The United States needs to overhaul its law-enforcement system

Small complaint (about an otherwise very good article):<p>&gt; Eric Garner ... guilty only of selling single cigarettes<p>The cops involved <i>suspected</i> this, but I don&#x27;t believe it&#x27;s known that he is guilty of this. Especially in a legal sense: he did not live to see a trial.

How about also ending grand juries altogether (or at least in cases of potential homicide)? It&#x27;s obvious that the people on the grand juries are not qualified to asses anything and it&#x27;s an archaic system not employed by any other country (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Grand_jury</a>).<p>In addition, the prosecutors&#x27; powers need to be curtailed. Such crimes should always be charged, regardless of what the prosecutor wants. If there is doubt, bring in an outside prosecutor like the article suggests.

This one sentence towards in the bottom of the article needs to happen. As we saw in the Eric Garner case, video footage means little.<p>&gt; To improve accountability, complaints should be heard by independent arbiters, brought in from outside.<p>The prosecutors and police are on the same team.<p>&gt; If an officer is accused of a crime, the decision as to whether to indict him may rest with a local prosecutor who works closely with the local police, attends barbecues with them and depends on the support of the police union if he or she wants to be re-elected. Or it may rest with a local “grand jury” of civilians, who hear only what the prosecutor wants them to hear.

I&#x27;m getting to the point where I can&#x27;t stand local law enforcement. Combined with local governments, courts, and other entities, it just seems like a big racket to keep money flowing.<p>Yesterday, I was pulled over for not buckling my seatbelt until 2 blocks after pulling out of a parking spot. Turns out I had an unresolved fix-it ticket from 2013 which caused my license to be suspended (had no idea). CHP officer accused me of lying to him (I wasn&#x27;t) and immediately impounded my car. Getting my car back took visits from 4 places (court, dmv, CHP office, tow yard) with fees at every turn.<p>I can&#x27;t imagine how bad it is for people living in larger cities.

I would like to remind everyone that the US gun ownership rate is not the cause of US gun crime.<p>A key assertion of this article is that guncrime is high because guns are common, and thus police have a somewhat justified reason to shoot first to defend themselves.<p>I would like to remind everyone that ownership of a military assault rifle is mandatory for 2&#x2F;3rds of all men between 20 and 34 in Switzerland, and the rifle must be kept at home, by law. Once their service is complete, they may elect to keep their weapon.<p>This results in one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world. Despite this, gun crime in Switzerland is almost the lowest in the world.<p>US gun crime and police aggression is the result of unhealthy gun culture and an unhealthy attitude towards mental health, not ownership rates.<p>One of the unhealthy aspects is that the population fears the police will shoot them, so they prepare to defend against the police. The police respond by preparing to preemptively defend themselves, and the cycle escalates until someone thinks it is reasonable to give US police forces mine-proof trucks.

Several parts strike me<p>1. Killings by the police in the US are daily events but. &quot;nobody knows the exact number as not all deaths are reported&quot; WTF! The police don&#x27;t report upwards if they <i>shoot</i> someone!<p>2. 37% of US blacks have confidence in the police (pretty high considering) but just 59% of whites. Good grief how do you police a city or a block if 40% of the nice white middle class people think you are going to cock it up ?!<p>It&#x27;s the last that counts the most. Guns and force cannot replace trust - community policing is not some nice to have, Chuck Culson was wrong, Hearts and Minds matter, at home and abroad.

If you need proof that police in America are out-of-control thugs you only need to look at this shocking photo from Oakland last night: <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Undercover-cops-outed-attacked-at-Oakland-5951011.php" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfgate.com&#x2F;bayarea&#x2F;article&#x2F;Undercover-cops-outed-...</a><p>In which an out-of-uniform CHP officer is brandishing a gun in the face of a photographer while another plain-dressed CHP officers wearing a bandana over his face tackles a protester. These cops had no reason to be in this situation, no reason to draw their weapons, certainly no reason to threaten members of the press with lethal force. No reason to hold their weapon sideways like an ignorant thug. These are the kinds of people who would certainly be removed from duty, probably prosecuted in more civilized countries.

The article makes some excellent points, but the comparison to Europe rang a little hollow to me.<p>The U.S. is an order of magnitude more violent than the U.K., and always has been: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_by_decade" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_countries_by_intentiona...</a>. In 1960 there was no drug war, there was no prohibition, the country was prosperous, but more than eight times as many people were murdered per capita than in the U.K.<p>&gt; Sentences are harsh. Some American states impose life without parole for persistent but non-violent offenders; no other rich nation does.<p>In 1993-94, years where the per-capita murder rate in the U.S. was 9x higher than in the U.K., California and Washington voters approved the three strikes laws that lead to these harsh sentences by 3-1 margins.<p>It&#x27;s easy to talk about the things that are wrong with the justice system in the U.S., but it&#x27;s a pretty cursory analysis until you tackle the real question: when exercising their democratic will, whether in the small on grand juries or in the large through referendums, why do voters keep supporting the system?

I see part of the problem being an extreme lack of civility in our society.<p>At one point I suppose the police felt they were members of the community. So they treated people with some measure of respect and dignity while carrying out their duties. They would see these same people at church, at the store, at baseball games, at funerals etc. So it was different.<p>Now, the police are often unreasonably rude and hostile immediately and without provocation. For example, the case of M. Brown... sure, it&#x27;s understood Brown probably did attack the officer and was shot. But, the officer pulls up squealing tires and shouts for Brown to get the F<i></i>* out of the street. So he gets Brown angry and is physically attacked. Then he _has_ to shoot the kid. Certainly Brown shouldn&#x27;t have been walking in the middle of the road. But what if the officer had pulled up and said &quot;Fellows, how are you doing today? Can I get you to get off the street? I wouldn&#x27;t want to see you get run over.&quot; Then, if they didn&#x27;t comply, ramp it up a little bit at a time as needed. Chances are there never would have been a shooting. But as it is, the officers hostile speech and generally dickish attitude led to a situation in which deadly force eventually was used. That officer is morally in the wrong, he did help create this situation, he should be fired, he should be punished.<p>We should demand our officers act with politeness and basic respect even as they enforce the law. If they can&#x27;t do the job without behaving like psychotic bullies, we should find some people who can.<p>On the other hand, looking at the people they deal with day in and day out, it&#x27;s easy to understand how they could get this attitude. Many citizens officers deal with have no basic respect nor manners themselves. Still... officers should be held the a higher standard (and appropriately compensated if it comes to that). They are still nominally public servants and should be acting in the best interests of the community. A community which includes the people they may be arresting btw.

One problem among many is that US police are both allowed and trained to use deadly force very quickly, when under any kind of threat. German police will often (successfully!) shoot to disable, not to kill, even when confronted by someone armed with a knife.<p>It&#x27;s a common American meme that when police fire a gun, the only rational decision is to shoot to kill, but it&#x27;s just not true.

These people are trained to take on murders, yet we expect them to nab every bit of weed they can find in a culture where it&#x27;s weird if you don&#x27;t own a gun. What do you expect them to do?<p>If you want a better society pass better laws. That means funding rational candidates for office.

If only. All of the actions recommended in this article are moderate, common sense changes that benefit the populous as a whole and will never happen. The police have no interest in changing practices that benefit them, and any politician that tries to oppose their will is going to get called &quot;soft on crime&quot;, a nonsense attack that somehow still persists in our political dialog.

I&#x27;ve been reading the Economist for 20+ years now and it never ceases to amaze me that while there is some excellent journalism, they really don&#x27;t <i>get</i> the United States. Statements like &quot;If America did not have 300m guns in circulation, much of this would change.&quot; show their bias, rather than having anything to do with the way the US turns everything - drugs, immigration, poverty - into a policing issue infused with violence. Does the Economist really believe that American gun ownership is a good excuse for why (in my case) rural police departments feel it necessary to be buying mine resistant vehicles? The whole situation is out of control, but like so many issues in American life, the Economist really misses the cultural and social picture.

I think this issue has many aspects, some of which are very political and polarizing, as well as your mundane issues.<p>First, police often act with worst case scenarios in mind. That is err on the side of the suspect inflicting immediate harm. Why? Because oftentimes proven offenders actually had arms. Now, the UK, Japan, the police may not be any nicer but they have the privilege of correctly presuming suspects are unarmed.<p>As Americans i don&#x27;t think we&#x27;ll get to a place where arms are well regulated, so I think other options will be necessary. Training in defusing confrontations, perhaps sending in officers in exoskeletons and armor. Something which allows for the suspect to actually intend harm but unable to execute on the officer. That way police don&#x27;t feel they have to err on the side of safety given the propensity of arms in The US.<p>The police are trained to neutralize a suspect rather than &quot;wing&quot; them. I think it has to do with how &quot;baddies&quot; can have actual firearms whereas in many other countries firearms are heavily regulated for the general pop.<p>In any event, the police and the general pop need to be able to feel more at ease with each other otherwise we&#x27;ll be on our way to judge dredd and that&#x27;s not a good path.

&gt; 300m guns in circulation...<p>what wonder that people get shot.<p>[Edit: what wonder I get downvoted, kind of expected this]

Every metropolitan region in the US needs to elect a modern tribune.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_of_the_Plebs" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Tribune_of_the_Plebs</a><p>A modern tribune should play both the role of sheriff and prosecutor. The powers of a tribune should be constrained to act for the people against government agencies. To that end, they would have power to arrest and detain government officials, convene grand juries, and prosecute trials.<p>To do their job, a modern tribune and their family would require lifetime immunity from local law enforcement. To enforce this immunity, any interaction by local law enforcement would need to be punishable by suspension and jail time and the burden is strict liability.<p>But the tribune could not be a position of total local authority. Their powers would need to be constrained to local government officials. And they would need to be under the jurisdiction of country Sheriff&#x27;s or State police.<p>This would break the incestuous relationships between the DA office, the police, and the judiciary.

some interesting numbers...<p>&gt; This year 46 policemen were shot dead and<p>&gt; the police shot and killed at least 458 people last year<p>10% or so of death involving police is a policemen. Not that it justify the police force level, but an interesting statistic.

As someone else pointed out to me, its not just the US, but the world. There are abuses to the system everywhere - in some places it is better than the US but in many places it is far worse.<p>Law enforcement is actually pretty good here in my opinion (when you look at the big picture). But our legal system (as in, the court system) benefits mostly lawyers, wealthy people, etc.