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Thread: Getting the Police under control

  1. #1
    Forum Addict John Snowstorm's Avatar
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    Getting the Police under control

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_882122.html

    The story itself here is not important, I just use it as a jumping off point for the conversation as to what we can do to get police forces under control.

    You can easily go and look for case after case of police officers doing shady things, whether it be unauthorised use of force, destruction of personal property, corruption, intimidation etc etc, and then generally cover each others asses and lying about it, this happens here in Ireland and the UK as well as in the states, particularly in the UK; the cases of Ian Tomlinson and Jean Charles de Menezes are good case studies as to how the system works. In both cases the police officials made statements about how the police officers involved were innocent of any wrong doing etc etc, in both cases these statements were later proven to be lies as the police knew the facts and errors made by their men on the ground. In both cases it was only when video evidence and testimonial from outside the police force came to light that the Met started to change the narrative of events. I can see why the police establishments do not want the public keeping records of their activities; even when it is perfectly legal like it is in New York.

    Again the specifics of these particular incidents are not particularly important and aren't the real subject, the subject is what can we do to limit this type of behaviour.

    I do not suggest that police officers are inherently bad people, or all people merely joining the force in order to play out their power trip fantasies, that may be the case for some, but that is not the important factor. The fact is that when you put anyone in a position of power, you will get abuse of that power, as shown in the Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973))

    So it is quite difficult to eliminate this sort of thing through recruiting practices or even training (other studies that I will source later).

    So we get to my suggestion; I do not propose it to be foolproof or a real solution, but certainly as an improvement; as technology continues to improve it is becoming more and more feasible to have a camera or two on every cop, small virtually unnoticeable wide angle lenses that can transmit to the station or some other central storage area.

    While I am generally massively opposed to more technological surveillance, more cameras on the public, in this sort of facility I think it is much more a protection of the public than an intrusion. The police are public servants, or they are supposed to be, I have no problem with them being monitored while they are on the job.

    As technology continues to advance, and become more reliable you can mandate that all arrests/searches/seizures and other actions undertaken by the police in service of the public be recorded to be legitimate and have bearing in a court of law.

    I am really on at the stage of pondering this and I'm still unsure as to what the outcome of such a policy would be, so I am open to dissuasion on this issue.
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  2. #2
    News Correspondent flutterby's Avatar
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    Using a tabloid to spur conversation?
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    I should get a medal for all the common sense I highlight on a daily basis.
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  3. #3
    Forum Addict John Snowstorm's Avatar
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    I am not relying on any source excepting the Stanford paper.
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    #tactics

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  4. #4
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    Oh God the ****ing Stanford Prison Experiment. Shoot me now. :(

  5. #5
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    As a police officer i find most of these and other media things as just sensationalism to sell papers.For every 1 bad officer and yes there are bad officers just like every profession has bad people doing their jobs from crooked bankers to bad lawyers and politicians.But for every bad 1 you never hear about the 1000-1 who do their job as professionals every day with low pay,very little benefit other than hopefully getting their goal when they started their shift of just getting to go home at the end of the day to their families.My department has basically a 0 tolerance policy.Something minor ( to many traffic tickets off duty and such ) is 6 months probation.Anything again or 1 major issue your dismissed from your job. I just pulled a 18 hour shift for the holiday here instead of spending it with my family and made very little doing it.But its part of the job.It is nice tho that not everyone has the all police are bad idea.When your in the middle of the street for 2 hours directing traffic and people offer to bring you even water its appreciated greatly by most.Remember when the building is on fire and you run out ,the fireman run in.When bullets are being fired by a crazy person and you run away from them,kinda glance at the eyes of those people in blue running toward them.They are not doing that for their own protection.They are doing it it for yours while their families sit at home praying not to get a knock on the door later.

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  6. #6
    Forum Addict John Snowstorm's Avatar
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    I don't know about your police force thunder, but the problem is endemic in the UK, especially within the Met, incidents are covered up by the top brass, all the way to the Head of the Met knowingly misrepresenting events to protect officers that were out of line. This is far from isolated incidents as it happens over and over again. I have an uncle that works in special branch in London, he says the problem is systematic, and top down.

    Spieling off all this stuff about how heroic firemen (lolwut?) are doesn't really change any of the points I raised, nor does saying that police officers work long hours or don't get reimbursed well enough, that has nothing to do with the subject, especially when I made it very clear that the problem *isn't* that cops are bad people. Unchecked power gets abused even by essentially normal good people.

    It's also not some revelation that;

    They are not doing that for their own protection.They are doing it it for yours
    Yeah, that is the job description. It shouldn't be touted as some special amazing thing which makes the profession immune to criticism.
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    #tactics

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  7. #7
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    Then dont broad brush everyone with the same problems you say you have there as your thread title does,Not every police department is as your title implies..As i said ,every job has idiots who shouldnt be doing it.You should say something to the effect of how should you get the corrupt people out of office that if its like here ,The public voted in to begin with.

    How you get yours under control is to put people in office that have some sort of integrity and are not their for the money and politics in order to raise their own agenda and are instead there for what the job asks of it.To serve the public.

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  8. #8
    Forum Addict John Snowstorm's Avatar
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    No, I refuse to couch serious discussion in oceans of needless qualifiers, if you have a good police service, then good for you, I'm not going to specify every individual service that I am referring to in my *header*, I have given specific examples in the body of my opening post.

    If you could comprehend the discussion you would understand that I am not talking about 'a few bad apples' or "idiots who shouldn't be doing [the job]" It is to do with the nature of the job and how public servants should be overseen by the people and being properly answerable for their actions.
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    #tactics

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    I'll McGovern you up, son. Wait, you know who McGovern was, right?

  9. #9
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    They are held responsible in most cases as ive pointed out,if you comprehend whats said .People vote them in.If they are not doing the job you want or expect it isnt hard to handle. Vote them out.If your better than them run yourself.Simple fix.

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  10. #10
    Forum Addict John Snowstorm's Avatar
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    And you still haven't even understood the discussion, it's not about being better than anyone, everyone likes to think they are immune to corruption, suggestion, power tripping but the scientifically shown facts are that this is not so.

    I am suggesting fail safes, checks and balances on human nature.
    _______________________________________________________________________________________

    #tactics

    ____________________________________________________

    I'll McGovern you up, son. Wait, you know who McGovern was, right?

  11. #11
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    There is no such thing for human nature.Your hoping for a perfect person.Thats not possible.

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  12. #12
    Forum Addict John Snowstorm's Avatar
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    I see there's no IQ entry requirement for police where you're from, or perhaps there just isn't a reading comprehension requirement.

    Seriously. -_-"
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    #tactics

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    I'll McGovern you up, son. Wait, you know who McGovern was, right?

  13. #13
    Post Demon Hurlin's Avatar
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    this thread is doomed John there's no black and white its all grey it will have brainwashed fanboys from each side of the fence defiantly defending their rights or opinions ........

    Interesting idea but :( as some one has all ready pointed out human nature will effect everything ..................... next step is to inject robots/computers to govern the police actions ........ to remove human nature ?
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  14. #14
    Forum Addict John Snowstorm's Avatar
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    Yes, human nature will effect everything as it does in all other spheres, however I do think that there can be fail safes put in place.

    For example in the study by Christopher A. Parsons & Johan Sulaeman & Michael C. Yates & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2007. "Strike Three: Umpires' Demand for Discrimination," it was shown (as was already known) that umpires make a statistically significant number of bias calls in favour of their own race, this is a biologically hardwired activity, and I am not suggesting that individuals involved are racist, this is merely human nature, birds of a feather style.

    However the important part of the study was that they found when a games attendance was particularly high, or the call was made on a full count or when teh stadium was using QuesTec, an electronic system that evaluates the accuracy of umpires' calls after the game, the biased behavior practically disappeared.

    "The umpires hate those [QuesTec] systems,"

    "When you're going to be watched and have to pay more attention, you don't subconsciously favor people like yourself. When discrimination has a price, you don't observe it as much."

    Again I want to make it clear that I am not changing the issue into a racial issue, I am demonstrating that human nature can be curbed by oversight and accountability, indeed it is unclear as to whether the effect is only on the subconscious or whether umpires actively remove bias when they know they are being watched. I suspect personally that it is a case of umpires merely concentrating more and not letting their subconscious do the driving.
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    #tactics

    ____________________________________________________

    I'll McGovern you up, son. Wait, you know who McGovern was, right?

  15. #15
    Post Demon Hurlin's Avatar
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    interesting study how long was it for ?

    Reason I'm asking is where I work we are covered by a minimum of three cameras at all times any where in the building.

    only place where there are no cameras is in the toilets.

    When they first where installed everyone was very self conscious of being watched .... to the degree half the staff left the company .....

    Now we know they are there and we know some one was employed purely to watch the cameras but we don't care and have reverted back to our old shenanigans .......

    So what I'm wondering about is how effective over a long period of time is having a third party constantly accessing some one ...... bad apples are bad apples by nature if they know they are being watched they will work around it.

    Is having a third party system of checks and balances geared towards keeping "bad" policing under control or is it so joe citizen can sleep better at night thinking his police force are all good little boys and girls ?
    Last edited by Hurlin; 06-07-2012 at 11:55.
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