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2020-06-11 Home Front: Culture Wars

Financial incentives have given us ever more aggressive policing ‐ if we want real change, we must change those incentives

Several shiny bright ideas from left-Libertarian academic Jason Brennan.

[MarketWatch] Over the past 50 years, as racism has waned, American police have become ever more aggressive. Violent crime has dropped since 1994, but our criminal system became even more punitive. For every bullet the German police fired on duty in 2016, American police killed 10 people. Even overwhelmingly white states like Wyoming and Montana imprison citizens at higher rates than authoritarian Cuba.

[snip]

The drug war also licensed police departments to seize cash and property on mere suspicion that they might be connected to drug trafficking. Innocent victims almost never win back their money. The Justice Department’s "equitable sharing program" ensures much of the seized money — $657 million in 2013 alone — enhances police and other local government budgets. In 2015, the Obama administration curbed some of these practices, but still permit the majority of seizures, which come from local police activity and seizures from joint tasks forces. Unfortunately, most states do not disclose the total amounts seized under these laws.

We authorize and pay police to steal from us for their own benefit. Police in Tehana, Texas, stole $3 million from innocent minority drivers between 2006 and 2008, until an ACLU lawsuit ended the practice.

[snip]

Here are just six ways we can alter the financial incentives; there are other options as well, but the logic of these is relatively easy to see.

• Repeal civil asset forfeiture laws.
• Disband SWAT teams in any town smaller than 100,000 people.
• Don't allow towns to keep revenue from tickets and fines; instead place that revenue in victim restitution funds.
• Remove laws immunizing police from civil and criminal penalties.
• Enable citizens to sue police for excessive or inappropriate violence; pay resulting judgments from police pension funds or salary pools, rather than general taxes.
• Make police salary raise pools dependent upon measured community satisfaction.

If we change the incentives, we change behavior.

Posted by Iblis 2020-06-11 00:00|| || Front Page|| [12 views ] Top

#1 Violent crime has dropped since 1994, but our criminal system became even more punitive.

And he doesn't see a connection?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-06-11 01:05|| 2020-06-11 01:05|| Front Page Top

#2 Said the same thing about #1.

There are a couple of good ones in the list but the main problem is that the incentivizers are the politicians behind the scenes, not the cops.

Get rid of sovereign immunity, cut back on the over militarization of police, get rid of civil forfeiture laws. Etc. etc. Oh, and lock up the professional instigators.

Posted by AlanC 2020-06-11 08:12|| 2020-06-11 08:12|| Front Page Top

#3 Making the police a punishing, occupying force that the locals hate and whose focus is on raising revue is NOT a good way to lower crime. It just isn't. Police couldn't care less about keeping people safe, they just want to seize people's stuff and keep their jobs (the real nasty ones also want to get their rocks off hurting people). And the politicians want to use the police to signal that they're "doing something". Whatever that may be. I think the idea of disbanded SWAT teams in any town smaller than 100,000 people in inherently unworkable (most Western states and larger rural areas would be instantly disarmed), but he has a number of goods points. Civil asset forfeiture is just another way of saying "theft", and sovereign immunity allows police to do almost anything they want without consequences. And allowing cities to benefit from the tickets and fines they levy naturally makes the police into revenue collectors eager to levy more petty tickets that turn into a stream of cash.

Posted by Vernal Hatrick 2020-06-11 08:38|| 2020-06-11 08:38|| Front Page Top

#4 Until Antifa and BLM riots crime has been relatively low across the U.S. with the exception of Blue hotspots such as Chicago and others.

Posted by JohnQC 2020-06-11 09:37|| 2020-06-11 09:37|| Front Page Top

#5 Remember during the Obama years, the Dept of Education had a SWAT. Don't know if its still around now.

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-06-11 11:25|| 2020-06-11 11:25|| Front Page Top

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