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Purgatory : Policing the Police

Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
edited April 2021 in Limbo
We have discussed this some on the Minneapolis thread, but I am thinking it might be worth discussing on a separate thread.

Ever since 9/11 American police forces have been gradually militarized. At first it was in response to the fears of terrorist attacks which really have not happened. Instead, that military equipment has been turned against civilians. We have certainly seen it this week throughout the United States.

But it seems some mayors have gotten to the point of saying enough is enough. Experts have said it is time to reduce bloated police budgets and spend the savings on community programs. Sounds like the mayor of San Francisco is wanting to reduce the SFPD budget by 1/3 and use the money on neighborhood services. New York is considering reducing the police budget as is the LA City Council. The Minneapolis City Council was considering defunding the police altogether (declined).

Many police departments are now banning chokeholds. Other cities are reviewing past incidents were chokeholds caused the death of an individual. There was a similar incident in March in Tacoma. The Tacoma mayor is now calling for the prosecution of the police officers involved.

Then there is the incident where a 75-year-old man was shoved to the ground in Boston. After two of the officers were suspended the entire Emergency Response Team resigned from the team (but not from the force).

This will be the 11th night of protests. Let's hope the police can show more restraint tonight.
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Comments

  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    Vox has an article on "8 Can't Wait", a campaign for universal adoption of eight specific police reforms:
    • Ban chokeholds and strangleholds
    • Require de-escalation
    • Require warning before shooting
    • Exhaust all other means before shooting
    • Duty to intervene (bystander officers must intervene and report use of excessive force)
    • Ban shooting at moving vehicles
    • Require use of force continuum (rules specifying allowable force vs. level of resistance)
    • Require comprehensive reporting (of every use of force or threat of use of force)
    I think the "duty to intervene" is particularly interesting; police culture might be significantly improved if it was generally accepted that part of being a good cop is not tolerating bad cops.
  • Already there are calls to completely disband police forces and replace them with other services that fill the same needs but aren't prone to abuse of violent power. I should think the cops would feel the direction the wind is blowing and clean up their act before they find themselves shoveling dirt for Trump's wall.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited June 2020
    What needs to happen is breaking the power of police unions. They are massive contributors to political campaigns, protecting the police from reforms and they use propaganda to scare voters into increasing police salaries and pensions.
  • It is a mite amusing to hear someone who usually stands on the left side of political discourse on the ship to call for union-busting.
  • It is a mite amusing to hear someone who usually stands on the left side of political discourse on the ship to call for union-busting.

    I am surrounded by a lefty bubble, from flat-out anarchists, through anarcho-syndicalists and communists and Marxists, over to people who actually thought Biden was the best candidate before any of the others had dropped out.

    Most are calling for disbanding police unions.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    It is a mite amusing to hear someone who usually stands on the left side of political discourse on the ship to call for union-busting.
    Unions are good for helping the underdog, the police are not that. It is like a union for CEOs. What is the point of them?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited June 2020
    If I were in the states, I’d be inclined to campaign to disarm the police. Without lethal force as an easy option, there will be a massive incentive to actually learn policing skills, such as de-escalation - and to use intelligence led policing and community policing. It would also make the police service less attractive to military cos play types.

    (Re police unions, in the U.K. I think they have resisted initiatives to rearm the police - which, whatever else they may have done, I consider a good thing.)
  • If I were in the states, I’d be inclined to campaign to disarm the police. Without lethal force as an easy option, there will be a massive incentive to actually learn policing skills, such as de-escalation - and to use intelligence led policing and community policing. It would also make the police service less attractive to military cos play types.

    (Re police unions, in the U.K. I think they have resisted initiatives to rearm the police - which, whatever else they may have done, I consider a good thing.)

    There are no police unions in the UK, which has both positive and negative effects. It seems to me that, at least, the activities of police unions should be restricted, but I think the culture problems in some US police departments go way beyond the union.
  • Surely a massive difficulty in the USA when it comes to reform is its decentralisation. There are so many overlapping jurisdictions, so many police forces, and I think many of them are headed by elected officials. I know Sherrifs are elected. Are Chiefs of Police? Are Commissioners of Police? So reform is only as long-lasting as the next election.

    When I contemplate this situation, I realise, perhaps for the first time in my life, that I am utterly unable to comment on something, in this case the process of reforming the police in America. It requires detailed knowledge of the no doubt varied ways in which forces are structured. I'm not sure you can even make any but the most generalised statements. It seems like an organisational nightmare.

    Dave's eight reforms sound good. A facebook friend posted something similar.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    If I were in the states, I’d be inclined to campaign to disarm the police. Without lethal force as an easy option, there will be a massive incentive to actually learn policing skills, such as de-escalation - and to use intelligence led policing and community policing. It would also make the police service less attractive to military cos play types.

    (Re police unions, in the U.K. I think they have resisted initiatives to rearm the police - which, whatever else they may have done, I consider a good thing.)

    There are no police unions in the UK, which has both positive and negative effects. It seems to me that, at least, the activities of police unions should be restricted, but I think the culture problems in some US police departments go way beyond the union.
    The police are legally prohibited from union membership. The Police Federation fulfils many of the functions of a Union for them.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    It was the police federation I was thinking of, I knew they were not permitted to strike - I didn’t realise unionisation was banned.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Then there is the incident where a 75-year-old man was shoved to the ground in Boston.

    [Tangent]
    That was in Buffalo, NY, not Boston, MA. You from fly-over country, Gramps? ;)
    [/Tangent]
  • And apparently a whole bunch of police officers have resigned in solidarity with those two that pushed him over. The union “stands behind” them 100%.

    Well, that just shows that the police are doubling down and have absolutely no clue about proportional response. In what world was pushing an old man unprovoked over at all necessary or proportionate? The whole thing is rotten.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    And apparently a whole bunch of police officers have resigned in solidarity with those two that pushed him over. The union “stands behind” them 100%.

    Well, that just shows that the police are doubling down and have absolutely no clue about proportional response. In what world was pushing an old man unprovoked over at all necessary or proportionate? The whole thing is rotten.

    OTOH, the problem may be self-correcting if these guys continue to resign.
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    As I understand it, the officers have not resigned from the police force, just the unit that was involved in the incident.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Addressing police violence during Covid-19 and at other times isn't just a question for the US. We had reports in recent days that since lockdown began in South Africa on March 17, police have arrested and detained 230 000 people and 11 people have died as a result of police action. Charges have been laid but court cases are likely to be slow-moving.

    One of the first issues that concerns many of us is the absence of visual footage. Police go to extreme lengths to ensure they are not videoed or recorded and that means civilian/bystander witness is often lacking.

    Police in South Africa are mostly poor, working-class and black. They are badly trained to see those they police as criminal and lawless. Much of their policing in townships or informal settlements has to do with suppressing unrest and gang activities. Techniques of crowd control are brutal: teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and live ammunition. This results in head injuries, loss of eyesight and facial injury, the aftereffects of irritant gas on asthmatic protesters. Civilians here, as in Hong Kong, are highly skilled at handling and countering police actions, but they have few weapons or technological resources.

    What we need is better education in policing -- a good article here from Africa is a Country on the class nature of South African police violence.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    If I were in the states, I’d be inclined to campaign to disarm the police. Without lethal force as an easy option, there will be a massive incentive to actually learn policing skills, such as de-escalation - and to use intelligence led policing and community policing. It would also make the police service less attractive to military cos play types.

    (Re police unions, in the U.K. I think they have resisted initiatives to rearm the police - which, whatever else they may have done, I consider a good thing.)

    There are no police unions in the UK, which has both positive and negative effects. It seems to me that, at least, the activities of police unions should be restricted, but I think the culture problems in some US police departments go way beyond the union.
    American police unions are the political strength that secures them funding. They protect the police from general reform and specific malfeasance. They provide "training" like that "killology" rubbish mentioned earlier. They go hand in hand with whatever problems police have.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    BroJames wrote: »
    The police are legally prohibited from union membership. The Police Federation fulfils many of the functions of a Union for them.
    Police in the UK have problems. But control is a different thing because policing is tied to a central government. The difference in the Federation compared to American police unions is illustrated in that UK coppers don't retire as one percenters.

  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Then there is the incident where a 75-year-old man was shoved to the ground. . . . An officer leans down to examine him, the video shows
    Convince me that the "officer" in question was not spitting on the poor man. I'm surprised no one else seems to have picked up on that.
    John T. Evans, the president of the Buffalo police union, said . . . “These officers were simply following orders."
    It is never permissible to follow an illegal order.

    To the 75 "officers" who resigned from their squad but not from the force: You should be fired. And good riddance. Despicable excuses for human beings.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited June 2020
    MaryLouise wrote: »
    One of the first issues that concerns many of us is the absence of visual footage. Police go to extreme lengths to ensure they are not videoed or recorded and that means civilian/bystander witness is often lacking.
    In America, which is supposed to be less corrupt, video has not been the saviour of the people. This current situation is an exception, though not completely. The local governments and police tend to gaslight the public in spite of clear evidence of police doing wrong.
    White Americans* mythologise law enforcement and demonise the poor and the brown. Protest and riot are a rarer thing in the US, comfort brings compliance. I do wonder if the reaction to the George Floyd killing would have been the same if tensions hadn't been high because of the coronavirus.
    To begin to bring about reform, there needs to be witness and will. The cameras bring the witness, do the people have the will? In America, they seem to right now, but it is a long road to reform. I wonder of the stamina is there.
    My hopes for the UK are mixed. The path to reform is potentially easier, but the general awareness of the population for the need is less.

    *In the mainstream
  • SignallerSignaller Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The difference in the Federation compared to American police unions is illustrated in that UK coppers don't retire as one percenters.
    A new term to me. Googling "one percenter" throws up rich people and motorcycle gangs. Which category are US police in?
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    Signaller wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The difference in the Federation compared to American police unions is illustrated in that UK coppers don't retire as one percenters.
    A new term to me. Googling "one percenter" throws up rich people and motorcycle gangs. Which category are US police in?
    I meant the rich, but given the behaviour sometimes exhibited...

  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    John T. Evans, the president of the Buffalo police union, said . . . “These officers were simply following orders."

    The Nuremberg Defence? FFS. Okay then: if they're going to argue that in a court of law, whose orders were they following?
  • BroJames wrote: »
    If I were in the states, I’d be inclined to campaign to disarm the police. Without lethal force as an easy option, there will be a massive incentive to actually learn policing skills, such as de-escalation - and to use intelligence led policing and community policing. It would also make the police service less attractive to military cos play types.

    (Re police unions, in the U.K. I think they have resisted initiatives to rearm the police - which, whatever else they may have done, I consider a good thing.)

    There are no police unions in the UK, which has both positive and negative effects. It seems to me that, at least, the activities of police unions should be restricted, but I think the culture problems in some US police departments go way beyond the union.
    The police are legally prohibited from union membership. The Police Federation fulfils many of the functions of a Union for them.
    Police unions are not permitted in some US states as well. No government employees are permitted to unionize where I live. Similar to what you describe, the Police Benevolent Association fills some functions of a union.

    @Simon Toad, as with so many things in the US, the situation can vary from state to state. Where I live, county sheriffs, who have responsibilities in addition to policing, are elected every four years, while police chiefs are hired by the elected city/town council or other appropriate governing body.

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Boy, did I get my OP fouled up. I was listening to MSNBC as I was typing.

    1) It was Buffalo, not Boston.

    2) The Emergency Response Force had 57 other officers on the team, and they all resigned from it. Still, they remain in the Buffalo PD. I am not sure if they all need to be fired, but I would agree the officers directly involved should be criminally prosecuted.

    3) Checking what I said in the OP, I said nothing about an officer stopping to check on the man. Someone was putting words in my mouth.

    Dave's eight points miss a key issue, reallocating bloated police budgets to more community-oriented programs.

  • It would appear that the two "officers" in question have been arrested and charged with felony assault.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    This part of the story illustrates the danger posed by the political power police have in much of the US.
    The spokesman for the mayor of Buffalo made the initial statement that the elderly man "tripped and fell."
    He is also the spokesman for the police. No potential conflict there. :unamused:
    He now apologises and says his initial statement was based on incomplete information. Calls into question his motive for saying it.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    American police unions are the political strength that secures them funding.

    Make this statement about pipefitters, electricians, or train drivers, and it gets applauded.

    I agree with you that the police unions are a large part of the problem. They are reactionary and stuck in the past, and for the police, that past (and the present) is racist and aggressive. I don't see a realistic way of reforming the police without firing the worst of the uniformed thugs, and you probably have to break the power of the union to be able to do that. The police unions have demonstrated that they have no willingness to be part of the solution.
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Unions are good for helping the underdog, the police are not that. It is like a union for CEOs. What is the point of them?

    Yeah, right - police are exactly like CEOs. There's no reason at all why Joe Copper would want to bargain collectively for his terms and conditions. Your statement is such obvious bollocks I'm surprised you managed to keep typing it.

    You have generally been a supporter of unionization, and of union power being brought to bear to support the workers. Police officers are workers. So are prison guards. (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't like their union much either.)

    I see no fundamental difference between the relationship between the police and their union, and any other group of public sector workers and their unions. Some will support the union leadership, and some won't. Most people who don't agree with what the union is doing just keep their head down and get on with their jobs, rather than causing a dispute. The same collective power that enables unions to bargain with large employers also makes it hard for individual workers to argue with the union.
  • I see no fundamental difference between the relationship between the police and their union, and any other group of public sector workers and their unions. Some will support the union leadership, and some won't. Most people who don't agree with what the union is doing just keep their head down and get on with their jobs, rather than causing a dispute. The same collective power that enables unions to bargain with large employers also makes it hard for individual workers to argue with the union.

    I think there is a substantial difference in that the police have powers that, even used properly, can lead to people being dead or injured. If a union is able to literally let its members get away with murder then that is a situation beyond anything seen in any other sector. The police also have a unique role in protecting the state so the power they can exercise by the withdrawal of their labour is significantly greater.
  • Police unions are the only unions in the United States that are actively powerful.

    In every other sector, management by in large, insists it should be deferred in matters of discipline. Unions at best, to my knowledge, have power only in that they insist on a fair adjudication process. People sometimes complain that unions prevent employers from firing employees, but that isn't really true in clear and obvious cases of incompetence and abuse. No teacher's union I know of, prevents school employers from immediately firing teachers upon evidence of abusing children.

    With police unions in the US, they have notable power to protect their own against charges of abuse, and that is a problem.
  • LC: "I don't see a realistic way of reforming the police without firing the worst of the uniformed thugs"

    Firing them is a good start. I'd welcome the dismissal of any thugs and other criminal elements from the police.

    Unions are necessary when there are a large number of workers in the same field of work, to facilitate collective bargaining over pay and conditions, and to defend individual members against unjustly being picked upon. When their members have caused the deaths through thuggish behaviour with overwhelming evidence, they should stay the hell out of it and let the law take its course.
  • Many police unions in this country are accomplice to murder. Harder to say that for pipefitters and longshoremen.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Ever since 9/11 American police forces have been gradually militarized.

    That sort of defeats the whole concept behind policing.
    [ Sir Robert ] Peel’s big idea was that law enforcement and public order shouldn’t be maintained by soldiers. That’s just military occupation by another name and it would be incompatible with a free society. That would be true, Peel believed, wherever soldiers were tasked with acting like police officers and it would also be true wherever police officers were tasked with acting like soldiers.

    Maybe telling police that they're "soldiers" against crime and then outfitting them like they were storming Fallujah was a bad idea?
    Dave W wrote: »
    Vox has an article on "8 Can't Wait", a campaign for universal adoption of eight specific police reforms:

    It should be noted that Minneapolis officially has seven of those eight "reforms" already in place and it doesn't seem to have done any good.

    As an example of ineffective oversight, I offer this:
    Chicago officers struck Chicago Police Board President Ghian Foreman five times on his legs with their batons during a protest on Sunday in Hyde Park that turned violent, Foreman told WTTW News.

    <snip>

    Officers’ use of force to disperse the protest could have been justified at points, Foreman said.

    Foreman said he was not angry with Chicago police.

    “What would that accomplish?” Foreman asked. “It would not get us anywhere.”

    Foreman said he would use his experience — which he called “traumatic” — to improve his work on the Police Board.

    “I have a better idea of how to improve all of this,” Foreman said.

    <snip>

    Foreman said he understood the frustration of the community, but also said he would not have been as restrained as he saw officers being when confronted by protesters.

    So the Chicago Police Board President (a.k.a. the person tasked with exerting some oversight over the Chicago Police) gets beaten by the officers he's supposed to be watching and his response is somewhere between "thank you sir, may I have another" and "harder again, daddy".
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    Dave W wrote: »
    Vox has an article on "8 Can't Wait", a campaign for universal adoption of eight specific police reforms:

    It should be noted that Minneapolis officially has seven of those eight "reforms" already in place and it doesn't seem to have done any good.
    Do you have a reference for this?
  • Our AG Barr was evidently conflicted about sending armed soldiers into the fray. The WaPo says today that Barr explained his problem thusly:
    "So my attitude was get it done, but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it.’ ”

    What a classic line.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    American police unions are the political strength that secures them funding.

    Make this statement about pipefitters, electricians, or train drivers, and it gets applauded.
    Pipe-fitters do not have the mythos of being the wall between order and chaos. Police do have that myth and this gives them a power the other unions do not have.
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Unions are good for helping the underdog, the police are not that. It is like a union for CEOs. What is the point of them?

    Yeah, right - police are exactly like CEOs. There's no reason at all why Joe Copper would want to bargain collectively for his terms and conditions. Your statement is such obvious bollocks I'm surprised you managed to keep typing it.
    The terms they get, in much of the US, are outrageous. In the UK, police get 1/10th of what many US coppers get. UK police are very much in typical working class territory and US ones are very much in CEO territory, salary wise. It is the citizens who need collective bargaining power. The government are supposed to represent the people's good. Instead they bow to the police unions. In fairness, many citizens want them to, the unions have marketed their clients well. But this is not in the communities best interest.

    Unions are a general good, not a perfect good and not a universal good.

  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?"
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The terms they get, in much of the US, are outrageous. In the UK, police get 1/10th of what many US coppers get. UK police are very much in typical working class territory and US ones are very much in CEO territory, salary wise.

    I'd really like to see some reliable reference for that. It is true that one or two police in a given jurisdiction may haul in a bit above $100,000 in a year (a lot less than many CEOs, you'll notice) -- but that is not salary, it is salary plus a lot of hours on "detail" work (sitting around while telephone workers repair lines, standing in front of a convenience store after work, etc. -- a racket in its own right, but not part of their salary or paid for by the government.) And the vast majority of police make about the same as teachers in any public records I have seen for my area. Police reform is long overdue in many ways, but there is an unfortunate tendency for people to inflate other working people's salaries in a way that puts a wedge between workers. My wife was shocked when she heard a friend say as a matter of fact that the local librarian made a six-figure salary -- she was on the library board and knew what the librarian actually made, which was less than half that. Don't let manufactured envy divide us -- we have enough problems with real issues that set us at odds.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Police unions are the only unions in the United States that are actively powerful.

    Them and the prison guard unions. Which, okay, not unrelated!

    I have long thought that we use police for way too many things in the US that would be better addressed by social workers.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »

    This will be the 11th night of protests. Let's hope the police can show more restraint tonight.
    Let's hope that the Police have far less to respond to.

  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    Telford wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »

    This will be the 11th night of protests. Let's hope the police can show more restraint tonight.
    Let's hope that the Police have far less to respond to.

    Yes, heaven forfend that people might want to exercise their first amendment rights, or that the press might want to cover them.

    I'm also shocked - shocked, I tell you - that the NRA hasn't swarmed on to the streets to prevent an overbearing government from instituting an armed suppression of the constitution.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    tclune wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The terms they get, in much of the US, are outrageous. In the UK, police get 1/10th of what many US coppers get. UK police are very much in typical working class territory and US ones are very much in CEO territory, salary wise.

    I'd really like to see some reliable reference for that. It is true that one or two police in a given jurisdiction may haul in a bit above $100,000 in a year (a lot less than many CEOs, you'll notice) -- but that is not salary, it is salary plus a lot of hours on "detail" work (sitting around while telephone workers repair lines, standing in front of a convenience store after work, etc. -- a racket in its own right, but not part of their salary or paid for by the government.) And the vast majority of police make about the same as teachers in any public records I have seen for my area. Police reform is long overdue in many ways, but there is an unfortunate tendency for people to inflate other working people's salaries in a way that puts a wedge between workers. My wife was shocked when she heard a friend say as a matter of fact that the local librarian made a six-figure salary -- she was on the library board and knew what the librarian actually made, which was less than half that. Don't let manufactured envy divide us -- we have enough problems with real issues that set us at odds.
    Averages. Even in a state like Mississippi, were the average income is considerably lower than the national average, police salaries are higher. And all this is before pensions. Public safety budgets (aka police and fire), suck up public funding, threatening the public they are supposed to serve.
    UK police salary for a PC is £22-£45. An officer making £30K at 30 years old, can expect a £28K pension.
    The average salary in the UK is £30K

    And whilst it is true that not all police officers reach the heights of the large city salaries, almost all enjoy a level of protection from consequence that is obscene. Again, mostly a union problem.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »

    This will be the 11th night of protests. Let's hope the police can show more restraint tonight.
    Let's hope that the Police have far less to respond to.

    Yes, heaven forfend that people might want to exercise their first amendment rights, or that the press might want to cover them.

    I'm also shocked - shocked, I tell you - that the NRA hasn't swarmed on to the streets to prevent an overbearing government from instituting an armed suppression of the constitution.

    I see nothing in the first amendment about the right to riot and loot. If a protest is peaceful, the Police have nothing to respond to.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Which doesn't stop the police from responding to peaceful protests. From this side of the Pond it looks like the First Amendment allows white men to shout vile filth while brandishing weapons, but doesn't allow Black people to walk down a street chanting for justice as the police will disperse them with gas and projectiles.
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    Which doesn't stop the police from responding to peaceful protests. From this side of the Pond it looks like the First Amendment allows white men to shout vile filth while brandishing weapons, but doesn't allow Black people to walk down a street chanting for justice as the police will disperse them with gas and projectiles.

    Well the first lot generally look like them, but the second lot are complaining about them, and that's an insult to their egos.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Saw a video this morning of the London Police controlling a crowd this morning (your evening). No helmets, no shields, no batons, no firearms. A whole lot of shoving between antagonists, but no brutality at all.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    tclune wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The terms they get, in much of the US, are outrageous. In the UK, police get 1/10th of what many US coppers get. UK police are very much in typical working class territory and US ones are very much in CEO territory, salary wise.

    I'd really like to see some reliable reference for that. It is true that one or two police in a given jurisdiction may haul in a bit above $100,000 in a year (a lot less than many CEOs, you'll notice) -- but that is not salary, it is salary plus a lot of hours on "detail" work (sitting around while telephone workers repair lines, standing in front of a convenience store after work, etc. -- a racket in its own right, but not part of their salary or paid for by the government.) And the vast majority of police make about the same as teachers in any public records I have seen for my area. Police reform is long overdue in many ways, but there is an unfortunate tendency for people to inflate other working people's salaries in a way that puts a wedge between workers. My wife was shocked when she heard a friend say as a matter of fact that the local librarian made a six-figure salary -- she was on the library board and knew what the librarian actually made, which was less than half that. Don't let manufactured envy divide us -- we have enough problems with real issues that set us at odds.
    Averages. Even in a state like Mississippi, were the average income is considerably lower than the national average, police salaries are higher. And all this is before pensions. Public safety budgets (aka police and fire), suck up public funding, threatening the public they are supposed to serve.
    UK police salary for a PC is £22-£45. An officer making £30K at 30 years old, can expect a £28K pension.
    The average salary in the UK is £30K

    And whilst it is true that not all police officers reach the heights of the large city salaries, almost all enjoy a level of protection from consequence that is obscene. Again, mostly a union problem.

    According to your own data, the average salary for a police officer is $67,000. Is that CEO territory in the UK, because it's nowhere near it over here. Police. make roughly the same thing that teachers do over here. Both professions get good pensions for a very long time, which is typically not properly budgeted for by the local government that incurs the liability. It may well be that police departments have been tasked with social service duties for which they are ill-prepared. It would certainly make sense to look at reapportioning both finances and responsibilities to better serve the public. But none of that supports the ludicrous claims you originally made and that I took issue with.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Did you see the video of police on horseback riding into a crowd outside Downing Street?
  • UK CEO salaries according to this site are between £36k - £171k, average £83k.

    Police salaries in the US found here range from $35k - $90k, average $52k

    According to the Police Oracle (link), for UK Police:
    Median total earnings for constables and sergeants are £40,000.
    and those are low ranks for the police, Inspectors earn over £50k and higher ranks more.

    I'm really not sure where the first lot of figures came from. Police officers are better paid than teachers here, where the upper pay scale for most teachers is £40k, without additional training or becoming headteachers, (link to Gov.UK site)
  • Telford wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »

    This will be the 11th night of protests. Let's hope the police can show more restraint tonight.
    Let's hope that the Police have far less to respond to.

    Yes, heaven forfend that people might want to exercise their first amendment rights, or that the press might want to cover them.

    I'm also shocked - shocked, I tell you - that the NRA hasn't swarmed on to the streets to prevent an overbearing government from instituting an armed suppression of the constitution.

    I see nothing in the first amendment about the right to riot and loot. If a protest is peaceful, the Police have nothing to respond to.

    But they do. They fire rubber bullets and tear gas at the faces of peaceful protesters. Which is a violation of their first-amendment rights (and many others). You might want to become informed.
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