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News Cops; A Few Bad Apples, Or A Fatally Flawed Institution?

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Anarchy

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Are the problems with state sector cops, due to just a few bad apples who have found their way into an inherently good institution?

Or, are the problems the inevitable outcomes of an inherently flawed institution, that no amount of cleaning out and reform can fix?

I've been variously promising and threatening a thread on institutional analysis for over a year. Recent posts by people who have been on the receiving end of police violence have both given the promise/threat new energy, and urgency, it'll keep me from hijacking those threads.

This is a discussion thread so please add, comment, disagree, argue, etc.

As a start, I would like to explore the calculation problem and the knowledge problem, and whether it is possible for state sector cops to ever provide a service which meets public expectations.

For this, I ask you to imagine a world in which all cops are good people, committed to protecting and serving, a world where problems cannot be blamed on bad apples.

The calculation problem was first exposed by a young Ludwig van Mises, in 1921, in an essay entitled "The problems of economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth", up until that point it was widely known that socialism had a problem with motivation ( under socialism, who takes the trash out?), but many still believed that socialism provided a more rational basis to providing goods and services than the anarchy of production, that is an unhampered market.
Mises explored this on its own terms, not as a one system good, other system bad polemic.

What he found was, that without private owners of the means of production, competitively bidding against each other for scarce resources (in the case of cops; labour, specialists like scientists and detectives, cars cameras etc), and competing for the money of freely choosing customers, then there was no basis for rationally apportioning those resources amongst their competing uses.

World socialism was never realised, so prices arising on markets in other parts of the world were available to guide soviet central planners, and the full calculational chaos foreseen by Mises was never completely realised, however chaotic the soviet system actually was.

Further examination of the calculation problem revealed that it also applies to both state sector provision, and to monopolies.

By taking money up front (whether coercively, or, in the case of some German states prior to Prussian annexation in the 1860to 1870 period, by voluntary contributions to a community chest) for a monopoly service, the central planners are falling foul of the calculation problem.

They have no rational way to know what kinds of people and equipment are required, where, when, or in what quantities, riot cops and mine resistant vehicles, or rape counselors, they don't know.

But couldn't we just tell them?

That's where the "knowledge problem" strikes.

The knowledge problem is set out in Frederic Hayek's 1945 paper, "The use of knowledge in society", it's widely available as a pdf, and although Hayek's prose style isn't the easiest, it is well worth reading. Like Mises (Hayek had been Mises' research assistant before the London School of Economics poached him) Hayek examines central planning against its own claims, it is not a question of this is bad because politics.

What Hayek shows, is that the information needed is distributed throughout the economy, rather than in the possession of a few individuals, and it is rarely in forms that can be communicated to a central planner in a timely manner.

Internet and fast computers do not alter this situation.

There have been several examples of this problem in the private sector, one that I've seen cited several places, involved the British Cooperative Wholesale Societies. Very briefly, the co-op is Britain's largest corporate farmer as well as a retailer.

They had conducted customer questionnaires, to see whether customers would like organic produce. Yes, of course they wanted it. So the co-op set about the several years process of gaining organic certification for their farms.

When faced with the whole range of choices of what to spend their own limited funds on, customers were unwilling to buy sufficient organic produce for the co-op to cover costs.

Even if we assume that our political decission makers are committed to providing services in line with community desires, they will still fall foul of the same problem that the co-op did.

The knowledge they need is only available in the form of the daily choices of individuals, of what to spend their own money on, and what not to spend on.
 
I just don't know how to debate/discuss this from different national perspectives - or, rather, maybe I'm asking: are you thinking primarily about the UK police force when you think about this topic? Or are you coming from more of a hypothetical model in order to discuss the effects of primary movers like economics, government, etc. on law enforcement in a general sense?
 
i am sure i have an intelligent opinion about the police somewhere in my tiny brain, but it all boils down to this: the institution that is the police force (in canada and the united states) is not conducive to allowing decent, good cops to shine. they lack funds, training, etc. especially sensitivity training.

often it comes down to human against human and rather than take that into account, a cop will react via split-second thinking. and this is their training- exactly. (and how do you balance that, really? the type of training a cop needs to take down a killer vs restrain a schiziophrenic from jumping on him. how do you balance that? maybe start by introducing better training, better observation, better knowledge and awareness.)

while there are many good, decent police officers the institution of power that cops hold allow abusive cops to have way more free reign. i think if we want to have a police force that is made up of people who genuinely want to help others, who genuinely go to work every day ready to make the world a better and safer place, then they have got to overhaul this shit.

it has got to stop being about enforcing the outdated regulations that allow current police officers to get away with not admitting their own wrongdoing. hold cops accountable, hold your fellow cops accountable for their behaviors, their actions against other human beings. there are important things, and then there are not so important things in life.

that is my primary problem with "the police." we have built up this institution in our minds as something that cannot ever be questioned or dismantled, because if it isn't perfect, then we have to admit that maybe we've been doing things wrong for a very long time.

this might just be me, but i am skeptical of anything i cannot openly question without people jumping down my throat. i grasp that there are a lot of decent cops out there, but again, that's not what i'm getting down to. if you're a decent cop, power to you. i'm talking about this institution that simply allows abusers-with-a-badge to walk around without any accountability or acknowledgment.

sad how it always takes riots before we start to examine our own a little too closely, eh? well, we didn't do anything about that guy, but oh shit, it happened again. they kinda got a little tear gassy out there, let's just investigate this other guy. and it's always been like that, in history, look at the LAPD reform, how many years of gang violence and beatings did that take? how much did it take?

how much is it going to take?
 
I just don't know how to debate/discuss this from different national perspectives - or, rather, maybe I'm asking: are you thinking primarily about the UK police force when you think about this topic? Or are you coming from more of a hypothetical model in order to discuss the effects of primary movers like economics, government, etc. on law enforcement in a general sense?

Hi Joey,
I want to keep it as universal as possible to begin with. The state sector, whether it be policing, healthcare or street sweeping, located Hollywood or Bollywood or Hobart, exhibits certain inescapable institutional problems. I'm going to try to go into those first, touching on maybe a couple of them per post, and maybe a big post a week or fortnight, depending on my need to indulge in it as displacement behaviour.

Most of the early stuff comes under economics, or at least French laissezfaire and Austrian schools, rather than the mathematical Walrasian and Keynesian schools of economic thought.

For the early parts, I'm going to stick with an imaginary construct, that all state sector cops are good people and all politicians are good people. If that assumption isn't made, it's too easy to get sidetracked into arguing that if only a certain proceedure were enforced, or if only the right people were in charge, then the problems which we see could be cured.

I think that the problems that we, ordinary people (rather than a specially privileged few) experience with state sector policing, are so fundamental, that reform is not possible. I hope I am able to articulate those problems in an understandable manner.

Thanks @lightraze, I hope to eventually get on to the mal-incentives, the sorts of people that they attract into policing, and the difficulty of reforming even those bits of policing that can be reformed. It will be a while before I get there though.

For background, Gustave de Molinari's "The Production of security" from about 1847, is still excellent, despite having been written before either the calculation problem, or,the knowledge problem had been identified. The English translation is widely available as a free download, there might also be some free audio book recordings of it.

Chapter one of Murray N Rothbard's "Power and Market" gives a more recent analysis of provision of defence and security services. It is available as a Free Pdf, eBook or audio book download (Rothbard didn't believe in copyright). Power and Market was originally intended to be part of Rothbard's general principles type text book of Economics, "man, economy and state", however the publisher of the first dead tree edition initially chopped it.

Both have excellent writing styles, their schools of Economics believed in clear and understandable logical reasoning, rather than playing with equations.
 
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For the early parts, I'm going to stick with an imaginary construct, that all state sector cops are good people and all politicians are good people. If that assumption isn't made, it's too easy to get sidetracked into arguing that if only a certain proceedure were enforced, or if only the right people were in charge, then the problems which we see could be cured.
This makes sense, although I don't think you can leave out what the governance structure is - since a politician is only, in this regard, a government worker - someone who is there to manifest and maintain the will of the government, which is the institution setting the fundamental playing field....right?

I think it's probably not hard to set a kind of hypothetical government as well, that runs on a kind of republic/democratic/constitutional model, even if there is also a monarchy component. I think you are talking about elected officials, some kind of commitment to a safe, healthy nation that exists in a global sphere as well as a national one (so that xenophobia is something generally to avoid, as oppose to encourage).

I guess that would be my baseline definition of a 'good' government, in the same way you are talking about people being 'good'.

Because a state-sponsored police force operating in a dictatorship is a very, very different thing - and my sense is, that is not where you are generally coming from as a starting point. Yeah?
 
"May God prevent us from becoming 'right-thinking men' --
that is to say, men who agree perfectly with their own police."

Thomas Merton
 
I live in a small Midwestern town, with a population around 7,000. Our police force is a mix of paid officers (5) and reservists (7). Their motto is to "Serve and Protect", and it is the emphasis on the first that defines the culture of this department. These officers live in this community, their children attend school here, they are volunteer coaches, help with community events, attend churches here and unless you noticed the squad car in the driveway, you would be hard pressed to determine which person was a police officer.

Personally, my own interactions have been nothing but favorable...

They watched my house when my ex was actively stalking me....
Return my daughter to me when she was at a party since she was underage and they felt it was unsafe (I totally agreed even though she wasn't happy about it.}
Called me and let me know they had my dog at the station when he had jumped the fence and I could pick him up when I got home from work.

They do this for all members of the community. There have been many times they have pulled their own children's friends from mangled cars, a body from the lake, removed the body of someone who found life overwhelming and they have been there to comfort family and friends, offer a ride, financial assistance or just a hand to hold. Yes, they will write a ticket and it doesn't matter who you are if you are speeding as I still live in place where kids play outside and ride their bikes.

No they are not perfect and there have been some "bad apples" but they are gone as soon as they show their true colors. My son (age 36) was recently arrested her for drug possession and possession of an unlicensed, altered hand gun. He didn't disclose that he had a weapon and it was discovered upon a pat down. Yes, if was somewhere else, he could have been shot, beaten, and I am sure it would have been a lot worse than having his rights read, cuffed and taken to the county lock up. The officers were at all times professional and polite and did their job.

I don't think you can lump "institution" as there are probably a lot more variables. What is the culture of the force? Is it urban or rural? What is the community like (homogeneous, multicultural, crime rates, social structure, etc.)? Do members of the force live in the community? What is the level of training? Is it easy to let an officer go if he isn't cut out for the job? What is the rate of pay in comparison to the cost of living? I can think of a lot of variable that would have a huge influence on how the "institution" is defined.

Also, are "bad apples" all we hear about? What part does media, the internet, and other social communication play in how the institution and individuals are perceived? Are problems encountered a just a reflection in the changes in our own society, where common sense and the ability to exercise judgement calls are being limited or eliminated by procedure? Things like respect, politeness, kindness are now viewed as archaic and what impact does that have on a society as a whole?

Personally, I believe there are a whole lot more "good apples" than bad. Suddenly our society takes things like "pay it forward" and acts like it is some novel idea...what if it was the norm? What is each individual set as their personal goal to be the "best" person they could be and smiled, helped others whenever the need arose, expressed gratitude frequently and directly, encouraged, praised, and where kindness, compassion and tolerance were the norm?

No ideological theories, just human beings treating other human beings as they want to be treated and how we all should expect to be treated.
 
I'd like to flesh out a few of the implications of the knowledge and calculation problems.

In human action,all means are scarce, even if the only means we're using are our individual bodies, and the time that an action takes.

I might have a choice of going for a walk on the hill, going shopping, or watching TV this afternoon. Which ever I choose, will be at the cost of not doing either of the other two.

Even though the means for achieving our enlightrazealways scarce and limited, wants and possible actions are almost limitless.

Still assuming that all of our cops and all of our politicians and bureaucrats are good; they are still faced with limited means,and almost limitless possibilities for what they could be doing.

Clearly, a community cannot put all of its resources into policing, who'd grow the food, build and maintain roads, collect and treat and distribute drinking water, tend the sick, educate children?

Whatever the number of people chosen to be police,
Who should they be?
If you want some very bright people, how much should you be offering to pay them in order to attract them away from all of the other things that bright people could be doing, like bank manager, accountant, judge, scientist?

Remember that every penny that goes into their pay, comes out of the income of the townspeople, and would have been used by them for their own choices.

@lightraze @intothelight and @joeylittle , you've all offered various things that you would like to see in police, and I agree, it would be wonderful to have police who are sensitive to the needs of mental illness, old age, people from other and alternative cultures. Cops who look after your escaped pet until you can get to collect it.

Although we are very good at projecting such sensitivities onto existing cops. Even in the imaginary world of decent cops, decent politicians and decent bureaucrats,
All "means" are scarce, there are competing uses for all means,
The people who are employed as police are taken from the other potential jobs they could have been doing.
If they are doing an GLBT sensitivity training course, they cannot at the Same time be catching an escaped pet, if they are catching a stray pet, they cannot at the same time be in the sensitivity course.

How then to set the priorities?

Individual people have widely varying ideas, a deeply religious part of the community might prioritize policing what young people are getting up to late at night, and the results that sometimes follow...
The towns traders might be more concerned with what young people are doing around their shops. The town's lefties might be concerned about whatever sharp business practice is taking place.

How to translate that into policing, in a way that satisfies the people that "their" police are doing what they demand of them, and are representing good value for the enjoyment of their hard earned, which has to be given up to pay for them?
 
So much for the fat blue whine in the lamestream and conservative medias about a "war on cops"

deaths of American cops due to felonious actions in the last year are unusually low, even against an already historically low background level - so much so that even if the trend over a rolling three year period continues downwards...

...Next year will likely bring headlines of a massive rise in police deaths for the 12 month period that we are in now - and calls for cops to get away with even more violent shit than the cop unions are calling for now.

analysis from Will Grigg
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/fbis-report-exposes-war-cops-pure-propaganda-citizens-danger/
 
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Pope Francis / Thomas Merton:

"In 1963, Merton called the civil rights movement “the most providential hour, the kairos not merely of the Negro, but of the white man.” (“Kairos” is a Greek word that refers to a crucial moment of opportunity.) He Link Removed the civil rights movement was “certainly the greatest example of Christian faith in action in the social history of the United States.” One of his more famous quotes is “May God prevent us from becoming ‘right-thinking men’ — that is to say, men who agree perfectly with their own police.”

Merton, whom Francis called “a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time” and a “man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions,” wasn’t afraid to challenge state authority in the name of justice.

“The violence that threatens us to the point of possible self-destruction is endemic in the whole of society, and more especially in the establishment itself, the military, the police, the established forces of ‘order’ — they are all infected with a mania for overkill, rooted in fear,” he wrote in a 1968 letter, just months before his death.

Elsewhere, he wrote: “Instead of preaching the Cross for others and advising them to suffer patiently the violence which we sweetly impose on them, with the aid of armies and police, we might conceivably recognize the right of the less fortunate to use force, and study more seriously the practice of non-violence and humane methods on our own part when, as it happens, we possess the most stupendous arsenal of power the world has ever known.”

Last year, the Thomas Merton Center said it “stands in solidarity with all those who have lost loved ones due to police violence.”

“When a member of the police force breaks the law, it is the duty of our justice system to hold them accountable,” the center said. “By not holding individuals on the police force accountable, a culture of tolerance for violence amongst police, and distrust of them by those they are ‘to protect and serve,’ thrives.”
 
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