2020 American Political Scene

[bonehead]

Unfortunately its not possible, or atleast very difficult to separate the two imo using the BLM suggestions and narrative. If there really isn't a pandemic of racist cops shooting black people for their skin colour, but a smaller problem, you risk reducing the amount and quality of policing in poor neighbourds. In other words, you risk more black people getting killed, not fewer. Those people deserve better, not policies that make people who don't live in those communities feel better, while they are subjected to an increase in criminal violence.

Murders tend to be very concentrated geographically and to a small number of individuals, the easiest way to reduce the rate in the short term is to focus humane but quality policing into those areas. Longer term you would ideally tackle poverty and your approach to the war on drugs. Gun culture is way beyond fixing for atleast a generation.

Gun culture is not a problem that needs to be fixed. If it was we would all be dead. The gang problem needs to be addressed and our stupid revolving door justice system of allowing violent criminals on the streets needs to be fixed. You did put your finger on an issue that needs to be fixed. Murders are geographically concentrated and are over represented by a few repeat offenders, mainly gang members. However, poverty has nothing to do with it. It is all about the culture that encourages the younger generation to worship gangs and the thug life. That is what needs to change.

[Officer of Engineers]

OK, OK.
You are all right and I am all wrong.
Cops don’t kill people, guns kill people.
Let’s get rid of the guns.

How? Because you say so?

[tantalus]

Gun culture is not a problem that needs to be fixed. If it was we would all be dead. The gang problem needs to be addressed and our stupid revolving door justice system of allowing violent criminals on the streets needs to be fixed. You did put your finger on an issue that needs to be fixed.

You can make huge in roads without doing anything about guns but nations with a strong gun culture are always highly likely to have a higher death rate. The guns mean there is a ceiling on progress and it requires greater execution on other measures to compensate for the ubiquity of guns. In other words the gun culture makes the task harder. The fact that everybody can have a gun clearly makes the job more difficult for the police.

People in america can have their guns, but they can't have everything. There are clearly downsides.

. However, poverty has nothing to do with it. It is all about the culture that encourages the younger generation to worship gangs and the thug life. That is what needs to change.

Cleary there are many variables influencing this. Poverty is well proven as being one of them. Young people with fewer opportunities are more likely to engage in violent crime. This has been well established. I'll admit that I have been guilty of a simplication the author Steven Pinker has labelled root-causism,

The pseudo-profound idea that every social ill is a symptom of some deep moral sickness and can never be mitigated by simplistic treatments which fail to cure the gangrene at the core.

Nevertheless, while there may be other practical ways of improving a problem without addressing the ultimate causes, and those should definitely be executed upon, reducing poverty in the long run will help alleviate the need for many of these fixes.

The gang problem needs to be addressed and our stupid revolving door justice system of allowing violent criminals on the streets needs to be fixed. You did put your finger on an issue that needs to be fixed. Murders are geographically concentrated and are over represented by a few repeat offenders, mainly gang members. However, poverty has nothing to do with it. It is all about the culture that encourages the younger generation to worship gangs and the thug life. That is what needs to change.

This is indeed the low hanging fruit in the equation. The concept in criminal prevention science called Focussed Detterence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focuse...0mobilization. is best suited to focus on these hotspots and individuals.

We would definitely do well to remember that the criminal justice system needs to remain humane, to hold onto the right values and maintain the correct language and avoid demonising.

Its also important to recognise that the concept of policing in helping avoid the hobessian trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbesian_trap#:~:text=The%20Hobbesian%20trap%20(o r%20Schelling's,fear%20of%20an%20imminent%20attack . that plagues gang violence and tribes and families before the reign of kings. Such feuds have plagued humans before the birth of centralised governments and evolutionary speaking we are attune to its logic. We need to shut down that logic at the source.

Another factor we need to acknowledge is that a certain small percentage of individuals are sociopathic in nature, we need to think about this problem differently. Focused detterence can help address this problem in part by addressing the incentives and carrying the threat of punishment, far less important than its severity is the probability that justice will be served, another quirk of how humans rationalise reward and loss that does not follow what scientists call the rational agent model of thinking about how humans reason.

[astralis]

bonehead,

The U.S. has 30K known gangs and about 800K active members on the streets and are responsible for over 70% of the violence. These gang members have an intense hatred for cops and laws in general. Out of the 1000 the cops killed, how many were justified? Also, according to the FBI (2019) 48 cops died in the line of duty and 16,000 were injured while on the job and about 59K cops were assaulted. Do you really think that compares to what is going on in the UK?

your argument seems to be that the US has an unique crime/gang situation so that US policemen must shoot more.

are there no gangs in Japan?

are there no gangs in Italy?

are there no gangs in the UK?

Too many repeat offenders are not being arrested, tried and imprisoned, and/or being released to create more victims because the local government does not want to deal with them. We can fix this by taking the criminals off the streets for as long as possible and that includes the bad cops as well. The solution isnt sexy, politically expediant or even popular, but that is what has to be done.

the US already has the highest prison population in the world.

[Officer of Engineers]

your argument seems to be that the US has an unique crime/gang situation so that US policemen must shoot more.

are there no gangs in Japan?

are there no gangs in Italy?

are there no gangs in the UK?

the US already has the highest prison population in the world.

Apples and oranges. The US is also a lot more violent than Japan, Italy, and the UK. The US has 5 times the murder rate of the UK and Italy and 26 times the murder rate of Japan. I don't know about you but I would equate a more lethal criminal would necessitate a more lethal police force.

[snapper]

Gun culture is not a problem that needs to be fixed. If it was we would all be dead. The gang problem needs to be addressed and our stupid revolving door justice system of allowing violent criminals on the streets needs to be fixed. You did put your finger on an issue that needs to be fixed. Murders are geographically concentrated and are over represented by a few repeat offenders, mainly gang members. However, poverty has nothing to do with it. It is all about the culture that encourages the younger generation to worship gangs and the thug life. That is what needs to change.

Yea it is. US gun ownership is around 120 guns per 100 people... Third on the list of gun ownership per capita (the US is first) is... Yemen.

[Albany Rifles]

I agree. I'm still working. I have no need of another check from Uncle Sam. If I was out of work, it would be a different story.

As it is, I'll do what I did with the last one: Send it to my parents. They're the ones that need it.

Hell, I'm a civil servant and my wife teaches (online) at a nursing school.

I never stopped working...telework is normal in my life.

We do not need checks.

[Albany Rifles]

DE,
Please stop changing the subject.

The topic is police killing Black people.
Not all killings of Black people.
Not non-police killings of Black people.

Police killing Black people.

Got it?

Don't bother...I'm done with listening to someone lecture me about my life who has never lived and worked here.

[astralis]

Apples and oranges. The US is also a lot more violent than Japan, Italy, and the UK. The US has 5 times the murder rate of the UK and Italy and 26 times the murder rate of Japan. I don't know about you but I would equate a more lethal criminal would necessitate a more lethal police force.

that's a slightly different argument from the one that bonehead is making.

but even assuming the "US is a lot more violent" than the other developed countries and thus necessitates a harsher police response...if the US has 5x the murder rate of the UK, but has 200x the fatal police shootings....well, then...

[Officer of Engineers]

that's a slightly different argument from the one that bonehead is making.

but even assuming the "US is a lot more violent" than the other developed countries and thus necessitates a harsher police response...if the US has 5x the murder rate of the UK, but has 200x the fatal police shootings....well, then...

The US also had 100 policemen died in the line of duty per year. The other 3 do not even record Policemen dead per year but in total.

[DOR]

How? Because you say so?

Works for me.
It's called an opinion, and has a lot in common with what you and everyone else here writes.

[Albany Rifles]

The US also had 100 policemen died in the line of duty per year. The other 3 do not even record Policemen dead per year but in total.

How many of those 100 are killed by a suspect, die in an accident or commit suicide.

Is that 100 shot and killed in the line of duty?

[tbm3fan]

How many of those 100 are killed by a suspect, die in an accident or commit suicide.

Is that 100 shot and killed in the line of duty?

FBI 2018 Statistics on Officers killed in the line of duty. Total of 106, with 55 felonious deaths and 51 accidental deaths.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/pr...e-line-of-duty

[Mihais]

I will let American police speak for themselves.

1.Sir,with respect,the video I posted is from a bodycam,a lot longer version of what was shown initially.It shows Floyd as resisting arrest,being very agitated,claiming that he could not breathe minutes before being held down.
The only thing one can object is knee on neck stuff,but let me tell you from training experience you can breathe.It sucks completely being held this way,but breathing you can.If one is intent on killing in that position,that happens a lot quicker.Floyd was a walking heart attack,but :A.his death was an accident lacking intent and B. it was an isolated case.
Everything else is purebred BS.

2.Having a large part of the population prone to rioting,having media selectively showing the event,inciting rioting(which is basically what they did),having politicians encouraging this behaviour is a much bigger problem.That is not only an American issue,because internal affairs have also consequences abroad.
If either of us would be the Chinese General in charge of unconventional warfare,right now we'd be asking the orderly to make a place on the uniform for a new medal.When/if the time comes,the surest way to not have any American forces in the PACOM AO is to make sure they're busy in CONUS.

[Officer of Engineers]

How many of those 100 are killed by a suspect, die in an accident or commit suicide.

Is that 100 shot and killed in the line of duty?

Suicides isn't counted. If it did, it only adds to the point that policing in the US is far more hazardise than that of the UK.

From Police deaths in New York and London during the twentieth century

During the 10 year period of 1988 through 1997, 688 police officers were intentionally killed in the US and almost all of these (633, or 92%) victims died from gunshot injuries.2 In contrast, the number of police officers intentionally killed from gunshot wounds in the United Kingdom is so low that officers do not typically carry firearms for their personal protection.