Comment by infecto

8 hours ago

I have always gravitated towards a market model. Force police, like doctors, to have malpractice insurance. Let for-profit insurance companies model what that risk looks like. Now cities have to make a financial decision when hiring cops that is directionally accurate to the risk of said cop. Imperfect but I don’t believe perfect systems exist.

But this goes back to government agencies never thinking about budgets. Modern politics is about marketing a tax reduction but never how that impacts the budget.

9 comments

infecto

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AngryData  2 hours ago

That might help for straight up murder cases, but I think it leaves a LOT of room for continued abuse of position and power with the only real risk being a small increase in monthly payment to offenders that makes it seem acceptable.

malcolmgreaves  8 hours ago

Absolutely! This would also mean when cops break the law taxpayers don't pay out. Their privately held insurance does. Enough bad behavior and a criminal cop becomes uninsurable. This also prevents the abuse where a criminal cop gets fired, then moved over to another jurisdiction to repeat the process all over again. The insurance companies should have to share history with one another.

Perhaps the only tweak would be to regulate these insurance companies to control their profit margins. We don't want to end up in the same situation as medical insurance in the US. Tax payers will have to pay some of the insurance premiums indirectly. So this idea can work well so long as insurance is in that goldilox zone: enough to provide incentive for the companies to exist, but not so much that their greed creates an even worse system.

  • komali2  7 hours ago

    > but not so much that their greed creates an even worse system.

    The market model won't work because greed isn't real when discussing corporations. That's like calling a tree growing towards the sun "greedy." No, the tree is fulfilling it's biological imperative: put more leaves closer to the sun.

    Corporations must maximize profit. The corporation that maximizes profit best is the one that can consume other ones and tend towards monopoly, the perfect state. All actions are permitted when fulfilling biological imperative.

    So, trying to fenangle a market based solution to police brutality issues will result in a couple predetermined outcomes: insurance payouts won't happen because why would they voluntarily pay, furthermore, cop insurance companies would leverage their superior capital to lobby the government to protect their profit margins, which individuals can't prevent through market efforts or individual actions since the corporation's power is so much greater.

danaw  8 hours ago

yeah market models are working so great everywhere else...

  • infecto  8 hours ago

    Instead of being hyperbolic why don’t you share your idea then?

    Markets are not perfect but on average they do a decent job of finding equilibrium.

    “Democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried.”