodox
Nope, seems to be up and running.

~~~
devicenull
That's bizzare, the page loads, then renders a big purple box saying

Page not found We couldn’t find anything at this address. Please check the URL
or go to the homepage.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Corporate firewall? Are you at work?

------
rublev
Incredibly annoying site.

\- 'Read More' button, why? The _only_ action I should be taking is scrolling.

\- No text resize / fluidity adjustment (yay whitespace!)

\- Huge graphics, not even talking about the full screen stuff.

\- Parallax crap

\- Movie background image

\- 50 requests / 13.9mb transferred / 8.28s load time

I just want to read the article, man.

~~~
mortenjorck
Just for an opposing view, I think what The Intercept has been doing lately
with editorial design is fantastic. They've become one of the publications
pushing the boundaries of the digital magazine experience, and the integration
of rich graphics and video give an important story an appropriately compelling
presentation.

One thing I will agree with you on, though: The "read more" link adds no
perceptible value and seems to have become an editorial design cargo cult.

~~~
zeroer
I always thought the "read more" was to track how many people read the article
for analytics and ad purposes.

~~~
forgotpwtomain
Isn't scroll tracking better? They can click read more and still stop reading.

~~~
viraptor
Scroll tracking can be disabled with adblockers. Read more can always be
tracked since that's the primary purpose of the link - when you want to read
more.

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> Scroll tracking can be disabled with adblockers.

That's not strictly correct. Adblockers disable third-party services for it,
you can just implement it yourself just like read-more, which again as I
mentioned doesn't tell you whether they actually read or not.

~~~
viraptor
Adblockers can block any requests. It doesn't matter if they're from the same
site or third party. If your page is know enough, requests like reading
progress are likely to be blocked at least by ghostery.

------
FrancoDiaz
I first read that as Cone of Silence
[http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/cone.html](http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/cone.html)

