Broward County police chiefs vow to 'eradicate bad cops' from within their ranks

[superpatriotman]

WHAT ABOUT MANDATORY BODYCAMS THAT CANT BE TURNED OFF?!

In announcing a 5-step plan of action for law enforcement agencies, Williams said Step 1 would be eradicating bad cops in the county.

“No one hates a bad cop more than a good cop,” he said.

The Broward Chiefs of Police Association’s plan of action includes the following:

1. The eradication of bad cops from within their ranks

2. The review of their use of force policies

3. Educating officers on systemic racism, cultural sensitivity and implicit and explicit bias

4. Training and tracking the behavior of officers throughout their process in the agency with the early warning alert program

5. Building trust, transparency and accountability to the community in which they serve.

https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020/06/05/broward-chiefs-of-police-association-to-announce-plan-of-action-following-death-of-george-floyd/

[soothsayer]

1. Here's hoping

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Body cams do not reduce cop violence.

[harumph]

5. That is supposition that requires numbers on violence when no bodycam is present.

...and we don't have that information for obvious reasons.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. It's not a supposition; research has been done.

Here's a list of what does and doesn't work to reduce police violence (if that's your goal), from someone who studies such things:

Link to tweet

For those who are interested in research-based solutions to stop police violence, here’s what you need to know - based on the facts and data. A thread.
Lesson 1. Everything you’ve probably heard is a lie. Specifically, the most discussed “solutions” to police violence have no evidence of effectiveness. For example, Body cams don’t reduce police violence: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/21/10329.short?rss=1

2. There is no evidence that better police training programs or “implicit bias” training changes police behavior. The trainings vary in quality and rarely result in any accountability/changes in decision-making. Don’t put this at the top of your agenda. Next, what works...

3. More restrictive state and local policies governing police use of force are associated with significantly lower rates of police shootings/killings by police. This is backed by 30+ years of research. We identified specific policies that work here: http://useofforceproject.org

4. Demilitarization. Police depts that get more military weapons from the federal govt kill more people. You can stop that from happening through local and state policy. Montana (Red state) has gone the furthest on this. Your state can and should follow.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053168017712885

5. Police Union Contracts. Every 4-6 years your police dept’s accountability system is re-negotiated. Purging misconduct records, reinstating fired officers, dept funding- it’s in the contract. Cities with worse contracts have higher police violence rates. http://checkthepolice.org

6. Predictive policing on the police. Yes, use the technology against them. Data on use of force, complaints & lawsuits can be used to identify officers who most likely to shoot someone next and prevent it from happening. Use the methodology to save lives.
Can police data predict how ‘bad apple’ officers influence their fellow cops? New study says yes.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-predicting-bad-police-behavior-20190801-xumudeezmjalbbpmqwyvh26tdi-story.html

7. Invest in alternatives to police as crime prevention strategies. Every 10 additional organizations in a city:

- Reduces the murder rate by 9%
- Reduces violent crime rate by 6%
- Reduces property crime rate by 4%

The Research: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417736289

8. Establish non-police alternatives to 911 calls involving people with mental illness. For example, 1 in 5 of the 911 calls in Eugene, OR are diverted to mental health first responders instead of police to respond. A success being scaled in Portland.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-mental-health-experts-not-police-are-the-first-responders-1543071600

9. Resource the Department of Justice (after the current president is voted out) to initiate more investigations of police departments. Departments that receive federal intervention have 25-30% fewer police shootings than those that do not.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kznagw/jeff-sessions-is-walking-away-from-the-best-way-to-reduce-police-shootings

10. Know change is not only possible, it’s already happened in some places. Oakland police shot 8 people on avg each year 5 yrs ago and, after these interventions were implemented, they had 0 shootings this yr, 1 last yr (the officers were fired) and 0 the yr before. Lives saved.

11. Finally, we’ve catalogued an extensive range of research studies and other information detailing potential solutions to police violence at http://joincampaignzero.org/research

12. And if you don’t have time to read the research right now, we’ve presented most of this research in rapid succession in this video:
In order to establish these findings we had to:
1. Build the most comprehensive database of police violence in the US
2. Conduct analyses of police use of force policies and union contracts in the 100 largest US cities
3. Track every state policing bill passed in the past 5 years
4. Track every research study published on the subject over the past five years and evaluate for quality
5. Meticulously catalogue the findings so they can be broadly accessible

[harumph]

10. Respectfully, and I say that b/c you've obviously looked into this...

I submit there is a difference between body cams that cannot be turned off (very few - my understanding)
and body cams where the officer has some choice in the matter.

I cannot access the entire first citation you list. Did they control for officer autonomy in the ability to
turn the camera off at times?

Moreover, I note that one title (recommended for me by pnas) is:

Language from police body camera footage shows racial disparities in officer respect
Rob Voigt, Nicholas P. Camp, Vinodkumar Prabhakaran, William L. Hamilton, Rebecca C. Hetey, Camilla M. Griffiths, David Jurgens, Dan Jurafsky, and Jennifer L. Eberhardt
PNAS June 20, 2017 114 (25) 6521-6526; first published June 5, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1702413114

So, this isn't a decided issue by any means.

[Dustlawyer]

13. This is all fine and good, but the only way to stop the police violence is to prosecute and convict

the offenders. When enough of them start going down the rest will take note. Only the most ignorant will violate our civil rights after that and they wont do it more than once as they will no longer be cops.

Each state needs to have a special prosecutors office that investigates and prosecutes cops of violating the law. No more local DA's need be involved as the inherent conflict of interests are just too great as we have seen time and again!

[harumph]

3. You're correct - it's all bullshit without a mandatory (always on) bodycams.

It's just damage control/PR otherwise.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Also what's the definition of a "bad cop."

[harumph]

6. A cop that other cops are afraid of - or don't want to partner with (in reality)

[harumph]

7. because their reputation and career could suffer when dealing with a "bad" cop

[Alacritous Crier]

9. "Bad cops" is a myth...

The issue is a bad system. The system must be reorganized from the bottom up.

The Twitter thread in post 8 has some great ideas. Until the system is fixed the issues will persist.

[harumph]

11. It's a bad system - yes...but individuals with a

sense of justice and fairness can operate fairly in EVEN bad systems. That said, I think
"bad cops" are a real thing and we've got quite a few
authoritarian psychos out there.

I think you mean that focusing on the errant psycho cop will not solve the problem -
and we agree. However, I'm greatly disturbed at the apparent surfeit of individual cops doing very bad things.

I mean what is the deal in Buffalo where the elderly man was pushed to the ground - and he is just
ignored by a procession of cops while his head bleeds out. Those guys shouldn't be
in any position of authority whatsoever - because they are (1) either not smart enough
to break away from their training to render aid (2) too timid to defy orders from their supervisor or
(3) just mean assholes. (I suspect mostly a mix of (1) and (2)).

[Alacritous Crier]

12. They are...

products of the current system. That is what their behavior reflects.

If we can set up a new system there will be very few "bad cops" because they will be added to a federal register when they are charged with misconduct and will not be able to transfer to some other department. It should work something like the current firearms registry or "red flag" laws.

Also, police training will need to be improved with much better screening methods to weed out the power mad and mentally unstable candidates. Right now, these types are actually preferred candidates. That needs to change.

Removing the militarization of policing is another goal. The citizens vs. police, or citizens as the enemy mentality that is so pervasive today needs to be done away with. Arming our police forces with military grade equipment is also not warranted or acceptable.

It's not an easy or inexpensive process but, as the info in post 8 of this thread shows, some departments are already implementing many of these ideas with success.