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Comment by Teever | Hacker News Reader

> I guarantee you an insurer with a profit motive isn't going to just ignore 13 use of force complaints against an officer.

They will when they're threatened by a gang of police officers.

Malpractice insurance is an important part of police reform but alone I think it will be insufficient. If you combine some sort of mechanism that sees lawsuits against police departments being paid out from the police pension plan instead of taxpayers coffers I imagine you would see police reform really quick.

It's all about aligning incentives and only when one shit-head police officer's corrupt behaviour is detrimental to the group will you see reform. Divide and conquer.

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> Malpractice insurance is an important part of police reform

It disagree:

(1) Malpractice, by definition, is negligent violation the professional standard of care, i.e., what is routine in the profession; violations of that are by definition not the issue with systemic problems.

(2) The actual systemic problems are the kinds of things which are generally categorically uninsurable for very good reasons; intentional, and often—though usually unprosecuted, which is why people are concerned with civil liability—criminal wrongdoing.

> If you combine some sort of mechanism that sees lawsuits against police departments being paid out from the police pension plan instead of taxpayers coffers I imagine you would see police reform really quick.

The police pension plan is the public coffers; it's a fund set aside to fulfill a contractual obligation of the public agency and which the contributing agency is legally obligated (barring discharge in bankruptcy) to make up any shortfall in.

> The police pension plan is the public coffers; it's a fund set aside to fulfill a contractual obligation of the public agency and which the contributing agency is legally obligated (barring discharge in bankruptcy) to make up any shortfall in.

Since we're presumably already talking about changing the law, we could presumably set up a system whereby those legal obligations are reduced according to those judgements.

I don't actually advocate it, but (paraphrasing) "that doesn't even make sense" isn't the most interesting response.

> Since we're presumably already talking about changing the law, we could presumably set up a system whereby those legal obligations are reduced according to those judgements.

I mean, sure, we could presumably amend the Constitution to weaken due process protections to allow that kind of collective punishment, but that's a fairly drastic measure with enormous knock-on effects.

But also, that takes much deeper and wider political support at all levels to pass than just electing DAs that will prosecute cops for crimes; if law enforcement has enough politics pull to prevent the latter, it has more than enough to prevent dismantling fundamental Constitutional guarantees just to make punishment of officers not proven to be directly involved in wrongdoing easier.

> I don't actually advocate it, but (paraphrasing) "that doesn't even make sense" isn't the most interesting response.

It may not be the most entertaining, but the proposal is incoherent on many levels, so its really the only possible response.

While I'm skeptical that the only way to implement this kind of system is through a constitutional amendment but I agree with you that constitution amendments to explicitly place limitations on domestic law enforcement would be a really good idea.

What other policies do you think we should put in place to rein in corrupt law enforcement in America?

> What other policies do you think we should put in place to rein in corrupt law enforcement in America

While reforming QI so its not functionally absolute immunity is probably beneficial, corruption in law enforcement in the US is not principally a policy problem, it's principally a problem of people not believing it's enough of a problem not to consistently defer to law enforcement recommendations at the ballot box, particularly when it comes to electing the people who will implement the existing (and any potential future) policies intended to hold police accountable.

It sounds like you don't really feel that the issues that others have with law enforcement in America are a problem.

> It sounds like you don't really feel that the issues that others have with law enforcement in America are a problem.

I’m not sure which issues you are referring to; if they are the ones that get heavy media coverage of widespread complaints, I think they are largely real problems, some quite severe, and that they barely scratch the surface of real, systemic problems in American policing.

My issue is with people pushing “solutions” that ignore the nature of those problems and the political context creating/supporting the problems, not with the idea that they are problems.

It is perfectly possible - and should be more common! - to believe that something is a crucially important problem and still believe that a proposed solution is a bad idea. Especially - but not only - when the proposed solution seems (as I think this one seems to dragonwriter) unlikely to actually solve the problem.

> It may not be the most entertaining, but the proposal is incoherent on many levels, so its really the only possible response.

I didn't mean entertaining, exactly, so much as that it seemed unlikely to convince anyone who held the opposite view since it (shallowly) seemed easily worked around. It was an important part of the more interesting argument, which you've elaborated on further and which this morning I would have expected to convince - "it is probably harder than the thing we need, and also still relies on the thing we need" seems pretty conclusive if accurate.

> They will when they're threatened by a gang of police officers.

At least that's better than normal people having to put up with that and pay for it. Now on to solve the next problem with police...

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