There is no separate law of deadly force for LEOs and citizenry, which is why the “f33red for muh life!!!” defense is so common among LEOs.
not holding them to a high standard contributes to their rates of malicious behavior.
I respectfully disagree. IMO a higher standard just incentivizes them to hide misconduct rather than owning up to it. Again back to the Classics: “Plato taught that, however laudable justice may be, one cannot expect prodigies of virtue from ordinary people.” <-- two Plato quotes in one day is not my usual method of discourse!
Two options exist. Either, to hold the police to a higher standard bc the impact of their privilege means they must make drastically fewer mistakes to have the same weight on society as civilians. Or, the institution of police must be replaced with one which removes the privilege. Since you say no path exists to giving people virtue, we must disband the police and explore alternatives.
I appreciate the perspective, but they way I see it, we must as a society balance special privilege with special accountability. Else we bake into the structure of society itself, a severe imbalance of power.
Police as they operate now, are people given extra power to any ordinary citizen. They are allowed and expected actually to do things that nobody else is allowed/expected to do. For instance, forcefully detain and arrest people, carry loaded firearms on their person to initiate lethal force if they deem it necessary.
We already do similar with the Military, at least in the USA. Military personnel are held to higher standards of conduct and operational integrity than ordinary citizens. They have their own courts, their own extra laws and statutes, international conventions and laws they must adhere to, codes of conduct in and out of uniform, etc.
We expect our soldiers to act with even more dignity, more decorum, more restraint, and more honor than the average person, because we are placing more responsibility and power in their hands. They are the ones who fight for us, they are given weapons to kill with.
Now you may argue that we shouldn’t have soldiers, or we shouldn’t have cops, etc. That’s fine, but if we are to have positions in our society that carry with it additional power over others that no ordinary citizen posesses, then I think we must also hold those people to higher standards than ordinary citizens. They must be the absolute best of us.
I will say this also, I am an anarchist, so I don’t support the state directly anyways, but growing up in a house and community with lots of both soldiers and police, I have had far more positive encounters with military personnel than with police officers. Military personel in my experience have so much more decorum, they are incredibly respectful, reserved, well spoken, orderly. I’ve encountered military police and can say the same of them also. I can’t think of a time where I ever felt talked down to or intimidated by a solider, and I grew up going on base many times, so it wasn’t just because they were not operating in a military capacity.
It gives me hope that there is a cultural and regulatory change that can be made long term to change how police operate and are perceived by the public.
What alternative would you suggest? If they cannot hold them to a higher standard in fear of them lying about it, then how would you approach this sort of restructuring of the police with high quality cops?
If we just say it’ll be a slow process, and we have to change how we hire, how will that actually be put into practice? Would the current police not fight to maintain their privilege? Instead of lying and covering up Mal practice, they would do the same in their hiring practices.
The only option to it in my view IS to hold them to a higher standard, and the attempts by the public to hold them to a higher standard IS the citizenry demanding a better PD.
What alternative would you suggest?
The alternatives implied by my post:
- screen out aggressive, suspicious, sociopathic candidates
- discontinue the preference for recent combat vets
- stop screening out higher-intelligence candidates
- stop militarizing the police forces
- the citizenry, if they care, should agitate for a different policing style
I didn’t mention it, but I also think that regular screening for steroids and similar might help rein in the most aggressive LEOs.
If they cannot hold them to a higher standard in fear of them lying about it
A normal standard would be an improvement; once they get there maybe we reevaluate holding them to a higher standard – I’m open to that discussion.
If we just say it’ll be a slow process, and we have to change how we hire, how will that actually be put into practice?
We start to hire differently, and the force changes over time.
the attempts by the public to hold them to a higher standard IS the citizenry demanding a better PD.
I disagree. If the basketball team can’t jump 3ft vertically then moving the standard to 6ft isn’t going to make them jump any higher or improve their playing. It’s reform theater. wishful thinking.
While I have described a gradualist approach in response to your question, IMO the radical/sudden approach would be to do away with QI. Cops might be less willing to murder the citizenry if it actually blew back on them a little. The overwhelming bulk of all judgements against cops in the US are paid by the municipality. Not a great incentive for the officer to behave better.
Same for prosecutors, who have and even more egregious form of immunity. Don’t get me started…
There is no separate law of deadly force
In the US, qualified immunity means that they are effectively acting under a different set of laws while on the job.
IMO a higher standard just incentivizes them to hide misconduct rather than owning up to it.
Oh, so you are a bootlicker.
