Abusive policing, and what can be done about it

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Unfortunately, police misconduct is a significant problem here in the U.S.A.

This thread is intended to discuss the issue of abusive policing, and what can be done about it, with an emphasis on documented, verifiable tasks.

First, some sources of relevant data:

- Mapping Police Violence, a project of Campaign Zero
- National Use-of-Force Data Collection on the website of the FBI. See also National Data Collection on Police Use of Force (PDF) by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
- Data-Backed Outrage: Police Violence by the Numbers, Jul 07, 2020, on the website of Vera (an NYC-based group of "advocates, researchers and activists working to end mass incarceration")
- Police are Still Hiding Abuse, NYCLU, Mar 1, 2022 .

As for what can be done about it, here are some resources I dug up just now:

- What works to reduce police brutality: "Psychologists’ research is pinpointing the factors that lead to overly aggressive, biased policing—and intervention that can prevent it," on the website of the American Psychological Association.
- Preventing Police Violence With New Approaches to Policing on the website of Brady United
- Police Misconduct: A practical guide by the Civil Rights Litigation Group, Jan 30, 2024
- Fighting Police Abuse: A Community Action Manual by the ACLU, December 1, 1997

Yesterday I started a related thread in the members only section about some relevant personal experiences of people I personally know, plus some relevant personal impressions of mine. I got some flak for not talking about documented, verifiable facts. So, here's a thread for documented, verifiable facts, and discussion thereof.

More later.

I've been reading some online articles about foot patrols.

It is has long been my impression that foot patrols are a good way both to deter crime AND to reduce the likelihood of abusive policing.

The articles I've been reading mostly confirm my impression:

- Engaging Communities One Step at a Time: "Policing's Tradition of Foot Patrol as an Innovative Community Engagement Strategy" (PDF) by Brett M. Cowell and Anne L. Kringen, published by the Police Foundation,
- Foot patrol works. More of it will reduce violence: "Foot patrols are not a silver bullet, but when implemented in careful, thoughtful ways in violent crime hot spots, they can reduce and prevent violence," by Jerry Ratcliffe and Dr. Evan Sorg, Police 1, January 05, 2021.
- Police foot patrols: 3 pluses and 3 pitfalls: "Police agencies across the country are turning back to foot patrols, which largely went out of favor with the arrival of the radio car — here are three positives and three negatives to consider," by Doug Wyllie, Police 1, September 28, 2016.

Alas, one reason why many police departments don't do foot patrols is that they are expensive.

This is one reason why I really don't like the slogan "Defund the police!" Abusive policing is the cheap and easy way to do policing. High-quality, ethical policing is much more labor-intensive, hence more expensive. Foot patrols are just one example of how and why this is the case.

The police have a culture of contempt, harassment and abuse of the public. It's built in. If it was the case of bad apples then the rest of the police would speak out against the abusers and demand that they be stopped, but it's just the opposite. I don't know what the answer is, but it's rotten at its core and won't be fixed by applying small tweaks.

Why is it that there are higher penalties for killing a police officer than for killing a civilian when you consider they're being payed for the danger?
In my eyes they're combatants and the penalties should be less.

Train police officers in a martial art and strictly enforce minimum fitness requirements.

Change police policies from being “gun first” back to being more hands-on, and enforce strict documentation requirements when guns are used. This will heavily discourage police from immediately going for their gun.

Set up numerous Japanese-style police boxes throughout cities.

Force those police officers to provide mundane public services. Giving tourists directions, handling lost and found, etc like Japanese police do. Force them to be public servants.

The only way police culture will change in the US is if police are not allowed to use their guns except in true emergencies, have to go hands-on with drunk people more often, and are forced to do mundane stuff for ungrateful tourists. Make policing “boring” and it will eventually sort itself out.

This brutality stuff.....goes all the way from the command structure down , I unfortunately discovered by circumstances places upon me and my late husband . But it was not a well populated area...And They were misinformed but wished to triple down on their mistake and recruited .The Building inspect to help them engage in harassment of our home of 30+ years and us ..One of the first homes in the area....So hope some method comes about to make these police type be held responsible for their actions with amuch higher degree of punishment for violating the public trust.
Meanwhile the people fabricating the rumours to the Police about us ..Were looting our home ,everytime time we had to be away for me to go to the next city over to get medical treatment..Even saw their adult ex con grand children selling our belongings at the local swapmeet.And of course, The Sheriff claimed they needed 2 hours to even respond. Long after the looting grandchildren had pakked up and left the swapmeet....
This criminal behaviour by law enforcement is endemic to these types of legal structuresl .They all support each other the Blue code .

More about foot patrols:

First, some history: The police experiment that changed what we know about foot patrol by Liz Tung, November 15, 2019.

The experiment, in Philadelphia back in 2008, showed that foot patrols in high-crime "hot spots" were effective in reducing crime, as well as effective in improving community relations (i.e., more trust and less police violence).

New York City had lots of foot patrols back when Bloomberg was mayor, primarily in busy business districts and near busy subway stations.

Unfortunately, in predominantly-Black neighborhoods here in NYC, any good community relations that might normally result from foot patrols were more than offset by the tactics of "Stop and Frisk" (often for no good reason) and overly aggressive crackdowns on petty crimes, in the name of what was then called "Broken Windows" policing (the idea that frequent crackdowns on petty crimes would deter major crimes like robbery and murder).

More about this in Shattered: The Continuing, Damaging, and Disparate Legacy of Broken Windows Policing in New York City (PDF) by the NYCLU (no copyright date, but apparently published in 2017 or 2018).

I live, apparently, in what the above document calls a "lightly-policed" neighborhood, although my neighborhood isn't mostly-white. Here, we have lots of immigrants from all over the world.

I've never been to America but I assume rich people who call the shots have a better experience with the cops which makes it hard to change things

also how do you fix the type of people that want to be a cop?