8 ms·

In many cases, the police doesn't care that they are being filmed. There's this new documentary coming out called Do Not Resist, and there was an article on the

by jcrei 10y ago

In many cases, the police doesn't care that they are being filmed. There's this new documentary coming out called Do Not Resist, and there was an article on the WSJ about it with the following quote "The most disturbing thing is that it simply doesn’t occur to the sheriff that the footage might be disturbing. He has no problem letting a film crew show this massive contraption built to withstand roadside bombs in a military convoy lumbering through his small town, because the notion that military vehicles aren’t appropriate for domestic policing is foreign to him." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/do-not-resist-a-chilling-look-at-the-normalization-of-warrior-cops/?utm_term=.5364143bb8d8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/...

hvidgaard 10y ago
That is absolutely terrifying to read! The striking thing about the footage is, again, the utter mundanity of the raid. A family was just violently raided over an unmeasurable amount of pot. A man was arrested over that pot. The money he needed for his business was taken from him. Yet there’s no shame or embarrassment from the officers. There’s no panic that the whole thing was captured on video. That’s when it hits you. They don’t think they’ve made a mistake. This is what they do. The lead officers later tells the camera, matter-of-factly, that the raid turned up “a personal use amount of marijuana.” Perhaps realizing that he was also on camera back at the police station promising a much larger stash of drugs, he adds, “It happens. Drug warrants are, you know, 50-50.” If they raid a home on the pretense that he has a large stash and is selling, fine. But when it turns out to not be true, they better pay for damage - no matter what else they find.
- pjc50 10y ago
  I wondered what the ethnicity of the person raided was, and of course he's black. That's why there's no shame or embarrassment from the officers. That's why the Black Lives Matter campaign exists: the police have, in this case, done a substantial amount of damage to someone's life but not killed them. And there's not even an acknowledgement of that.
  - wfunction 10y ago
    > That's why there's no shame or embarrassment from the officers. Is there shame and embarrassment when they do it to white people? Or do they just not do it to white people?
    - minikites 10y ago
      They just don't do it to white people: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5850830/war-on-drugs-racist-minorities http://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5850830/war-on-drugs-racist-mino... >White and black people report using drugs at similar rates, according to the latest data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. >A 2009 report from Human Rights Watch found black people are much more likely to be arrested for drugs. In 2007, black people were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for drugs than white people. >Human Rights Watch found more than four in five arrests in the war on drugs are for mere possession, while the rest are for sales. That suggests police are targeting drug users, not traffickers. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/23/opinion/oe-ayres23 http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/23/opinion/oe-ayres23 >For every 10,000 residents, about 3,400 more black people are stopped than whites, and 360 more Latinos are stopped than whites. Stopped blacks are 127% more likely to be frisked -- and stopped Latinos are 43% more likely to be frisked -- than stopped whites. >Now consider this: Although stopped blacks were 127% more likely to be frisked than stopped whites, they were 42.3% less likely to be found with a weapon after they were frisked, 25% less likely to be found with drugs and 33% less likely to be found with other contraband.
      - activ3e 10y ago
        Aren't the poor side of cities mainly black ? If that's the case then that's just a consequence but it kinda makes sens. If police patrols more in those sides of the cities, the probability for someone black to be arrested then goes higher. The real problem would be that the poor side of the city is mainly black and that it is trapped in a vicious circle where they have less education and are then more likely to turn to crime and not succeed in life.
        10y ago
- wcummings 10y ago
  > If they raid a home on the pretense that he has a large stash and is selling, fine If you ask the police, anyone who owns a scale (which lots of users do, to verify the weight of what they're buying) is a "drug dealer" with intent to distribute.
- rhizome 10y ago
  In many jurisdictions the police do have to pay for damage during a search/raid. You do have to file a claim, though.
richmarr 10y ago
Not sure what your point is. Are you contradicting the study? Trying to suggest a different explanation for the findings?
- DanBC 10y ago
  I think police-worn video will reduce the amount of abusive policing. But I'm making a big assumption there. I'm assuming that the police know that they're being abusive, and don't want the public to know how they're policing. What happens if the police are in fact proud of what they do? Convinced that it's the right thing? For one example see how some police seem to go to maximum escalation at the earliest opportunity. They do this in the name of "officer safety", but ignore the increased danger it poses to members of the public.
  - XorNot 10y ago
    That's not the point. The point is that it's hard to make criminal cases without hard evidence.
  - BurningFrog 10y ago
    > What happens if the police are in fact proud of what they do? Convinced that it's the right thing? If a court disagrees after seeing the proud footage, they get punished.
- thomasz 10y ago
  "Many cases" does not mean that those are a majority. Or even a significant minority.
- mtgx 10y ago
  He's saying that cameras may reduce complaints by 90%, probably because people think that if there was a camera involved and the cop did something wrong, then he would be punished for it, or alternatively if he didn't do anything wrong, then he wouldn't be. Either way, that person probably thinks it's not necessary to file a complaint. The issue is that for one, the person may be wrong. Cops rarely get punished. And second, the complaints may drop by 90%, but the abuses may not drop by nearly as much. Let's say maybe they drop by only 20%. So in practice, this could lead to an overall drop in police abuse, but not by nearly enough to cover all the abuses. However, now it seems the vast majority of people won't even complain about most of the abuses, so those abuses will remain hidden/unpunished, unless you expect the police chiefs or some other oversight body to watch all the videos and then decide for themselves when to punish the cops (which should probably happen - or at least have a "police behavior alert system" that notifies the oversight bodies by scanning the videos).
anotheryou 10y ago
but based on the videos you could educate them
stef25 10y ago
The trailer looks quite spectacular but here's a comment from Roger Ebert that nuances things a bit "I have to wonder if a calmer, more reflective tone might have benefited the project in the long run. Anyone who already agrees with the movie's arguments likely won't have any problem with its methods, but a larger opportunity to open minds might've been lost somewhere."
- jamestnz 10y ago
  Just a minor side-note: that quote is actually from a review by Matt Zoller Seitz. Roger Ebert has, sadly, been dead for years.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    Ebert is still the only professional movie critic I bother to read. He's missed, as well as the banter between him and Siskel.
- faitswulff 10y ago
  Besides the misquote, people of color, and especially black folk, are regularly told to "calm down" to "get the message across better." But what happens when an athlete like Colin Kaepernick calmly and quietly takes a knee in protest? The dialogue explodes around his being disrespectful and not about the issues he is actually protesting. This comic literally illustrates the hypocrisy of reactions to Black Lives Matter protests: https://www.instagram.com/p/BK8vHj4g1yb/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BK8vHj4g1yb/ Besides which, responding to someone's call for help on life and death issues with "calm down" is patronizing to the point of inhumanity.
- int_19h 10y ago
  If you want a calmer, more reflective treatment of the issue, I would recommend Radley Balko's book "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces". Although it's pretty hard to discuss it calmly, precisely because once you start digging into it, there's so much stuff that's plainly damning and disgusting. For example, Balko also collected a significant number of quotes from law enforcement in his book; let me share some: "Why serve an arrest warrant to some crack dealer with a .38? With full armor, the right shit, and training, you can kick ass and have fun." "The officers with SWAT and dynamic-entry experience interviewed for this book say raids are orders of magnitude more intoxicating than anything else in police work. Ironically, many cops describe them with language usually used to describe the drugs the raids are conducted to confiscate. “Oh, it’s a huge rush,” Franklin says. “Those times when you do have to kick down a door, it’s just a big shot of adrenaline.” Downing agrees. “It’s a rush. And you have to be careful, because the raids themselves can be habit-forming.” Jamie Haase, a former special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who went on multiple narcotics, money laundering, and human trafficking raids, says the thrill of the raid may factor into why narcotics cops just don’t consider less volatile means of serving search warrants. “The thing is, it’s so much safer to wait the suspect out,” he says. “Waiting people out is just so much better. You’ve done your investigation, so you know their routine. So you wait until the guy leaves, and you do a routine" "One day, with a big smile on my face, I popped in to tell my deputy chief, Ed Davis, that I thought up an acronym for my special new unit. He was still, as we all were, glued to the classic concepts of policing, which discourage the formation of military-type units. But he realized some changes would have to be made. “It’s SWAT,” I said. “Oh, that’s pretty good. What’s it stand for?” “Special Weapons Attack Teams.” Davis blinked at me. “No.” There was no way, he said dismissively, he would ever use the word “attack.” I went out, crestfallen, but a moment later I was back. “Special Weapons and Tactics,” I said. “Okay?” “No problem. That’s fine,” Davis said. And that was how SWAT was born."
jomamaxx 10y ago
While it is odd that a sheriff might lack some self-awareness on this issue, it's not really an issue WRT police cameras. That the cops have a 'bullet proof vehicle' is not necessarily a problem in and of itself. It's presence does not violate anyone's rights, moreover - there actually may be circumstances in which such gear might be useful that we are not aware of. For example : a couple of times a year, a group of officers may be sent to 'take down' some very violent and armed people. Imagine if your 'daily job' required to you to face massively armed and violent bad guys. Wouldn't it make sense that your employer provide you with the basic means to protect yourself. I'm not entirely justifying it, rather pointing out that 'having an armed vehicle' is largely outside the issue of whether or not cops change their behaviour, or whether civilians change their behaviour - when they know there are cameras present.
- soVeryTired 10y ago
  >For example : a couple of times a year, a group of officers may be sent to 'take down' some very violent and armed people. Imagine if your 'daily job' required to you to face massively armed and violent bad guys. Surely there are special forces to deal with that sort of situation? I know there are in the UK.
  - dec0dedab0de 10y ago
    Yes and no. It depends on the urgency/severity of the situation, and how remote of a location it is. Either way I would much rather have police driving around in obvious armored vehicles, than in unmarked cars.
  - hueving 10y ago
    No, not in smaller cities (i.e. The one with a 50k pop I lived in).
    - talmand 10y ago
      If you live in the US I bet your state police does.
throwmenow_0139 10y ago
I talked to a police officer in Germany and he told me that police abuse happens even if they wear cameras. He said that those who wear cameras simply don't record their colleagues who are hitting people i.e. looking to another direction deliberately. And I'm sure that if you start to punish them based on those body cameras, you'll see that the police officers will give you biased footage. Although I can imagine that police officers start to change their behaviour because they're watched (there are studies showing positive changes in behaviour due to surveillance), there must also be more education for the police officers in regards to baseline probabilities so that they realize that black and white people aren't different in behaviour, this could help them to realize that their intuition is not profound. I think helping them to understand cognitive biases is a good way to start a shift. All of this requires that they aren't doing abuses deliberately, though.
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  Police officers have started putting their car hoods up when they make stops, to block the dash cams.
  - treehau5 10y ago
    Then make it a law -- In order to police, you must be capturing. Zero tolerance, and we all know American society loves Zero tolerance.
  - jws 10y ago
    This is not true. A pair of images recently made the rounds of the internet with that speculation, but that was not a traffic stop. Some models of police cars overheat if left running and parked on very hot days. The officers leave the cars running to power their electronics and lights. Some officers were trying to ameliorate that situation. Snopes can tell you more.
    - fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago
      Snopes is biased. Police cars are engineered to run 24/7 in the blistering heat with all electronics running. That is why there are specially created models from GM, Ford, and Dodge that are beefed up to handle the stress of every day police use.
clouddrover 10y ago
An interview with Craig Atkinson, the film-maker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl_XHxrd45I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl_XHxrd45I It's around 37 minutes long. There's some interesting discussion on the making of Do Not Resist and the problems with the way police departments are operated and officers are trained.
ablero 10y ago
So the police raid a house and only find barely a gram of weed in a book bag. If the police arrested the kid for possession with intent to distribute based on some other minor factor (e.g. two empty plastic bags) then what will happen is the prosecutor will offer a standardized deal to the public defender. The public defender will say to the defendant, here's the deal - 1 year in jail, 3 years probation where you lose your 4th amendment right and also these drug classes that are costly and burdensome. The public defender will encourage the defendant to take the deal. "Or you will lose at trial and you will be sentenced to 3 years in jail." The point is, the police can arrest anyone for anything. And the prosecutor can add charges that are unrelated 6 months after the fact. Anything goes in a plea deal and it is a terrifying and troubling reality.
nashadelic 10y ago
That's fine. This will enable a feedback loop where they can be directly be rewarded/punished for right/wrong actions by investigators as need be. Once they see repercussions, they'll care more and use/abuse this accordingly but the result will be a net improvement.
lazyant 10y ago
Thought the same thing when I watched a bit of the Cops tv show, if they had no problem with what was being filmed, what would they do without cameras? (off the top of my head: grabbing by the hair and insulting a drunk who was already in a cell, shoot a guy in the back who was walking with a knife)

by jcrei 10y ago

hvidgaard 10y ago

That is absolutely terrifying to read! The striking thing about the footage is, again, the utter mundanity of the raid. A family was just violently raided over an unmeasurable amount of pot. A man was arrested over that pot. The money he needed for his business was taken from him. Yet there’s no shame or embarrassment from the officers. There’s no panic that the whole thing was captured on video. That’s when it hits you. They don’t think they’ve made a mistake. This is what they do. The lead officers later tells the camera, matter-of-factly, that the raid turned up “a personal use amount of marijuana.” Perhaps realizing that he was also on camera back at the police station promising a much larger stash of drugs, he adds, “It happens. Drug warrants are, you know, 50-50.” If they raid a home on the pretense that he has a large stash and is selling, fine. But when it turns out to not be true, they better pay for damage - no matter what else they find.

pjc50 10y ago
I wondered what the ethnicity of the person raided was, and of course he's black. That's why there's no shame or embarrassment from the officers. That's why the Black Lives Matter campaign exists: the police have, in this case, done a substantial amount of damage to someone's life but not killed them. And there's not even an acknowledgement of that.
- wfunction 10y ago
  > That's why there's no shame or embarrassment from the officers. Is there shame and embarrassment when they do it to white people? Or do they just not do it to white people?
  - minikites 10y ago
    They just don't do it to white people: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5850830/war-on-drugs-racist-minorities http://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5850830/war-on-drugs-racist-mino... >White and black people report using drugs at similar rates, according to the latest data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. >A 2009 report from Human Rights Watch found black people are much more likely to be arrested for drugs. In 2007, black people were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for drugs than white people. >Human Rights Watch found more than four in five arrests in the war on drugs are for mere possession, while the rest are for sales. That suggests police are targeting drug users, not traffickers. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/23/opinion/oe-ayres23 http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/23/opinion/oe-ayres23 >For every 10,000 residents, about 3,400 more black people are stopped than whites, and 360 more Latinos are stopped than whites. Stopped blacks are 127% more likely to be frisked -- and stopped Latinos are 43% more likely to be frisked -- than stopped whites. >Now consider this: Although stopped blacks were 127% more likely to be frisked than stopped whites, they were 42.3% less likely to be found with a weapon after they were frisked, 25% less likely to be found with drugs and 33% less likely to be found with other contraband.
    - activ3e 10y ago
      Aren't the poor side of cities mainly black ? If that's the case then that's just a consequence but it kinda makes sens. If police patrols more in those sides of the cities, the probability for someone black to be arrested then goes higher. The real problem would be that the poor side of the city is mainly black and that it is trapped in a vicious circle where they have less education and are then more likely to turn to crime and not succeed in life.
      - 10y ago
wcummings 10y ago
> If they raid a home on the pretense that he has a large stash and is selling, fine If you ask the police, anyone who owns a scale (which lots of users do, to verify the weight of what they're buying) is a "drug dealer" with intent to distribute.
rhizome 10y ago
In many jurisdictions the police do have to pay for damage during a search/raid. You do have to file a claim, though.

richmarr 10y ago

Not sure what your point is. Are you contradicting the study? Trying to suggest a different explanation for the findings?

DanBC 10y ago
I think police-worn video will reduce the amount of abusive policing. But I'm making a big assumption there. I'm assuming that the police know that they're being abusive, and don't want the public to know how they're policing. What happens if the police are in fact proud of what they do? Convinced that it's the right thing? For one example see how some police seem to go to maximum escalation at the earliest opportunity. They do this in the name of "officer safety", but ignore the increased danger it poses to members of the public.
- XorNot 10y ago
  That's not the point. The point is that it's hard to make criminal cases without hard evidence.
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  > What happens if the police are in fact proud of what they do? Convinced that it's the right thing? If a court disagrees after seeing the proud footage, they get punished.
thomasz 10y ago
"Many cases" does not mean that those are a majority. Or even a significant minority.
mtgx 10y ago
He's saying that cameras may reduce complaints by 90%, probably because people think that if there was a camera involved and the cop did something wrong, then he would be punished for it, or alternatively if he didn't do anything wrong, then he wouldn't be. Either way, that person probably thinks it's not necessary to file a complaint. The issue is that for one, the person may be wrong. Cops rarely get punished. And second, the complaints may drop by 90%, but the abuses may not drop by nearly as much. Let's say maybe they drop by only 20%. So in practice, this could lead to an overall drop in police abuse, but not by nearly enough to cover all the abuses. However, now it seems the vast majority of people won't even complain about most of the abuses, so those abuses will remain hidden/unpunished, unless you expect the police chiefs or some other oversight body to watch all the videos and then decide for themselves when to punish the cops (which should probably happen - or at least have a "police behavior alert system" that notifies the oversight bodies by scanning the videos).

anotheryou 10y ago

but based on the videos you could educate them

stef25 10y ago

The trailer looks quite spectacular but here's a comment from Roger Ebert that nuances things a bit "I have to wonder if a calmer, more reflective tone might have benefited the project in the long run. Anyone who already agrees with the movie's arguments likely won't have any problem with its methods, but a larger opportunity to open minds might've been lost somewhere."

jamestnz 10y ago
Just a minor side-note: that quote is actually from a review by Matt Zoller Seitz. Roger Ebert has, sadly, been dead for years.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  Ebert is still the only professional movie critic I bother to read. He's missed, as well as the banter between him and Siskel.
faitswulff 10y ago
Besides the misquote, people of color, and especially black folk, are regularly told to "calm down" to "get the message across better." But what happens when an athlete like Colin Kaepernick calmly and quietly takes a knee in protest? The dialogue explodes around his being disrespectful and not about the issues he is actually protesting. This comic literally illustrates the hypocrisy of reactions to Black Lives Matter protests: https://www.instagram.com/p/BK8vHj4g1yb/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BK8vHj4g1yb/ Besides which, responding to someone's call for help on life and death issues with "calm down" is patronizing to the point of inhumanity.
int_19h 10y ago
If you want a calmer, more reflective treatment of the issue, I would recommend Radley Balko's book "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces". Although it's pretty hard to discuss it calmly, precisely because once you start digging into it, there's so much stuff that's plainly damning and disgusting. For example, Balko also collected a significant number of quotes from law enforcement in his book; let me share some: "Why serve an arrest warrant to some crack dealer with a .38? With full armor, the right shit, and training, you can kick ass and have fun." "The officers with SWAT and dynamic-entry experience interviewed for this book say raids are orders of magnitude more intoxicating than anything else in police work. Ironically, many cops describe them with language usually used to describe the drugs the raids are conducted to confiscate. “Oh, it’s a huge rush,” Franklin says. “Those times when you do have to kick down a door, it’s just a big shot of adrenaline.” Downing agrees. “It’s a rush. And you have to be careful, because the raids themselves can be habit-forming.” Jamie Haase, a former special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who went on multiple narcotics, money laundering, and human trafficking raids, says the thrill of the raid may factor into why narcotics cops just don’t consider less volatile means of serving search warrants. “The thing is, it’s so much safer to wait the suspect out,” he says. “Waiting people out is just so much better. You’ve done your investigation, so you know their routine. So you wait until the guy leaves, and you do a routine" "One day, with a big smile on my face, I popped in to tell my deputy chief, Ed Davis, that I thought up an acronym for my special new unit. He was still, as we all were, glued to the classic concepts of policing, which discourage the formation of military-type units. But he realized some changes would have to be made. “It’s SWAT,” I said. “Oh, that’s pretty good. What’s it stand for?” “Special Weapons Attack Teams.” Davis blinked at me. “No.” There was no way, he said dismissively, he would ever use the word “attack.” I went out, crestfallen, but a moment later I was back. “Special Weapons and Tactics,” I said. “Okay?” “No problem. That’s fine,” Davis said. And that was how SWAT was born."

jomamaxx 10y ago

While it is odd that a sheriff might lack some self-awareness on this issue, it's not really an issue WRT police cameras. That the cops have a 'bullet proof vehicle' is not necessarily a problem in and of itself. It's presence does not violate anyone's rights, moreover - there actually may be circumstances in which such gear might be useful that we are not aware of. For example : a couple of times a year, a group of officers may be sent to 'take down' some very violent and armed people. Imagine if your 'daily job' required to you to face massively armed and violent bad guys. Wouldn't it make sense that your employer provide you with the basic means to protect yourself. I'm not entirely justifying it, rather pointing out that 'having an armed vehicle' is largely outside the issue of whether or not cops change their behaviour, or whether civilians change their behaviour - when they know there are cameras present.

soVeryTired 10y ago
>For example : a couple of times a year, a group of officers may be sent to 'take down' some very violent and armed people. Imagine if your 'daily job' required to you to face massively armed and violent bad guys. Surely there are special forces to deal with that sort of situation? I know there are in the UK.
- dec0dedab0de 10y ago
  Yes and no. It depends on the urgency/severity of the situation, and how remote of a location it is. Either way I would much rather have police driving around in obvious armored vehicles, than in unmarked cars.
- hueving 10y ago
  No, not in smaller cities (i.e. The one with a 50k pop I lived in).
  - talmand 10y ago
    If you live in the US I bet your state police does.

throwmenow_0139 10y ago

I talked to a police officer in Germany and he told me that police abuse happens even if they wear cameras. He said that those who wear cameras simply don't record their colleagues who are hitting people i.e. looking to another direction deliberately. And I'm sure that if you start to punish them based on those body cameras, you'll see that the police officers will give you biased footage. Although I can imagine that police officers start to change their behaviour because they're watched (there are studies showing positive changes in behaviour due to surveillance), there must also be more education for the police officers in regards to baseline probabilities so that they realize that black and white people aren't different in behaviour, this could help them to realize that their intuition is not profound. I think helping them to understand cognitive biases is a good way to start a shift. All of this requires that they aren't doing abuses deliberately, though.

NoGravitas 10y ago
Police officers have started putting their car hoods up when they make stops, to block the dash cams.
- treehau5 10y ago
  Then make it a law -- In order to police, you must be capturing. Zero tolerance, and we all know American society loves Zero tolerance.
- jws 10y ago
  This is not true. A pair of images recently made the rounds of the internet with that speculation, but that was not a traffic stop. Some models of police cars overheat if left running and parked on very hot days. The officers leave the cars running to power their electronics and lights. Some officers were trying to ameliorate that situation. Snopes can tell you more.
  - fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago
    Snopes is biased. Police cars are engineered to run 24/7 in the blistering heat with all electronics running. That is why there are specially created models from GM, Ford, and Dodge that are beefed up to handle the stress of every day police use.

clouddrover 10y ago

An interview with Craig Atkinson, the film-maker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl_XHxrd45I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl_XHxrd45I It's around 37 minutes long. There's some interesting discussion on the making of Do Not Resist and the problems with the way police departments are operated and officers are trained.

ablero 10y ago

So the police raid a house and only find barely a gram of weed in a book bag. If the police arrested the kid for possession with intent to distribute based on some other minor factor (e.g. two empty plastic bags) then what will happen is the prosecutor will offer a standardized deal to the public defender. The public defender will say to the defendant, here's the deal - 1 year in jail, 3 years probation where you lose your 4th amendment right and also these drug classes that are costly and burdensome. The public defender will encourage the defendant to take the deal. "Or you will lose at trial and you will be sentenced to 3 years in jail." The point is, the police can arrest anyone for anything. And the prosecutor can add charges that are unrelated 6 months after the fact. Anything goes in a plea deal and it is a terrifying and troubling reality.

nashadelic 10y ago

That's fine. This will enable a feedback loop where they can be directly be rewarded/punished for right/wrong actions by investigators as need be. Once they see repercussions, they'll care more and use/abuse this accordingly but the result will be a net improvement.

lazyant 10y ago

Thought the same thing when I watched a bit of the Cops tv show, if they had no problem with what was being filmed, what would they do without cameras? (off the top of my head: grabbing by the hair and insulting a drunk who was already in a cell, shoot a guy in the back who was walking with a knife)