Only one way to stop police from hurting: Make them pay out of their own pockets if it can

[Stuart G]

be proven that what they did was wrong. That will stop most of it, if not all of it.

[marybourg]

1. Or more likely, cause recruitment efforts to fail,

as well as causing defendant police officers to simply declare bankruptcy. Simplistic remedies are ones that were rejected decades ago for lack of practicality.

[ret5hd]

2. Sounds like you have evidence of this in the past.

Care to share?

[Calculating]

6. God forbid they be held personally accountable if they make a mistake and kill someone....

Like you know, virtually every other job.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

15. Declare bankruptcy on criminal restitution?

The last time I checked, that's excluded from bankruptcy.

I worked with a guy who never drove a car. Another coworker explained that he couldn't get a driver's license until his criminal penalties for an at-fault accident were paid, which would be impossible given the huge penalties. And the penalties could never be discharged by bankruptcy either.

[jayfish]

18. If it Stops a Person From Signing Up...

for a LEO job because he/she isn't sure they will be able to conduct themselves in a controlled manner then GOOD.

[2naSalit]

20. +1

[Ferryboat]

3. Require liability insurance

Wont be able to get coverage if there is a pattern of unnecessary roughness.

[mantis49]

17. Right.

Malpractice insurance. Like medical professionals have to have.

[crickets]

23. +1

[NCjack]

4. Police unions protect officers from arbitrary management actions, but they also protect officers

who are criminals. Solve that problem and big improvements will result.

[2naSalit]

21. Best answer.

[crickets]

24. Key point. nt

[dalton99a]

5. Get rid of qualified immunity.

Abolish it. Kill it dead.

[unblock]

8. Enforce a "standard of care" instead

An emt has to perform at a level consistent with their training and the standards required for any situation and procedure they perform. If an emt is not trained in how to do a procedure properly and safely, they need to not do it.

Otherwise they are liable, definitely their employer and sometimes even as an individual

Emts have to be *better* than the average person on the street. Emts are expected to be experts in what they do.


The police is the opposite. They are allowed to take action that ordinary people would certainly have civil and possibly criminal liability for, but they are protected both by police-specific legal concepts like qualified immunity and practical challenges such as police covering for themselves and political reluctance to go after even really rotten police officers.

Police should be held to a standard of care when it comes to de-escalation. They should not be allowed to use guns as a first or nearly first resort.

And they should be require to be *right* if they fire shots. No killing people and then finding out they were just pulling out their wallet. If you take someone else's life into your own hands, you have a responsibility to make sure it's for good reason. "Oops sorry" is not good enough.

[abqtommy]

7. Immediately put a Zero Tolerance program in place that will result in arrest, trial, conviction

and incarceration. Yes, I know of the hazards that child molesters and police officers face when housed
among any general prison population. Perhaps an understanding of Zero Tolerance will result...

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. Abolish the police.

[SWBTATTReg]

10. No. What about other crimes in the neighborhood that happens, and your lawnmower gets stolen

or something gets stolen? There are lots of very good officers out there who do give a damn about their communities, and this proposing to abolish the police is going to solve all problems? And even worse, you don't propose an alternative for the so called 'abolished' police force?! I sure wouldn't want you in my neighborhood, being that you don't really seem to care about your fellow neighbors perhaps, and that your efforts to 'abolish' the police force is unwarranted, unjustified and an overreaction, IMHO.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. .

What about other crimes in the neighborhood that happens, and your lawnmower gets stolen or something gets stolen?

I kiss my lawnmower goodbye (figuratively), because most property crimes go unsolved by police.

There are lots of very good officers out there who do give a damn about their communities, and this proposing to abolish the police is going to solve all problems?

It depends on what a community fills the absence of police with. But getting rid of people dedicated to state violence seems like a good start!

And even worse, you don't propose an alternative for the so called 'abolished' police force?!

There have been plenty of threads about police abolition here over the past few months, and a quick google can get you to resources that talk about what happens as part of police abolition.

I sure wouldn't want you in my neighborhood, being that you don't really seem to care about your fellow neighbors perhaps, and that your efforts to 'abolish' the police force is unwarranted, unjustified and an overreaction, IMHO.

I generally don't talk with my neighbors about what I post on DU, so maybe we're neighbors and you don't even know it!

[SWBTATTReg]

14. Anyone can look online for just about anything, eh? You didn't justify anything about your

write up (to abolish the police), other than to throw up a smokescreen and tell me to go out 'there' in Internet land and look myself for justification when I clearly asked you to justify your own proposal to abolish the police, w/o sufficient cause.

You also told me to accept w/o question the loss of my property, simply because most property crimes go unsolved? Wow. What a justification for having a police department. You seem to think that the police work in a vacuum when most officers will tell you that having a community on their side really helps them too (and you too), in their crime fighting efforts, after all, it does take an entire community working together to resolve issues.

Anyone with a reasonable mind can already figure out that we don't want abusive police officers working (and I'm in MO, where a lot of this crap has happened, protests and/or police actions, quite a bit), and you tag your statement with 'getting rid of people dedicated to state violence' seems like a good start!

What a grand statement! And how are you going to enforce such a decree, go and have a 'hunger' games type of event, and the officers that pass are awarded or what? How are you going to gauge one's affinity for violence vs. others? Maybe you have ESP?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

22. There's actually a lot of expert research and activism behind the abolition movement.

It's not a recent development. One of the most useful resources I've directed people to in the past is www.mpd150.com, which is an outstanding project that took the 150-year anniversary of the Minneapolis police department as an opportunity to assess it critically, and to explore what abolition might look like in the neighborhoods of Minneapolis.

You also told me to accept w/o question the loss of my property, simply because most property crimes go unsolved? Wow.

Nah, you asked me what *I* would do if *my* lawnmower were stolen. Not telling you what to do at all.

You seem to think that the police work in a vacuum when most officers will tell you that having a community on their side really helps them too (and you too), in their crime fighting efforts, after all, it does take an entire community working together to resolve issues.

Anyone with a reasonable mind can already figure out that we don't want abusive police officers working (and I'm in MO, where a lot of this crap has happened, protests and/or police actions, quite a bit), and you tag your statement with 'getting rid of people dedicated to state violence' seems like a good start!

Yeah, because my whole point is that the *entire concept* of a police force is violent. The concept of the American police force is rooted in oppression of people in the defense of property and the status quo; their purpose was to originally hunt down people escaping slavery, then expanded to suppressing labor actions (and, relatedly, harassing immigrants). The structure of a police force is built on this framework. As such, it can't be reformed or redeemed.

What a grand statement! And how are you going to enforce such a decree, go and have a 'hunger' games type of event, and the officers that pass are awarded or what? How are you going to gauge one's affinity for violence vs. others? Maybe you have ESP?

I don't even know what you're saying here. Decree for what? Officers who pass? I don't want any officers. That's what abolition is.

[jayfish]

16. If My Lawnmower Has Already Been Stolen...

then the the police are just clean-up. Are there beat cops out there keeping an eye on everyones stuff that I'm not aware of?

[SWBTATTReg]

19. They are generally looking for patterns, reports from the neighbors (calls do come in, when

suspect behavior is noticed). It does take an entire neighborhood to address issues, and they do act on people's calls, I've done this before, call on suspect behavior, and they were immediately in the area and apprehended the guy. That's what I said before, that they work hand in hand w/ the community too, and not just by themselves.

[DFW]

11. I'd mandate that the would-be killer in Wisconsin be forced to undergo an operation

If Blake is paralyzed for life, then so should the killer cop who tried to murder him.

I know, it sounds like the code of Hammurabi, but there is NO justification for firing 7 shots into a guy's back with his 3 kids looking on unless he has a loaded gun pointed at you. NONE. I don't know what it would take to quell my rage if I were anywhere near involved personally. I'm pretty much seething already, and I'm 5000 miles from there and not at all related.

[SWBTATTReg]

13. Perhaps a nationwide bonding service, that in order to work in any police dept., officers and / or

employees would need to qualify and pay for a bond, prior to gaining employment anywhere. Thus, if they move elsewhere, they would have to either reapply or perhaps their bond would still be in effect. Their conduct on the job would justify the price that they pay for the bonding service, e.g., low incidents of violence etc., they would pay a lower price, vice versa, if they have a troubled past, w/ lots of suspect incidents of violence higher than normal (it does occur, legitimately if a suspect isn't following lawful orders, is drunk, etc.), then the bonding rate would be higher. Obviously there would come a point where rates would get too prohibited/too high, and thus, the individual wouldn't be able to work in the field anymore.

[crickets]

25. This is another good proposal. Kudos to the thread as a whole for a productive discussion

of the various ways to curb police misconduct without "defunding" the police.