Why the Police Need Fixing, and How to Do It

Happy Independence Day

I am more or less left-libertarian, or left-liberal, these days, but I was raised very conservative, and perhaps for that reason the state of modern conservatism makes my blood boil. I respect traditionalists, though I disagree with them. But I find it hard to take the sight of shallow, ahistorial, parochial authoritarianism masquerading as conservatism.

Nowhere is this tendency more evident than in the right’s reflexive support of police, even as they wave “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. The power of police in the United States is deeply contrary to the traditions on which this nation was founded. We were founded on the principles of local self-rule and separation of powers, and the unchecked power of police contradicts those principles.

Here are eight ways the police have too much power.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

First, in many cities, the police are kingmakers. The mayor and council absolutely must have the political support of police to get elected. Fall afoul of them, and you’re out of a job. This is the situation in New York, for instance, where I think de Blasio was the first in many decades who didn’t owe his job to the police.

While I haven’t looked into it, I’d bet the kingmaking power explains why Minneapolis dissolved their police department. Halfhearted action would have left the council vulnerable in the next election. The only way to escape the political backlash from police was to root them out decisively, and start over again.

Second, police unions are very strong indeed. The unions negotiate incredibly generous contracts between the department and the city. These contracts ensure that police officers get far better protection during an investigation than they would receive in a court of law. And in many cities police officers make $200k-$300k, even into retirement.

Third - and we haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet - police investigate themselves. Typically, an “officer-involved shooting” will be investigated for months, while public anger dies down, and the police “leak” damaging information about the victim.

Fourth, for several years running, the police have taken more in civil asset forfeiture than thieves have stolen.

In civil asset forfeiture, the police confiscate the money, without charging the owner with a crime. The money is guilty until proven innocent. Then the police have to split the money between the feds and themselves. They have taken mind-boggling amounts of money - I’ve read many cases where they stopped a car with out-of-state license plates, and took the guy’s life savings.

They can use this money for their salaries, and to buy all the latest gear, which is very important to them.

Fifth - this is a good one - judge-made law protects the police from getting sued, even when they have done wrong. I have read cases where the police go to the wrong house, terrorize (and even shoot!) the family, and the family gets kicked out of court.

This is the judge-invented doctrine of qualified immunity. In the Supreme Court’s own words, it protects all but the plainly incompetent and the knowingly malicious. Oh, and the law has to be old, or the cop still walks.

I honestly believe most conservatives are unaware that the police can break into their homes and beat them up, savagely, and they would have no legal recourse at all. I am not exaggerating. I have read the legal cases. That is the law, and that is what happens.

Sixth, in the very rare cases where someone is allowed to sue a cop for doing wrong, the city will pay the cop’s legal bills, including the judgment against the cop. Not a dime comes out of a police officer’s pockets, even in really terrible cases.

Seventh, in the very rare cases where a police investigation decides that a police officer did something wrong, and the department decides to fire that person, often they simply are not allowed to fire them. The contract that the police union has negotiated forbids it.

Eighth, in the very rare cases where a cop is fired, they can go get a job in another department, and they often do. So even firing a police officer is more bark than bite.

We Ain’t No Angels

Even the Most Holy Roman and Catholic Church, when deprived of accountability, shuffled pedophile priests around like they were playing a ball and shell game. Keep your eye on the ball, find the ball, where’s the pedo, find the priest, look at the bishop look at the bishop, which bishop hides the priest!

And the abusers jumped around parishes and states to start over. And then the bishops did the same thing with money, to avoid getting sued by the victims (like Cardinal Timothy Dolan in New York hiding money under the corporation that owned the church cemetery).

It’s an iron law of human nature: power without accountability will fester into a putrid wound on the body politic.

If you believe police can have all the power I’ve outlined above, and somehow stay on the strait and narrow path, then you’re more credulous and naive than any liberal that ever breathed.

I just do not believe that police departments have more saints than the Catholic Church. Maybe I’m cynical, maybe I’ve been mugged by reality.

Civilian Control of the Police

In the United States, we have something we call “civilian control of the military.” It’s not generals or admirals who decide military strategy. A civilian decides: the president. Some politician says “jump,” and the Joint Chiefs of Staff ask “how high?”

The military is very proud of this fact, and so should we all be. In our nation’s senior military academies - West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy - they proudly teach every new generation of military leaders that their highest honor is to obey the orders of a civilian.

Many senior military officers even advertise that they do not vote at all, such is their concern to remain nonpartisan, obedient to whoever happens to be the lawfully elected representative of the country. I am not saying they shouldn’t vote - every soldier and sailor is also a citizen - but that’s their choice.

By contrast, we lack civilian control of the police. Each community should be able to fire a police officer, when they believe they can no longer rely on that police officer.

Don’t tell me “the inmates will run the asylum!” I’m a former lawyer, an Afghanistan veteran, a software engineer, a productive member of society. I deserve to decide who polices my community, and so do you.

I am reminded of the US Navy. When they find it necessary to relieve a captain of his command, they say simply that they have lost confidence in his ability to command the ship. They need no other justification.

We should be able to fire an underperforming police officer, and we should also be able to sue them in a court of law. We must reverse judge-made law that prevents us from seeking justice in a court of law.

Mark my words: every “reform” aimed at improving culture or training is worse than useless unless we gain political and legal control of our police.