Title: The Case for Abolishing Police Unions (Cops must be held accountable for their actions.) Source:
Reason URL Source:https://reason.com/2020/06/17/the-case-for-abolishing-police-unions/ Published:Jun 17, 2020 Author:John Stossel Post Date:2020-06-17 01:00:23 by Deckard Keywords:None Views:650 Comments:5
For my internet video this week, my staff showed me clips of violent cops.
It's not just Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes—it's the other cops who just watch.
It's the Buffalo cops who floored a protester and simply walked by as he lay unconscious, bleeding out of his ear. It's a cop in Philadelphia, swinging his baton into protestors, the Atlanta police needlessly tasing two college students, the NYC cops beating a bicyclist, and dozens of cases where police lied about what they'd done until bodycams or cellphone cameras revealed the truth.
None of this justifies looting, arson, and violence against other cops.
But I understand the rage.
Policing is the rare profession given where employees are given a legal right to use deadly force. Most officers use that power responsibly.
But America has 800,000 cops. If just a fraction is racist or sadistic, that's a lot of racist and sadistic bullies.
What can be done about that?
"The problem is repeat offenders. The system doesn't fire those cops," says Washington Post columnist Radley Balko. "The job of a union is to protect the interest of its members, really at any cost." So, bad cops keep policing.
The officer who killed George Floyd had 18 complaints filed against him.
A San Antonio cop was caught challenging prisoners to "take off your cuffs and fight for your freedom!" Then he did it again. Technicalities in his union's contract forced police to reinstate him, twice.
"There's a strong argument to be made that we need to get rid of police unions entirely," says Balko.
What's the union's side of the story?
Cops have a hard job. They must make split-second decisions and act as peacekeepers, baby sitters, marriage counselors, and more. They deal with people at the worst time of those people's lives. It may be why officers have a high suicide rate.
"Unions are there for a reason," says Larry Cosme, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. "You have to protect these men and women."
After two New York City cops drove into a crowd of protesters, I asked Cosme to justify that.
"Crowds are throwing bricks at them! You get to a state of panic. You can't go forward. Can't go backwards. So you try to get out of the situation!"
He added, "The police should police themselves."
"But you don't," I said. "They're not held accountable. Especially union officers. They do it again and again. It gets erased from their records."
Cosme disagrees. "They are disciplined….If you don't have these protections, then no one's going to want to be a police officer."
But only about half of America's police belong to a union. Where cops are not unionized, says Balko, "there's no shortage of police officers."
Police unions also make police departments harder to manage.
In crime-ridden Camden, New Jersey, union cops took so much sick time and family leave that, most days, nearly 30 percent of the force just didn't show up. So, Camden fired all of them.
Camden rehired some, but only those willing to go along with new rules that made it easier to fire and discipline.
The result: Murder went down, and Camden saved money.
Per-officer costs dropped from $182,168 to $99,605. That allowed Camden to double the size of its force from "bare bones" to "near the highest police presence of any city."
Extra police allow for community policing—more people walk the beat, talking to residents.
Unfortunately, today's protesters rarely mention police unions. Instead, they say: "Defund the police! Fund community programs, like job training."
But that won't stop crime. America has already spent trillions on job training and other government social engineering that rarely works. Initially, the programs are staffed by well-intended people who want to help. But over time, they become wasteful, ossified bureaucracies, like most government programs.
We need cops. Police presence does reduce crime.
But we need cops who can be held responsible for their actions.
In crime-ridden Camden, New Jersey, union cops took so much sick time and family leave that, most days, nearly 30 percent of the force just didn't show up. So, Camden fired all of them.
Camden rehired some, but only those willing to go along with new rules that made it easier to fire and discipline.
The result: Murder went down, and Camden saved money.
Per-officer costs dropped from $182,168 to $99,605. That allowed Camden to double the size of its force from "bare bones" to "near the highest police presence of any city."
Like so many of the biased addenda driven articles you, Deckard, continue to flood Liberty’s Flame sidebar with – once again you have now acted as their beloved messenger boy to aid and abet the fake news media when they are misusing the Camden police reboot in the debate over police reform.
Yes, the New Jersey city abolished and replaced its police department. It then rehired nearly most of all the laid-off cops and then added almost 100 other officers – but at far much lower salaries and with fewer benefits than they had received before from the city.
The newly hired officers were young recruits with either no prior or they only had part-time experience which was a top concern for local residents. To get the young recruits up to speed, the newly reformed department turned to the veteran officers they had just rehired. These former city police officers who came over were the most important part of the puzzle with indoctrinating the new officers to the city, the neighborhoods and policing.
Yes, the murder rate has gone down. But that has never been shown in any way to be attributed to the reorganization of the police department.
What can be attributed to the newly reorganized police department with the additional 100 officers on the force is that the officers are now making more traffic stops and issuing numerous tickets for minor infractions – such as the “war” on tinted windows and obstructed license plates. And – OMG – They’re even citing bicyclists for failing to have a bell or other audible device on their bikes.
Why even one pastor expressed remarkable frustration about being pulled over five times within a month. Among other things, for driving with a broken headlight during the day. The locals now view the citations, which were never before enforces, as police harassment.
Ah, but the newly reformed police department with the additional 100 police officers hired at much lower salaries and with far fewer benefits, however, classically say the city’s most egregious offenders also commit these types of minor violations. They say that Armed robbery suspects, for example, often drive cars that have tinted windows. And – get this now – drug dealers deploy lookouts on bikes. The police chief of the newly reorganized police force decried: “We are going to leverage every legal option that we have to deter their criminal activity.”
There have been other clashes with this remolding of the police force. The makeup of the newly expanded force is more suburban – this is to say, much more white -- than the old city police department. While more than two-thirds of the former department’s officers were minorities – minorities now only account for about 43 percent of sworn personnel in a city where there has a 95 percent minority. Most of the new officers had never set foot in the city of Camden and know nothing about the residents.
Oh, and the decline in the murder rate that Stossel brags about. Well, in the first 12 months of the newly reorganized department the city of 77,000 recorded 57 homicides. That was down from a record 67 in 2012, but – BUT – it was still higher than the city’s annual average of 48 in the last five years of the prior department. And some pockets of the city saw a decline in the crime rate – while others didn’t change much at all.
So, what you saw was the city used the reorganization of the police department as a union busting tactic to get a much larger police force at a far less cost. Ironically – the newly reformed police department has unionized. And what does this tell you will slowly begin to happen in the “model city of Camden’s” newly reorganized police department?
While the police of course are an important part to win back Camden and turn it around, it will take much more that simply redeploying its police force. For, at the end of the day it will make no difference if it has 500 or 300 officers. It matters most what is done about some of the more systematic issues in the community.
Like so many of the biased addenda driven articles you, Deckard, continue to flood Liberty’s Flame sidebar with – once again you have now acted as their beloved messenger boy to aid and abet the fake news media when they are misusing the Camden police reboot in the debate over police reform.
Blah, Blah, Blah...same old Gatlin.
Check the sidebar for my last ten posts, none of which you ever responded to or possibly never even read. None of them have an agenda. One can only assume that you found nothing in them to disagree with.
Yet for some reason this one has you riled.
My guess is that you are against any kind of police reform - that's YOUR agenda, so apparently Stossel is just some left-wing, antifa-supporting BLM and Soros-backed mouthpiece.
Yeah, sure Tater - whatever.
BTW...Why didn't you provide a link to the rest of "your" rant?
What can be attributed to the newly reorganized police department with the additional 100 officers on the force is that the officers are now making more traffic stops and issuing numerous tickets for minor infractions – such as the “war” on tinted windows and obstructed license plates. And – OMG – They’re even citing bicyclists for failing to have a bell or other audible device on their bikes.
Why even one pastor expressed remarkable frustration about being pulled over five times within a month. Among other things, for driving with a broken headlight during the day. The locals now view the citations,
Huh, what? You were always a zealot when it came down to cops arresting folks for shit like this, you and whitey both. And now, WTF - you are complaining because cops are doing it?
