From 1992 to 2008, nearly 2,000 New York Police Department officers were arrested, according to the department’s own annual reports of the Internal Affairs Bureau, an average of 119 a year. The rarely seen internal reports were obtained last month by the New York Civil Liberties Union through the Freedom of Information Law. They show that the number of tips logged each year by Internal Affairs has tripled since 1992. … The number of investigations pursued over the same period has dropped by more than half. … “These reports depict a department that, in the mid-1990s, was candid about its anticorruption work,” said Mr. Dunn, of the civil liberties union. “The recent reports, by contrast, reveal almost nothing, signaling an N.Y.P.D. that seems unwilling to confront corruption.”
From Robin's recent response it seems obvious that he is talking about rules in the sense of what people find agreeable. I imagine that Hanson would be more likely to consider a cop pulling over someone driving 66mph in a 65mph zone out of boredom to be "rule-bending" than a cop who, even upon explicit instruction from superiors or the law, chooses to ignore people who drive 66 in a 65 zone because the socially accepted "rule" is that people will drive at or slightly above the de jure speed limit and that police officers will not hassle people for minor violations.
Do you really think most rule-bending by cops is to help the community, not to help the cops? Most people bend or break rules to get ahead - I doubt police officers are any different. Maybe it's just because I live in a city with rampant police corruption and abuse, but I see law enforcement as extraordinarily average in every respect (except restraint).
In any case, rule-bending to help the community is much less likely to result in a complaint to IA than rule-bending for personal gain or convenience.
Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen! The gremlins of Sitemeter and Gravatar have let me through to Overcoming Bias and the comments in seconds rather than minutes.
Robin, you said that this rule bending system benefits the elites. I say the rule bending is a defense against elites who pretend that they can create a system with rules that eliminate chances for criminality and the improper use of discretion. You say that an independent inspector general-type position is an "obvious" solution to police corruption. I say that it isn't, and that it's just as likely an obvious way to cripple an organization.
I think you think there is a lot of low-hanging fruit here. But the current situation is a balancing between too many cops being corrupt or breaking rules to catch criminals, on the one hand, and cops not being able to do their jobs without fear of years-long investigations and panels and black marks even if they are in the right. And the people on the zero-tolerance for corruption side are often on the side that believes the police should do less real policing and see this as a way to accomplish that goal.
tom, ed, Matt, you seem to be reacting to the phrase "rule bending" and not to what I've said I mean by that phrase in the prior posts in this sequence. I don't mean following the formal letter of a law.
I actually expect in the ticking nuke scenario people would violate the rules even if they correctly expected to be punished. In practice the last U.S administration (and the current one, for all we know at the moment) went to such lengths merely to encourage detainees to give up bogus info (which their interrogators wanted to hear), in the correct expectation that most would receive no punishment.
I have stated elsewhere that I think torture actually is effective in obtaining good information, as shown both by the French in Algeria and the military dictatorship ruling the country today. However, I don't think our own government is competent to do so.
tom and Ed both brought up this key point, of which Mr. Hanson is certainly aware (or else he has missed something obvious):
Cops bend rules but, in general, this rule-bending actually helps the community because they are "breaking" a rule in order to stop, deter, or prevent harmful crime. A cop uses his moral judgement about the law and, in general, knows the difference between right and wrong in breaking / bending the law.
But what tom and Ed must acknowledge is:
When there is an exception to the general rules, and there is conflict of interest that prevents correction, then the system, by design, has been tainted with corruption.
Did the NYPD corruption go up or down? I would expect complaints to be negatively correlated with corruption - both corruption of the police and integrity of internal affairs should encourage complaints.
On a similar note to the previous poster, we may want our rules to be pliant for perfectly legitimate reasons. Suppose that you are someone who opposes torture, but in a ticking time bomb scenario (e.g. if someone has been captured who knows the location of a bomb that is going to blow up New Delhi and is unlikely to tell the police where it is without torture) would be ok with it. You don't want a firm rule against torture, but you also don't want to give it official sanction in the belief that this would allow it to become routine. The best strategy is to make torture illegal, wit the expectation that it will not be enforced in cases where common sense indicates that torture was justified.
Of course, one could opt for a fir rule that spells out exceptions for ticking-time-bomb scenarios, but if you have more faith in the common sense of your fellow citizens than in your ability to spell out precisely every relevant exception, the bendy rule is better.
We don't fully enforce every rule that Internal Affairs can enforce because the result would be chaos. A department of any kind cannot function at all when there are many people who oppose its legitimate efforts to fulfill its stated purpose (arresting people, keeping peace) and (b) there are rules that when followed literally could allow those people to interfere with normal working of the department.
You ignore that many many complaints are false and that false complaints have a huge cost in time, reputation, and money. This isn't hypothetical. NYC and LA have long been cursed with having huge staffs following up baseless complaints. And LA has been cursed by having overly-intrusive financial disclosure rules prevent normal hiring for some branches involved in street work.
More broadly, you need to learn more about the criminal justice system. Your comments here and your comments a few weeks ago about the death penalty, etc..., show that you have an uninformed anti-authoritarian streak when it comes to police and prosecutors and the criminal justice system. It would be great if you could have an informed anti-authoritarian streak. Policing and prosecution aren't just subjects for "insider/outsider" comments; cops and DAs really do arrest and convict a lot of people who commit crimes and a lot of people who should be locked up.
If laws can't or shouldn't be enforced, get rid of them! That way it's out in the open.
From Robin's recent response it seems obvious that he is talking about rules in the sense of what people find agreeable. I imagine that Hanson would be more likely to consider a cop pulling over someone driving 66mph in a 65mph zone out of boredom to be "rule-bending" than a cop who, even upon explicit instruction from superiors or the law, chooses to ignore people who drive 66 in a 65 zone because the socially accepted "rule" is that people will drive at or slightly above the de jure speed limit and that police officers will not hassle people for minor violations.
Do you really think most rule-bending by cops is to help the community, not to help the cops? Most people bend or break rules to get ahead - I doubt police officers are any different. Maybe it's just because I live in a city with rampant police corruption and abuse, but I see law enforcement as extraordinarily average in every respect (except restraint).
In any case, rule-bending to help the community is much less likely to result in a complaint to IA than rule-bending for personal gain or convenience.
… torture actually is effective in obtaining good information, as shown both by the French in Algeria …
More information would be nice. The first few hits for "torture study" seem to discourage that train of thought.
FWIW, I never have a problem getting through. It may be something at your end.
Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen! The gremlins of Sitemeter and Gravatar have let me through to Overcoming Bias and the comments in seconds rather than minutes.
Robin, you said that this rule bending system benefits the elites. I say the rule bending is a defense against elites who pretend that they can create a system with rules that eliminate chances for criminality and the improper use of discretion. You say that an independent inspector general-type position is an "obvious" solution to police corruption. I say that it isn't, and that it's just as likely an obvious way to cripple an organization.
I think you think there is a lot of low-hanging fruit here. But the current situation is a balancing between too many cops being corrupt or breaking rules to catch criminals, on the one hand, and cops not being able to do their jobs without fear of years-long investigations and panels and black marks even if they are in the right. And the people on the zero-tolerance for corruption side are often on the side that believes the police should do less real policing and see this as a way to accomplish that goal.
tom, ed, Matt, you seem to be reacting to the phrase "rule bending" and not to what I've said I mean by that phrase in the prior posts in this sequence. I don't mean following the formal letter of a law.
I actually expect in the ticking nuke scenario people would violate the rules even if they correctly expected to be punished. In practice the last U.S administration (and the current one, for all we know at the moment) went to such lengths merely to encourage detainees to give up bogus info (which their interrogators wanted to hear), in the correct expectation that most would receive no punishment.
I have stated elsewhere that I think torture actually is effective in obtaining good information, as shown both by the French in Algeria and the military dictatorship ruling the country today. However, I don't think our own government is competent to do so.
tom and Ed both brought up this key point, of which Mr. Hanson is certainly aware (or else he has missed something obvious):
Cops bend rules but, in general, this rule-bending actually helps the community because they are "breaking" a rule in order to stop, deter, or prevent harmful crime. A cop uses his moral judgement about the law and, in general, knows the difference between right and wrong in breaking / bending the law.
But what tom and Ed must acknowledge is:
When there is an exception to the general rules, and there is conflict of interest that prevents correction, then the system, by design, has been tainted with corruption.
Did the NYPD corruption go up or down? I would expect complaints to be negatively correlated with corruption - both corruption of the police and integrity of internal affairs should encourage complaints.
On a similar note to the previous poster, we may want our rules to be pliant for perfectly legitimate reasons. Suppose that you are someone who opposes torture, but in a ticking time bomb scenario (e.g. if someone has been captured who knows the location of a bomb that is going to blow up New Delhi and is unlikely to tell the police where it is without torture) would be ok with it. You don't want a firm rule against torture, but you also don't want to give it official sanction in the belief that this would allow it to become routine. The best strategy is to make torture illegal, wit the expectation that it will not be enforced in cases where common sense indicates that torture was justified.
Of course, one could opt for a fir rule that spells out exceptions for ticking-time-bomb scenarios, but if you have more faith in the common sense of your fellow citizens than in your ability to spell out precisely every relevant exception, the bendy rule is better.
We don't fully enforce every rule that Internal Affairs can enforce because the result would be chaos. A department of any kind cannot function at all when there are many people who oppose its legitimate efforts to fulfill its stated purpose (arresting people, keeping peace) and (b) there are rules that when followed literally could allow those people to interfere with normal working of the department.
You ignore that many many complaints are false and that false complaints have a huge cost in time, reputation, and money. This isn't hypothetical. NYC and LA have long been cursed with having huge staffs following up baseless complaints. And LA has been cursed by having overly-intrusive financial disclosure rules prevent normal hiring for some branches involved in street work.
More broadly, you need to learn more about the criminal justice system. Your comments here and your comments a few weeks ago about the death penalty, etc..., show that you have an uninformed anti-authoritarian streak when it comes to police and prosecutors and the criminal justice system. It would be great if you could have an informed anti-authoritarian streak. Policing and prosecution aren't just subjects for "insider/outsider" comments; cops and DAs really do arrest and convict a lot of people who commit crimes and a lot of people who should be locked up.