I was just thinking about the total lack of accountability by police departments, on every level. Police unions have been extremely successful at blocking personal accountability. Institutional accountability never happens either. Oakland CA set things up where the department would be responsible for its own settlements - and then never enforced it. Ironically it was because the police department was involved in such a massive scandal that the scale of the corruption and the subsequent payouts would have severely impacted their budget. The city dared not allow the police to, well, defund themselves, having completely bought into the entirely disproven myth that cops reduce crime. The police department was saved from having to be accountable and fix their own messes precisely because they are too broken.
Accreditation and insurance seem like strategies that could get around that kind of institutional catch-22, if you could get around the police unions to enact them. It would be interesting to see what kind of impact it would have on “bad apples,” given the system is entirely built around retaining only bad apples…
