What is this about Minneapolis "defunding" its PD?

[Moonbeam]

How to reform American police, according to experts

As protesters demonstrate against police violence, here are eight ideas for reforming law enforcement in the US.

www.vox.com

More good stuff on how to reform the police with good internal links:

How to reform American police, according to experts

As protesters demonstrate against police violence, here are eight ideas for reforming law enforcement in the US.

www.vox.com

 

[Fenixgoon]

How to reform American police, according to experts

As protesters demonstrate against police violence, here are eight ideas for reforming law enforcement in the US.

www.vox.com

More good stuff on how to reform the police with good internal links:

How to reform American police, according to experts

As protesters demonstrate against police violence, here are eight ideas for reforming law enforcement in the US.

www.vox.com

Police reform is needed immediately, but we also need a broader societal reform. Policing isn't the only system that has negatively impacted black community for generations due to systemic racism. It's just one of the most visible.

 

[woolfe9998]

How to reform American police, according to experts

As protesters demonstrate against police violence, here are eight ideas for reforming law enforcement in the US.

www.vox.com

More good stuff on how to reform the police with good internal links:

How to reform American police, according to experts

As protesters demonstrate against police violence, here are eight ideas for reforming law enforcement in the US.

www.vox.com

Those are all very good ideas which I would support implementing. However, I don't see the problem solved entirely until racism in society at large is tamped down. It's like this disease which we just can't shake even after hundreds of years of sickness. Some racism is systemic, but to some extent, the emphasis on systemic racism is ignoring the most basic form: that of the individual. Systemic racism seems to suggest that the cop isn't necessarily racist until he becomes a cop, where there is this top down racism that turns the cop into a racist. However, I suspect that is not accurate in many cases. I suspect many of these cops have been racist since childhood.

Every profession has racists in it. But the typical demographic of the police officer is 1) conservative and 2) male. What do we know about conservative males in general in relation to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc? Well, they voted for Trump, didn't they? This bigotry comes from parents, peers, etc. Honestly, I don't really know what to do about that.

In the meantime, those strike me as good reforms.

 

[shortylickens]

I would LOVE federal laws that hold city police to higher standards. But I bet that will never happen, even with a Democrat controlled house, senate, and Oval Office.

 

[Herr Kutz]

A quick look inside of how de-funding the police will look: https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/...violence-murder-history-homicide-police-crime (18 murders in 24 hours: Inside the most violent day in 60 years in Chicago)

“On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, ‘Hey, there’s no police anywhere, police ain’t doing nothing,’” Pfleger said.

“I sat and watched a store looted for over an hour,” he added. “No police came. I got in my car and drove around to some other places getting looted [and] didn’t see police anywhere.”

 

[zzyzxroad]

Those are all very good ideas which I would support implementing. However, I don't see the problem solved entirely until racism in society at large is tamped down. It's like this disease which we just can't shake even after hundreds of years of sickness. Some racism is systemic, but to some extent, the emphasis on systemic racism is ignoring the most basic form: that of the individual. Systemic racism seems to suggest that the cop isn't necessarily racist until he becomes a cop, where there is this top down racism that turns the cop into a racist. However, I suspect that is not accurate in many cases. I suspect many of these cops have been racist since childhood.

Every profession has racists in it. But the typical demographic of the police officer is 1) conservative and 2) male. What do we know about conservative males in general in relation to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc? Well, they voted for Trump, didn't they? This bigotry comes from parents, peers, etc. Honestly, I don't really know what to do about that.

In the meantime, those strike me as good reforms.

Great point. I focus on systemic racism because people have the right to hate other races. It is only when their rasism impacts others, especially people's freedom, it becomes my business.

When rasism impacts peoples constitutional rights I have a duty to fight that. All US citizens do.

 

[HomerJS]

Those are all very good ideas which I would support implementing. However, I don't see the problem solved entirely until racism in society at large is tamped down. It's like this disease which we just can't shake even after hundreds of years of sickness. Some racism is systemic, but to some extent, the emphasis on systemic racism is ignoring the most basic form: that of the individual. Systemic racism seems to suggest that the cop isn't necessarily racist until he becomes a cop, where there is this top down racism that turns the cop into a racist. However, I suspect that is not accurate in many cases. I suspect many of these cops have been racist since childhood.

Every profession has racists in it. But the typical demographic of the police officer is 1) conservative and 2) male. What do we know about conservative males in general in relation to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc? Well, they voted for Trump, didn't they? This bigotry comes from parents, peers, etc. Honestly, I don't really know what to do about that.

In the meantime, those strike me as good reforms.

There are some professions where racists cannot be tolerated. Anywhere in the criminal justice system is one. I can deal with a racist dry cleaner

 

[HomerJS]

A quick look inside of how de-funding the police will look: https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/...violence-murder-history-homicide-police-crime (18 murders in 24 hours: Inside the most violent day in 60 years in Chicago)

“On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, ‘Hey, there’s no police anywhere, police ain’t doing nothing,’” Pfleger said.

“I sat and watched a store looted for over an hour,” he added. “No police came. I got in my car and drove around to some other places getting looted [and] didn’t see police anywhere.”

I see you are hoping for failure. It worked out pretty well in Camden, NJ

 

[woolfe9998]

There are some professions where racists cannot be tolerated. Anywhere in the criminal justice system is one. I can deal with a racist dry cleaner

Agreed, but my point is that racism in police comes from societal racism. These mostly conservative men are taught it by their parents and peers. So if you want to tamp down racism among police, we need to tamp it down in society at large. The fact you wouldn't see so many racist dry cleaners either is more of side bonus.

 

[zzyzxroad]

A quick look inside of how de-funding the police will look: https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/...violence-murder-history-homicide-police-crime (18 murders in 24 hours: Inside the most violent day in 60 years in Chicago)

“On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, ‘Hey, there’s no police anywhere, police ain’t doing nothing,’” Pfleger said.

“I sat and watched a store looted for over an hour,” he added. “No police came. I got in my car and drove around to some other places getting looted [and] didn’t see police anywhere.”

Please dumb this one down for me as I am not following your point. Hasn't CPD's budget increased like 40% over the last ten years.

 

[interchange]

Those are all very good ideas which I would support implementing. However, I don't see the problem solved entirely until racism in society at large is tamped down. It's like this disease which we just can't shake even after hundreds of years of sickness. Some racism is systemic, but to some extent, the emphasis on systemic racism is ignoring the most basic form: that of the individual. Systemic racism seems to suggest that the cop isn't necessarily racist until he becomes a cop, where there is this top down racism that turns the cop into a racist. However, I suspect that is not accurate in many cases. I suspect many of these cops have been racist since childhood.

Every profession has racists in it. But the typical demographic of the police officer is 1) conservative and 2) male. What do we know about conservative males in general in relation to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc? Well, they voted for Trump, didn't they? This bigotry comes from parents, peers, etc. Honestly, I don't really know what to do about that.

In the meantime, those strike me as good reforms.

I think you have the exact wrong idea. The strongest interventions are on the systemic level. In fact, on a personal level, it is often that poorly performing systems have a lot of good people working for them in very dysfunctional ways because they are following the norms of the system. It is rare that people who want things to be different are able to mobilize that desire into change. Furthermore, people's ideas about things change as they acclimate to the norms of the system they are in. Creating a system which addresses inequity is also the best way to get those within it to adapt their thinking to value said inequities.

Note: a lot of leadership ideas aren't really systems interventions or they aren't good ones. For example, diversity training isn't really a different way of doing things. However, things like demilitarizing police, eliminating cash bail, etc. are great ways to effect change on institutional racism without having even to look at race as a factor in doing them. And you know what, a cop who isn't given a no-knock warrant and swat helicopter to go pick up someone on suspicion of drug trafficking is an lot more likely to see the people around them as people and more likely to be treated with some degree of respect in return. And that difference in experience slowly changes the narrative in their minds which will not otherwise change willingly. Police forces regularly encounter enough confirmation of their biases to overcome any cognitive dissonance posed by said biases.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I agree. The problem is that race issues are the leading edge of class issues and it is racial injustice that is the most visible, the bleeding edge of class injustice. It is up to progressives to expand and unite the concepts into a larger shared conscious recognition.

There seems to be a lack of balance between political posturing and a rational plan of action at least IMO. Certainly we need substantial change but if one is going to remove traditional protection then there needs to be something ready to go.

 

[woolfe9998]

I think you have the exact wrong idea. The strongest interventions are on the systemic level. In fact, on a personal level, it is often that poorly performing systems have a lot of good people working for them in very dysfunctional ways because they are following the norms of the system. It is rare that people who want things to be different are able to mobilize that desire into change. Furthermore, people's ideas about things change as they acclimate to the norms of the system they are in. Creating a system which addresses inequity is also the best way to get those within it to adapt their thinking to value said inequities.

Note: a lot of leadership ideas aren't really systems interventions or they aren't good ones. For example, diversity training isn't really a different way of doing things. However, things like demilitarizing police, eliminating cash bail, etc. are great ways to effect change on institutional racism without having even to look at race as a factor in doing them. And you know what, a cop who isn't given a no-knock warrant and swat helicopter to go pick up someone on suspicion of drug trafficking is an lot more likely to see the people around them as people and more likely to be treated with some degree of respect in return. And that difference in experience slowly changes the narrative in their minds which will not otherwise change willingly. Police forces regularly encounter enough confirmation of their biases to overcome any cognitive dissonance posed by said biases.

I'm not saying that changing systems isn't a good idea. I'm saying that a lot of bigotry comes from the bottom up.

I'll give you a personal example. When I was in grade school, the boys would run around calling each other "f*****t" and saying "that's so gay" all the time. From early on, I gleaned from my peers that being a homosexual was just about the least socially desirable thing a person could be. Especially males. I was quite homophobic throughout high school.

It evaporated rather quickly when I went to college and started meeting actual gay people and realizing that I liked them. But it started out early, and not even from authority figures. From peers.

Another example that isn't personal. I watched a documentary recently about the case in the 90's where this guy goes on the Jenny Jones trash talk show and finds out who had a "secret crush" on him. Turns out it was a man he knew. On the show, he smiles and laughs but is obviously embarrassed. Three days later, he guns the guy down with a shotgun. On the documentary, his father speaks, saying he understood his son's humiliation because people thinking you are gay is just about the worst thing anyone could think of you. It's pretty clear where this guy got his homophobia from. His family.

 

[zzyzxroad]

There seems to be a lack of balance between political posturing and a rational plan of action at least IMO. Certainly we need substantial change but if one is going to remove traditional protection then there needs to be something ready to go.

For sure. Is anyone proposing otherwise? At least in that CNN interview I watched with with Bender, she acknowledged it would be a long and slow process.

 

[interchange]

I'm not saying that changing systems isn't a good idea. I'm saying that a lot of bigotry comes from the bottom up.

I'll give you a personal example. When I was in grade school, the boys would run around calling each other "f*****t" and saying "that's so gay" all the time. From early on, I gleaned from my peers that being a homosexual was just about the least socially desirable thing a person could be. Especially males. I was quite homophobic throughout high school.

It evaporated rather quickly when I went to college and started meeting actual gay people and realizing that I liked them. But it started out early, and not even from authority figures. From peers.

Another example that isn't personal. I watched a documentary recently about the case in the 90's where this guy goes on the Jenny Jones trash talk show and finds out who had a "secret crush" on him. Turns out it was a man he knew. On the show, he smiles and laughs but is obviously embarrassed. Three days later, he guns the guy down with a shotgun. On the documentary, his father speaks, saying he understood his son's humiliation because people thinking you are gay is just about the worst thing anyone could think of you. It's pretty clear where this guy got his homophobia from. His family.

Or you could look at it differently and say that the norms of these systems (school, family) were to discriminate against homosexuality. In your instance, when you went to a system (school) with different norms and encountered gay people, it allowed you to change your own views.

 

[woolfe9998]

Or you could look at it differently and say that the norms of these systems (school, family) were to discriminate against homosexuality. In your instance, when you went to a system (school) with different norms and encountered gay people, it allowed you to change your own views.

The homophobia I learned in grade school wasn't systemic, though. Not a word of it ever came from authority figures there. It came solely from peers. And I got rid of it not because I was being taught tolerance in college, but because of individual, personal interactions I had there.

I understand the theory where everything is viewed as a system. But I look at bigotry as more like a disease which spreads from person to person.

 

[interchange]

The homophobia I learned in grade school wasn't systemic, though. Not a word of it ever came from authority figures there. It came solely from peers. And I got rid of it not because I was being taught tolerance in college, but because of individual, personal interactions I had there.

Apparently the authority figures also did nothing to effectively change the culture. Why does something require an overt act by authority to qualify as systemic?

 

[zzyzxroad]

Apparently the authority figures also did nothing to effectively change the culture. Why does something require an overt act by authority to qualify as systemic?

Understanding the root cases is needed and this topic is so complicated.

I came of age during a period where, in mass, we incarcerated black males for minor drug position. In retrospect those laws and how they were enforced seems to be purposeful and I was regrettably oblivious.

Put a young man in jail for five years and it's going to change him. Prisons are probably the best place to hone your crime commuting skills. Upon release good luck getting a job. If you had kids their chances for success probably went out the window. its some horrible snowball effect. You end up with disproportionate percentage of black men committing crimes. Law enforcement then profiles them more. Black people say hey lets talk about this. We say stop being disrespectful you cop hater. Rinse and repeat.

Fixing this is going to take a lot of hard work. As a society we have treated the black community like shit. Thy deserve a disproportionate amount of our support to undo the damage.

 

[Moonbeam]

Or you could look at it differently and say that the norms of these systems (school, family) were to discriminate against homosexuality. In your instance, when you went to a system (school) with different norms and encountered gay people, it allowed you to change your own views.

So what I see at work is the evolution of liberal thinking, basic rationality based on self interest, the interplay between, say a fear of being out competed by outside groups and the danger of too much inbreeding, the development of mechanisms, traditions, and formalities that bind families clans nations and races right up to international treaties, an ever expanding inclusiveness, of the recognition that we are all the same and all of the social, political, economic, as well as emotional values of seeing each other as human that the growth of systemized liberal thinking creates in the pursuit of rational utilitarianism.
Change the system, change the man; change the man in increasing numbers, change the system, the slow march of on earth as it is in heaven. We are born with a sense of justice and impelled to wish it for others.

The problem with bigotry, I think, is that the human brain is evolved to detect patterns and verbalize them into memes which can then label others in the form of put-downs. This is how we transmit our learned self hate by transferring the hate we were shown in being put down onto others. Repressed anger, feelings we were taught by violence and fear of shame to express, has to go somewhere and it goes where it is tolerated by the source of authority.

So it is very important to work on changing what authority will tolerate. But at the same time nothing in the individual changes if those feelings aren’t given some avenue of expression. America needs psychotherapy, acceptance of self by allowing the expression of the suffering we have buried as children. Heal the system fewer sick, fewer sick easier to change the system.

 

[interchange]

Understanding the root case is needed and this topic is so complicated.

I came of age during a period where, in mass, we incarcerated black males for minor drug position. In retrospect those laws and how they were enforced seems to be purposeful and I was regrettably oblivious.

Put a young man in jail for five years and it's going to change him. Prisons are probably the best place to hone your crime commuting skills. Upon release good luck getting a job. If you had kids their chances for success probably went out the window. its some horrible snowball effect. You end up with disproportionate percentage of black men committing crimes. Law enforcement then profiles them more. Black people say hey lets talk about this. We say stop being disrespectful you cop hater. Rinse and repeat.

Fixing this is going to take a lot of hard work. As a society we have treated the black community like shit. Thy deserve a disproportionate amount of our support to undo the damage.

I would say root causes -- plural. Which is an important part of systems understanding. You name some good ones in your post. I've said multiple times before that if I could change one thing it would be criminal justice reform. Strangely, something I have to give Trump a little kudos for even though it seems his particular role was quite small.

 

[zzyzxroad]

I would say root causes -- plural. Which is an important part of systems understanding. You name some good ones in your post. I've said multiple times before that if I could change one thing it would be criminal justice reform. Strangely, something I have to give Trump a little kudos for even though it seems his particular role was quite small.

Absolutely and fixed. He does deserve a half a smidgen of kudos for that.

 

[Starbuck1975]

This is a perfect example of where the protest movement needs some leadership and a cohesive message. “Defund” is a poor use of words. Its an easy term for police unions and Trump to politicize. The goal should be to “demilitarize”, because its much harder to defend police militarization.

 

[Wreckem]

Two thing they have to change at minimum. Police Unions need to be busted. They are clearly a shadow police administration that thwarts police reform and getting bad cops off the street.

Number 2, payouts for excessive forces and other constitutional lawsuits should exclusively come out of police pensions. Taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for billions because of bad police officers.

From there you can add on any other reform. Hiring practices and training definitely need to be fixed. Cops who have been terminated for cause shouldn’t be allowed to get jobs at other departments. Etc.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Every politician on the planet is trained to speak in sound bites then, we complain all we get is sound bites.

 

[zzyzxroad]

This is a perfect example of where the protest movement needs some leadership and a cohesive message. “Defund” is a poor use of words. Its an easy term for police unions and Trump to politicize. The goal should be to “demilitarize”, because its much harder to defend police militarization.

I agree.