This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'm in a position to watch body cam footage on occasion as part of my job. I think there is one other factor that should be explored as an extension of the above.
Firstly, when an officer is wearing a body camera they do act differently. A cop's supervisor is always in a position to have a look at the footage, and this encourages stricter adherence to protocols than without the body cam. If you're a left-wing voter, you probably think this is great.
But there's a cost to having police constantly aware that their actions might be scrutinised too. That dad who forgot he had a stanley knife in his pocket on the way home from work gets pulled up by police? Police are now in a position where they cannot use their personal judgement about the matter, and instead are forced to charge the guy. The law was clearly written with the intent to stop hoodie wearing 16 year old boys carrying knives on trains, but the law isn't supposed to discriminate, so can't be written to target e.g. scummy looking teenagers. Previously, common sense would largely prevail. Now? If you exercise common sense as a police officer, you may be pulled up for breaking policy upon returning to the station.
You can do the same exercise with speeding, assault, neighbourhood disputes. Police frequently let people off with a warning, or just used their authority to resolve a situation outside of court. But now, just being a good community cop who enforces the intent of the law isn't a thing. You're going to have to charge everybody with everything and let the magistrate decide what to do with them.
A particular case I know of was a country cop who had been in the same region for about 15 years. A years long dispute between farming neighbours over everything from "he's stealing too much water from my dam" to "he waved his gun in my face" had been routinely resolved by the cop showing up and adjudicating the problems. A very old school town sheriff type story. When body cams were implemented, his ability to do this was grossly perverted. He could no longer personally resolve these issues, and was being forced to e.g. confiscate guns, suspend drivers licences, report problems to the EPA around the water sources, etc. I'm not so much lamenting the sheriff-style approach as I am the issues that arise from deferring problem resolution to a blind, unfeeling public entity. The EPA ruled that one guy couldn't access the water anymore (despite it having been shared for thirty years) and crushed the neighbour's farm. The other guy had his licence suspended and had to abandon the farm to live with his son.
I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that body camera footage has been an almost complete victory for the conservatives (as you are implying above) in the sense that now everybody can see that these guys getting shot generally did everything they could to get themselves shot. To show that police aren't just finding black guys to rough up, they just tend to be the type to act crazy in a shopping centre carpark on average.
But there has been at least some cost to body camera footage. Every cop knows if he lets the 50 year old white woman go with a warning, but charges the young mexican gang-banger, there's always a possibility that some organisation pulls the footage, calls you a racist and ruins your career and reputation. For me, I want the law applied differently in different circumstances. I know that's very open to rebuttal, but I'd prefer a world where cops are trusted to use their own personal judgement too.
This is a misunderstanding of how bodycam footage works- the storage capacity on bodycam footage is not infinite, as part of the paperwork on a police interaction officers have to outline and save their bodycam footage. Routine stops like that aren't getting reviewed by a supervisor, they're getting reviewed by an office lady who checks to see if this needs to go to a prosecutor for a ticket, the officer needs extra time to drop off an arrestee at the station, the judge on call to sign warrants needs a phone call, or if he needs to get sent over to dispatch for another call, etc.
This is pretty normal bureaucracy for running mobile operations. Bodycam footage might be saved and owned by the municipality, thus making it technically a public record, but they're probably not being viewed by police supervisors unless the arrest generated a complaint, or there's a new system being tested, etc. Police supervisors have actual jobs to do that don't entail personally watching officers do theirs(they system was set up to have officers work with limited supervision).
It's ten years in my jurisdiction at a minimum. With appeals this might be 15+.
Yes they are, and at any time they can be. Officers can have a full shift review if e.g. they ding their vehicle or receieve a complaint. Or for any other reason the supervisor has to check.
Obviously their job is to supervise and some portion of that is reviewing arrests or interactions.
It's not even my higher level point anyway. Police now have to operate as if their footage might be looked at in the future. This stops dirty cops planting guns, sure. But it also stops good cops from applying the law commensurate with the intent of the law.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How much of a problem is this in reality though? How many police chiefs are disciplining beat cops for discretionary acts of mercy? I ask because I regularly see bodycam videos of exactly that: the officer being kind and understanding toward someone who technically broke the law but clearly doesn't deserve punishment, and these officers recieve nothing but praise. Local PD facebook pages regularly post these types of videos themselves as a PR move. And personally, the one time I've been pulled over in the bodycam era involved a courteous interaction where the officer let me off with a warning and we both parted smiling.
I am sympathetic to the argument. It's consistent with some of the problems we see in other areas where overly strict compliance rules result in loss of discretion and worse outcomes. But based on what I've seen and experienced, bodycams seem to have a salutary effect on officer behavior without overly restricting their ability to exercise discretion and apply mercy.
It really depends on whether hindsight proves him to be wrong a lot of the time, if we are being honest.
You see this a lot in judicial retention races. Two judges can release the same % of domestic batterers from jail prior to trial, but if one of them has two guys come back and kill their girlfriend and the other has zero, you know who gets the campaign against them. Same for an officer that lets a guy who had 3 beers off with a warning, then T-bones a family of 5 months later.
More options
Context Copy link
Speeding offences might have latitude. Something that may end up in court obviously doesn't. Something where a supervisor might have a different opinion, you're going to have to steer towards that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is what people say they want. I mean, it worked for China. And governments are regularly jealous of China's state capacity to identify and punish dissidents. Then again, part of the reason it worked for China is that it was a society so low trust that the blind unfeeling public entity was genuinely considered preferable.
Yes but in practice nobody does want it. They want the intent of the law followed. If they're generally they safe drivers they want to be pulled over and given a warning for marginal speeding. They don't want a guy to say "the rules are the rules" and give them a ticket.
But they also want serial speeders heavily punished for making the streets unsafe.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is a good thing, though. If a badly-written law is on the books, it should be rewritten by the legislature. An executive who refuses to properly enforce a badly-written law is just kicking the can down the road at best, and enabling discriminatory enforcement at worst. Enforcing badly-written laws to the hilt inflames voter sentiment to make the legislature do its job.
That's my point. I accept it's unpopular, but we actually do want discrimination in the application of the law. A law written to reduce the amount of 16 year olds stabbing people on the train can't be written as "but let grandpas with swiss army knives go". We can instead rely on the cop to use his common sense.
I think it's pretty simple actually. Simply arrest the sixteen year olds who stab people on the train or restrict knife carrying to adults (God knows more retarded weapons laws are on the books).
More options
Context Copy link
Sure, if we want to create a police state with multi-tier citizenry and where everyone's technically guilty at all times. This seems like a bad idea.
That's the exact opposite of what I said.
That's certainly what you seem to be saying. You make some law that outlaws a normal thing like carrying a pocketknife, then you only enforce it against 16-year-olds and not grandpas.
No, I'm saying that law already exists where I live. And if you'd read my post more keenly you'd recognise I'm not suggesting any new laws (no idea where you got this from) and arguing for the exact opposite of a police state. Like, the exact opposite. Reducing the amount of cases that go to court by using common sense is a great way to avoid police/legal over reach.
It's usually a very bad conversation etiquette to tell somebody what they're saying, especially after they've said they're not saying it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Three Felonies a Day came out back in 2011.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It sounds like most of the problem here is even dumber than that. There is no law requiring cops to press charges every time they catch someone with contraband - but apparently some police forces have policies that cops should do so.
If police forces have dumb policies that have only survived because beat cops ignore them, then those policies should and can be changed without involving the legislature. In most municipal police forces it wouldn't need to involve elected officials at all.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link