Comment by mancerayder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mancerayder | Hacker News Reader

Yelp? Yelp rates things like service quality, food quality, and whether your roofer did a good job.

I'm not so certain people will leave glowing positive reviews, or 4-star reviews of cops. "Fantastic service, the interior of the back of the car could have been more clean, I wish I could give this 3.5 stars."

Or, "Gave me directions when I was lost near 9th ave, looking the M&M store. Thanks! 5 stars."

But most likely, "Was rude, yelled at me, and then pushed me up against the wall. 1 star"

This idea is ridiculous. If you want a platform for civilian review, that does exist in some cities. Because, and this evidenced by some of the "how brave" comments below, this is really intended to punish bad cops and call them out. Calling this a Yelp is dishonest. If you want to be honest call it like it is, a complaint area.

In some cities there's a civilian review board, and there's a special section of the DA for investigating bad behavior and illegal behavior. The role of the cop is to enforce laws. Will this idea make them more accountable to those things, or does it exist to create mayhem using technology and an online platform for doxxing? That's not a rhetorical question - it's an honest question and I'm curious what people believe.

I guess the case that you are making is that police generally provide much worse service than restaurants

If you calculate the odds, the odds that an interaction with the police is a desired one is fairly low. You're either getting stopped / questioned / arrested / whatevered by the police when you're suspected of a crime. Or, something terrible happen and you're reporting a crime. The only 5 star experience is the tourist asking for directions, and even that is stretching it.

A restaurant provides a service in exchange for a payment. A police officer is taught to uphold the law, and interactions with the citizenry isn't like a hotelier interacting with a guest after a flight.

I'm not justifying anything the police do, or excusing anything. The case I'm making is that the metaphor of Yelp and service are just wrong. In the U.S., at least. And certainly in big cities. It's no picnic being on either side of the police-citizen interaction.

It doesn't have to be this way though. Instead of having, say, quotas on how many speeders they need to catch in a given month, maybe they could use that time proactively helping people or something. I guess that is too utopian.

If you don't catch speeders, you up the risk of speeders causing a vehicular crash, which can lead to injury or death for you and me. Legislative branches passed laws around maximum vehicle speed, cops enforce that as a deterrent. It's for all of us, not the waste of time you seem to be suggesting?

I was in Texas recently and saw first hand what it looks like when police enforce 0 traffic laws. It ain't pretty.

If you want to take the dim, sound-bite-and-karma-friendly approach of not really considering the argument you just read... sure, I can see how you could come to this conclusion.

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