Comment by bluejekyll | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bluejekyll | Hacker News Reader

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All of these are definitely part of it, but we need to look more deeply at the economic realities of policing in the US to understand some of this. Read this article: https://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/policing-and-profit/

Police in many municipalities are not fully funded via taxes. Instead their revenues are maintained via tickets, fines, and property seizures. There are recent cases that have gone to the supreme court related to some of these issues: https://newrepublic.com/article/148013/will-supreme-court-re..., I don't believe this case has been heard yet.

The point is, the police in the US have an economic necessity to pay their own salaries by fighting "crime". This incentivizes them in seizing property, prior to any conviction in court. Often the property is seized from people without the means to fight to get it back, and/or it's not worth the fight. This tactic of ticketing, fining and seizing property to pay for the police force, IMO, is the root cause of the issues between minorities and low income people and the police. In effect, the police need crime and will find crime, because they need to in order to earn their salaries.

> Instead their revenues are maintained via tickets, fines, and property seizures.

How can this be anything but a case of extreme moral hazard? They sound indistinguishable from the mob.

You're right on the money- it's a big problem that a lot of inertia will need to be overcome to solve.

Americans hate to pay taxes. The "law abiding citizens" don't have to worry about these extra fines, as long as they go out of their way to avoid the police. Then they can convince themselves that it's only the "bad guys" that are being fined, and as a result they deserve the treatment.

I really don't understand why you're getting hit on this one.

There is a common perception in America that criminals are morally bad people who must be punished, instead of a perception that they're desperate or broken people who need assistance or reform of behavior. There is a private prison sector that is literally allowed to use prisoners for manual slave labor. We have one of the largest prison populations in the world even when adjusted for our large population.

There are a ton of factors that play into why there is a mistrust of the police (on both side of the political spectrum) but there is also a common air of ambivalence about how we treat people once they're marked criminals. You see it every time a large media stir comes up because of a high profile police shooting. "Well, he was no angel. That thug had a criminal record, so the cop probably..." as if it's impossible that the victim could have been a criminal AND the cop used unneeded lethal force.

Your point is a little blunt and lacks nuance, but it's sentiment seems in line with what many prison reform advocates perceive as being the prevailing culture in the US towards criminals and prisoners.

Going back to OP saying the police should be courteous and polite, I agree with him/her.

In Australia the police always niceley greeted you and generally polite, in US, it’s the other way, I’ve rarely met a polite one, most are brash and treat you like a criminal from the get go.

The US police system for some reason I don’t understand doesn’t embrace politeness as a value (may be it makes the police look weak?) I don’t know.

But yeah, you want to stay away from the US cops if you can.

I generally adopt an NWA mentality the second any cop comes into view. When they get their collective shit together I'll be more helpful.

And private prison companies lobby state governments to make sentencing more strict, and ask to keep them 90% full.

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_1272143

Thanks, ppseafield, bluejekyll, very pertinent points. The different economic arrangements certainly shed more light on this. Interesting how fundamental policy decisions trickle down to really affect the behaviour on the street. And, lamentably, you probably have path dependency in there such that it's not easy to reverse these policy decisions.

Goes to show how important public policy is.

Thanks for that first link, very enlightening. I had no idea. The sort of model I might read about in some dystopian novel and dismiss as thoroughly unbelievable if it weren't set in the most broken banana republic.

Somehow, perhaps with the best of intentions, you've ended up with a system perfectly designed for abuse and corruption.

Having read that it even puts some of the more extreme GDPR assumptions and discussions into a somewhat different light.

Is either party ever likely to have chance to fix it, and maybe distance police from proceeds of fines etc?

I think this comment and the parent nailed it. The reasons for the differences are that in the US:

- The law/lawmakers and the public have differing views on what should be illegal

- The police are incentivized to find crimes, and the public is aware of this

> Police in many municipalities...

That's another thing. In Australia the police are state-based organisations. Which makes sense because criminal law is also a state responsibility (i.e. not federal). The idea of police reporting to the local municipal council is really weird.

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