I wonder how they like AI profiling now that the shoe is on the other foot!
Seriously though, as the article itself says, the problem was never even to identify these "crews". It was about the political will to do something about it.
> Seriously though, as the article itself says, the problem was never even to identify these "crews". It was about the political will to do something about it.
A big part of the problem is the police unions, which routinely prevent leaders in the police departments from firing or otherwise disciplining police officers who routinely cause problems.
A big part of the reason there is no political will to do something about these "crews" is because the leadership knows the unions will make it as difficult as possible to get rid of them. So why spend the political capital if you're going to get stymied at every step anyway?
IMO I don't think unions are the fundamental issue -- many PDs internal affairs leave something to be desired (and police need unions for the same reason everyone else needs a union).
So I think that responsibility should be entirely shifted outside of the org, probably to the state or county district attorneys. So it isn't police policing themselves. And empirical tools like this are a great way for outsiders to monitor broader patterns and practices that appear problematic.
While it makes sense that the police would unionize for the same reason any other workers would, your second paragraph seems to contradict your first.
Your proposal to shift responsibility for "policing the police" up to elected officials means weakening police unions, does it not? Is there a political body out there that's even more fundamentally in support of police autonomy than police unions?
I don't see a conflict, unions would still be obligated to represent officers. It is just criminal behavior investigations would be shifted entirely to the DAs office (to prevent Joe from investigating his friend Bob).
The power of unions come with collective bargaining, right?
Well. You can call their bluff. You want to fire a cop for their bullshit and the rest of the cops say well were gonna strike. Then you say okay go for it. You stop paying them and you start hiring new cops to replace them.
Seriously though, as the article itself says, the problem was never even to identify these "crews". It was about the political will to do something about it.