Police should be held to the highest standard: as they have a monopoly on legal force. The end of 'qualified immunity' and the start of personal insurance akin to what surgeons have would do a lot to reform the police.
They should also be trained better (certainly longer than 1 semester), actually study the law they have to enforce, and pass a bar-like exam: They should be exceptional people.
You think ending qualified immunity would attract intelligent people?
altruios · 1h ago
Yes. In the same way doctors are intelligent without qualified immunity. If doctors gain qualified immunity: I would expect the quality of doctors to go down.
Qualified immunity only attracts bullies, and opportunists. Qualified immunity rewards bad behavior, it does nothing to promote good behavior.
mathiaspoint · 1h ago
I think most intelligent people are going to model out the expected outcome of their career choices at least intuitively. If becoming a cop more likely leads to ruin it will be less attractive to the kinds of people who think ahead.
nativeit · 1h ago
I’m ostensibly a proponent of this, certainly of its aims. That said, I’ve never been comfortable with registries. I think they are quite vulnerable to being misused, and frequently tend to become facades to cover a broader lack of more significant actions to address root causes. Institutions, bureaucracies, and most large human enterprises are more than happy to throw an individual (or dozens of them) under the bus to keep the franchise going. Especially if it means they can avoid more meaningful reforms that threaten the status quo.
zippyman55 · 15m ago
I just wish the police would be more comfortable turning their co workers in for infractions. It seems it’s culturally to easy to look the other way.
I don’t expect perfection but I hate gradual dishonesty. Unneeded overtime charges, phony disability, and too many people employed.
TechDebtDevin · 2h ago
I'm all for this, but we need a different type of person to be a cop ultimately. A lot of cops see something like this and just stop doing there job altogether. I frequently ask cops in my city wtf they're doing when parked next to 20 people doing meth and they blame the democratic mayor almost every time.
nativeit · 1h ago
You just sped run to the justification for “defunding the police”.
hsbauauvhabzb · 2h ago
You often see a cop parked next to 20 people doing meth?
mc32 · 2h ago
20 might be hyperbola but in SF cops ignore lots of drug use on the streets. They used to care up until the end of the Brown mayorship. Once Newsom and the new wave of progressives took control over the city they began pulling back from enforcement incrementally —it peaked with Breed and is now slightly retrenching but very very slowly.
Willy might have been corrupt but at least he took care of crime meaningfully.
immibis · 1h ago
Policing drug use is a waste of taxpayer money as well as a waste of labour (of both the drug users when they're not doing drugs, and the cops). The results of drug use should be policed, not the use itself; safe environments for occasional drug use should also be created (the free market would do this if it wasn't illegal, and in some places if you know where to look, has already quietly done this).
I have to disclaim I don't know what meth is like, what meth users are like, or what it's like to be on meth, but if 20 people are doing meth and not bothering anyone, and the police officer is keeping watch to ensure they don't bother anyone, that is fine by me. We should treat them like drunk alcoholics, not like murderers (unless they murdered someone).
Separately, we could encourage people to try less harmful drugs than meth. That isn't really possible as long as we give out the same penalties for weed as for meth.
mc32 · 1h ago
While I’m not and would not propose the drastic measures that Singapore or Japan take, but there is much less drug use in those two places among others and they prove that enforcement, if you’re willing to address the problem, can greatly reduce use of illegal drugs.
Meth is very addictive and debilitating. It’s worse than crack. It takes people down. They are no longer able to be productive citizens. They become a burden for families and for society.
Libcat99 · 1h ago
And arresting the users solves none of that. Maybe it hides it from casual observers, but if you actually want to help people, treatment programs and assistance, not cops, are what you need.
mc32 · 1h ago
Obviously you have to go after supply … but both Japan and Singapore successfully tackle outdoor usage. You don’t see people openly using illegal drugs in either place. Obviously if you are able to procure and do your illegal drugs at home the police can’t stop you unless your neighbors rat you out.
immibis · 49m ago
So does alcohol, but we don't lock people up for using alcohol - only when it becomes a problem for that individual person - and even then we try to avoid locking them up.
BTW, crack cocaine is just cocaine, delivered in a different format. The effects are the same. The disparity in punishment stems from the demographics of the average user of each.
hsbauauvhabzb · 2h ago
Yeah! Lock up the meth heads, that’ll fix crime!
bitlax · 2h ago
It literally does and it's good for the meth heads.
SturgeonsLaw · 26m ago
Yeah, nothing improves their prospects quite like adding a criminal record onto their drug addiction
bitlax · 17m ago
Well you'd be adding a charge and hopefully mitigating the addiction, which is a rational tradeoff. And this is assuming this person doesn't already have a record.
mc32 · 2h ago
Slippery slope. They can start tightening things down and make it unacceptable lawfully as well as socially.
Portugal after experimenting with permissiveness is tightening down. We can do it too and save people from perdition.
tiagod · 2h ago
Portugal is not tightening it down based on data, but based on perceptions. A shift to populism reverting previous progressive changes proves nothing.
Also, we didn't experiment with permissiveness, we fixed a heroin crisis that was completely out of control. You have no idea how bad it got before we stopped throwing addicts in jail and started providing them with rehab.
Source: I've lived here all my life.
Levitz · 1h ago
Portugal after having massive success with actually dealing with addictions is backing down because of the budget.
throw9394944 · 2h ago
Well, meth people are pretty fragile (no joke). If they die of overdose under your watch, you are in tons of troubles. Any normal person would refuse to deal with such risk.
Maybe meth people should become cops! And we could call Antifa to fight meth cops!
Simon_O_Rourke · 2h ago
There's never a problem so bad that a Californian police officer can't make it worse.
dang · 2h ago
Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
They should also be trained better (certainly longer than 1 semester), actually study the law they have to enforce, and pass a bar-like exam: They should be exceptional people.
Instead, we have a system that prunes people that are 'too smart' to be cops (https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...).
Qualified immunity only attracts bullies, and opportunists. Qualified immunity rewards bad behavior, it does nothing to promote good behavior.
Willy might have been corrupt but at least he took care of crime meaningfully.
I have to disclaim I don't know what meth is like, what meth users are like, or what it's like to be on meth, but if 20 people are doing meth and not bothering anyone, and the police officer is keeping watch to ensure they don't bother anyone, that is fine by me. We should treat them like drunk alcoholics, not like murderers (unless they murdered someone).
Separately, we could encourage people to try less harmful drugs than meth. That isn't really possible as long as we give out the same penalties for weed as for meth.
Meth is very addictive and debilitating. It’s worse than crack. It takes people down. They are no longer able to be productive citizens. They become a burden for families and for society.
BTW, crack cocaine is just cocaine, delivered in a different format. The effects are the same. The disparity in punishment stems from the demographics of the average user of each.
Portugal after experimenting with permissiveness is tightening down. We can do it too and save people from perdition.
Also, we didn't experiment with permissiveness, we fixed a heroin crisis that was completely out of control. You have no idea how bad it got before we stopped throwing addicts in jail and started providing them with rehab.
Source: I've lived here all my life.
Maybe meth people should become cops! And we could call Antifa to fight meth cops!