Comment by parineum

10 hours ago

> My impression is that police don't usually face repercussions for inaccuracies or outright lying in court.

That's because it's a very difficult thing to prove. Bad memories and even completely false memories are real things.

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parineum

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BrenBarn  10 hours ago

That's why we need a greatly reduced standard of proof for officer misconduct, especially when it comes to consequences like just losing your job (as opposed to, e.g., jail time).

  • lostnground  9 hours ago

    While I agree that officers should be accountable. More enforcement of them will not suddenly make them good officers. Other nations train their police for years prior to putting them into the thick of it. US police spend far less time studying, and it shows, in everything from de-escalation tactics to general legal understanding. If you create a pipeline to weed out bad officers, then there needs to be a pipeline producing better officers

    • tialaramex  6 hours ago

      AIUI US policing is descended from slave catching and strike breaking. Two activities which I think we'd say today are obviously bad.

      In many European states their policing starts as town guards tasked with ensuring order. Order is, at least, not obviously bad.

      So that's a philosophical difference in what these forces even think their purpose is.

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    • BrenBarn  6 hours ago

      Certainly agreed on that. I think part of it is training but also part of it is just vetting. There are pretty clearly too many people who get into policing out of a desire to wield authority rather than a desire to help people. In many cases I think there is not much use in trying to "train" such people; they just need to be doggedly weeded out. But yes, we need action on both ends, ensuring the pipeline produces good officers going in, and then also regular monitoring to ensure they stay good.