Since we can’t realistically take settlements against the police out of their pensions, individually or collectively - and paid leave is the standard ‘punishment’ when at least a charge of manslaughter fits…
Maybe we can pay them to police one another.
If we offered a 20K bonus, anonymously, to officers who produced documentary evidence of serious and inappropriate abuses of power by fellow officers, do you think they’d bite? 40K? 80K?
Do you think they wouldn’t turn on a “brother” for 50K?
It doesn’t have to be forever, just for long enough for the public relations disaster to unfold… that should help them compromise. Could bring them to the table, rather than just them flipping it AGAIN.
Cheap justice, really. Any better ideas?
I’ll be flagging any comment which is wildly off topic, laden with innuendo, or personal, and asking the mods to remove them. Thank you for your kindness.
I think the “anonymous” part would be the problem. Even if you set up a completely separate entity to police the police, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out who snitched as there usually is a limited number of witnesses. If someone gets a sudden influx of cash, it is hard to to be seen spending it. Police have a close knit community - and by community I mean also the spouses and the officers - usually everyone knows what everyone else is doing.
Then there is the problem of proof: obtaining and securing it without it being destroyed or corrupted by the time someone can get around to investigate. Sure you may get some of the most inept officers, but I am sad to say the bad ones know exactly how to play the system.
Another problem is that of retaliation. Anyone suspected of snitching on their fellow officers will find themselves ostracized pretty quickly. That can be dangerous in the field for when you need back up. Evidence may be planted so the suspected snitch is accused of wrong doing.
It is a thorny problem. I don’t think financial incentives are enough to turn it around. The cops already know who the bad apples are, but the system is built on protecting them or at least covering for them.
A better, yet less just and satisfying solution, is to encourage supervisor to quietly “retire” the corrupt officers instead of covering for them. Give them an honorable out with full pension before the problem becomes endemic. For many jurisdictions it may be too late for that and it may be better to start over.
I know that this is emotionally repugnant and not fair or just, but it would be better to encourage corrupt police to find other occupations than keep them doing a job they can not be trusted with.
then not cash. 50K towards their kids college fund, or a special retirement account. They don’t have to get a huge cash payout, just a large financial motivation.
And it could be enough for many of them to think twice about if that guy next to them who has their back - still has their back when they take the nightstick out to punish someone extrajudiciously, or not…
But a good point. thanks!
But just enough to keep them guessing? before long the whole thin blue line would be a relic of the past. IDEALLY.
If this worked 10 times it would affect every officer in the countries attitude. They need to be a little more paranoid about who is watching them, and how closely. Body cams do not work, as they keep ‘breaking’ and ‘malfunctioning’ at really convenient times, with no sanction.
right! That’s why I want to see an outside system which directly motivates the officers as individuals (some of them greedy, very much so, like people are) rather than trying to affect their rules - affect their internal motivations.
That IS a good idea. But what drives that forward?
Agreed. Thing is, currently they have a job that nobody should be trusted with. We’re fallible. We need rules to protect our rights from those with the sanctioned authority to do us violence in the name of the state, without undue influence of other humans egoes.
That’s why my idea tries to motivate the ego of the individuals, rather than changing the rules.
1.) make cops pay their own court fees.
2.) don’t put cops on paid leave when they kill people. Instead they get backpay after they’ve been determined innocent.
To some degree the retaliation issue can be mitigated by having the ‘traitor’ be a group rather than an individual on the inside.
Take the (sadly often necessary) “FBI gets called in to apply a bunch of civil-rights related charges to Sheriff Bubba’s Justice Posse” case. Both sides are law enforcement; but they don’t necessarily mix much, have any overlapping social circles, don’t work with the same DAs and prosecutors and forensics labs and so on.
This has it’s own set of risks: you can’t just hand the tier 2 guys power without risk of them abusing it; and having the entire local PD close ranks when the outsiders show up doesn’t make the investigation any easier; but it is much less likely that a Fed would necessarily get all weepy and thin-blue-line-y about some local department or sheriff; and a Fed would be much less likely than a member of the local organization to face social ostracism(since their social life doesn’t depend even slightly on the location being investigated) or serious threats to safety or life(since they aren’t going to be depending on the other members of the local PD for backup; and even the most power-tripping local LE figure knows that his buddy the local judge is unlikely to be enough if a Fed ‘accidentally’ dies while nosing around).
