Arguing The Case For Police Accountability – Part 1

In the years that I’ve been monitoring and researching the issue of police misconduct I’ve noticed some prevalent, and quite successful, arguments used by those who feel there is no need for improved police accountability and transparency and that police misconduct isn’t a problem worthy of attention.
However, the statistics generated by the NPMSRP offer a useful counterpoint to these arguments, if they are understood and used correctly.

One thing to understand about the NPMSRP statistics is that they do not point to any evidence that police misconduct is pervasive… that is, they do not indicate that all cops are bad. This is the first pitfall that people fall into when arguing the case for improved police accountability, the need to prove all, or even most cops are problematic isn’t necessary, nor is it reasonable.

So, to start, let’s look at the most common argument used against police accountability and the counterpoint people should consider against it…

The argument of small percentages (AKA Carpro and the Rev's argument)

Read More At: http://www.policemisconduct.net/arguing-the-case-for-police-accountability-part-1/

 

Making a point that police misconduct is a problem worth study is a matter of comparing the rates of police misconduct with the rate of crime in the US.

Why?

Because, as a percentage of population, criminal activity represents a relatively equally small percentage of the overall population in the US as does the rate of police misconduct… so if you believe that crime is a problem in the US worthy of trillions in tax fund expenditure, then surely police misconduct is worthy of study if it represents an equally large percentage of the police population.

How So? Well, here’s some numbers taken from the 2008 UCR statistics and 12-months worth of statistics taken from the NPMSRP between April 2009 – March 2010 (a combination of our 2009 annual statistics and our Q1 2010 quarterly statistics):

< snip >

The statistic for sexual assaults is the stunner for us though. 29.3 per 100,000 in the general population vs 73.3 per 100,000 for law enforcement officers. That would seem to catch people’s attention as a problem, but apparently it doesn’t.

So, you see, it’s all a matter of context. Sure, .073% is a small percentage of the population of police officers in the US, but that number represents 522 officers per year and is a larger, by over 2x, ratio of the population of police than are the number of alleged sexual assailants in the US general population at .029%.

http://www.policemisconduct.net/arguing-the-case-for-police-accountability-part-1/

You "do believe that crime is a problem in the US worthy of trillions in tax fund expenditure"' right?

"then surely police misconduct is worthy of study if it represents an equally large percentage of the police population", right?

 

Not that I recall.

This is a relevant question because?

The system, from the White House down to the local dog warden. Which in these parts complaints about dogs have to be handled by the police because the dog warden can never be found. Matter of fact the only times there are sightings of him is when he's filling up the gas tank of his personal vehicle at the town barns.

And from the sounds of it we're soon going to have a cat warden here because the town board wants to gather revenue from "cats at large" how they plan on getting the cats to reveal who their owners are is still under debate and should take no more than seven or eight more town board meetings to decide. My hunch is they'll probably end up settling on a "snitch on your neighbor's cat" program (feline Stasi) and using the water boarding technique on stubborn neighbors cat's or stubborn neighbors that won't snitch on other's cats. Then when that fails it will morph into mandatory RFID chips which would make the local veterinarian (who's on the town board) a happy camper too!

Should be a real money maker for certain town's people.

 

If 50% of them were children and we subtract them that would make the cops look even worse.

Now you're reaching and it's kind of silly.

Yeah I guess your strawman is still standing. At least in your opinion.

Oops. There he goes, you knocked him down! Yay! Good job! :applause:

Stuff em full, prop em up, knock em down . . . strawman! :laugh: