Disclosure: I am a former felon, convicted and sentenced for assaulting a carjacker. pro-tip: never take the public defender.
My question about this whole discussion is this: Whats the point. If prisons are designed as "correctional" facilities, which many good ones are, then you'll obviously move past being a felon and improve your life. If you keep a secret list of people you know have been convicted of a felony, you're tacitly admitting you either dont believe in prisons as an effective tool for correction, or you're looking for something more sinister...biblical retribution
And lets be honest, being a former felon IS a scarlet letter in the US. employers can discriminate against you, housing can discriminate against you in renting and in homeowners covenants, and you can be denied public services like disability and food stamps in some states. Former felons cant vote without a lengthy and expensive process of reinstatement.
Yes, i get that teachers, doctors, and police are certainly important positions, but again, the list. If you're just keeping it as part of their personnel and noting certain positions they shouldnt hold out of an abundance of caution in the face of an indeterminate outcome from mental rehabilitation or incarceration, then perhaps keep it secret. Use it as a blacklist if thats whats required for certain positions. however If you're just looking to shield felons from the inconvenience of incarceration or criminal charges, then reconsider it.
You're really describing the other half of the same issue. The larger picture is that while the private sector is treating any conviction as a permanent black mark, the good old boys club is doing the exact opposite.
I do agree that a serving your sentence should mean that your sentence has been served, as opposed to continuing lists and restrictions after you're supposedly "free". But if we're going to allow that mark to continue in some form indefinitely, then it should have more effects on people in true positions of trust (eg police) rather than fewer!
This pattern of double standard rights erosion is happening across the board. Police enjoy "Garrity rights" whereby they can actually exercise their 5th amendment rights, whereas a private employee can be compelled to testify against themselves under threat of being fired. Someone who works for the government retains their freedom of speech protections, whereas a job in the private sector can be easily lost due to doxxing by an online lynch mob.
Ultimately, this two class system came about because rights were codified only as protections from the government, as there is no simple way to draw a line between freedom of association and negative consequences. But given that we've gotten to the point where the vast majority of the population must hold down a job, this needs to change with respect to the general labor market.
Unfortunately, based on the vocal political opinions of my relatives, I suspect that many, perhaps even most, voters do see the "correctional" system as primarily about retribution. Local and regional politicians continue to run and win on the "tough on crime" platform even in places where it makes very little sense. Before there can be reform, people have to want there to be reform.
People want to believe that crime has an easy answer -- namely, being "tough on crime" -- and until they realize that their efforts to impede reintegration increase recidivism far more than they discourage crime, the criminal justice system will be about "corrections" in name only.
If this list were only comprised of felons who later became cops, that would be one thing. But it seems like a lot of it is crimes committed while being police, some even in the course of their duties as officers:
> The list includes cops who trafficked drugs, cops who stole money from their departments and even one who robbed a bank wearing a fake beard. Some sexually assaulted suspects. Others took bribes, filed false reports and committed perjury.
You can say that should be a separate list, and sure — I can get behind that. I certainly don't like the idea of the justice system being retributive! But it seems clear that there is data on this list that should be released in the interest of public safety.
If I'm reading this article correctly, this isn't just about past convictions, but cops who were convicted of crimes on the job, as well as former cops and those "who at one time had tried to become a cop".
Furthermore, the Attorney General is trying to argue that simply being in possession of this list is a crime. But given that the article says some of the convicts are still working as cops, I think that it is important to the public interest that this list be seen and reported on. Not necessarily to be printed out in its entirety just to shame every name on the list, but to find out which departments have failed to vet their police officers. Just because the government keeps a list doesn't mean that they do a good job of checking against it, especially when it might be up to each individual agency to do the checks themselves.
... you're tacitly admitting you either dont believe in prisons as an effective tool for correction ...
Can one not believe they are effective while also hedging that, for example, perhaps the rate of recidivism remains slightly higher than the crime rate of everyone else? It doesn't seem like it has to be a binary, correction can be effective without being perfect.
Going from there, it's not hard to imagine a world in which ex-felons (is that the right term?) are considered perfectly hirable, but worth just a little extra oversight in exceptional circumstances.
Someone in the article makes the same argument as you are making here:
‘To the extent the public wants that to be public record, I can understand that,” said Rains, who is leading a legal fight to block the release of officer disciplinary records under the new law.
“Why don’t we make that known for everybody?” Rains said of convictions, pointing out there’s no broad disclosure for lawyers, doctors, teachers and other trusted professionals.’
The key difference is that none of the other ‘trusted professionals’ have arbitrary leeway to detain you under suspicion on the street. The dynamic between police and the populace is not even remotely equivalent to any of these other types of professions and to equate them is an outright false equivalency.
I'm confused when you say 'former' felon. I thought a felon is someone who committed a felony. Unless your conviction was overturned, aren't you forevermore a felon, even after you serve your sentence?
"If you keep a secret list of people you know have been convicted of a felony, you're tacitly admitting you either dont believe in prisons as an effective tool for correction, or you're looking for something more sinister...biblical retribution"
Well, this would make perfect sense if we didn't have sex offender lists. Or if we didn't do things like taking the ability to own guns away from the mentally ill, even those who have committed no crime whatsoever. Or if we didn't in many places remove the right to vote or serve on a jury from felons.
I don't mean to say that all of these things are unquestionable and perfect, but it seems like there are many ways in which people generally agree that some rights can be lost and should be lost even after incarceration is over. And it's not necessarily about retribution. I think everybody knows prisons are not effective at rehabilitation.
The point is pretty simple: damage control, and a refusal for change.
Society wants to discredit everyone who is a former felon (which itself is a sentence for life), and it wants to keep people who are cops from becoming a felon (those 'criminal cops' surely did worse things than 'convicted and sentenced for assaulting a carjacker'?). Supposedly because being a cop earned them credits or bonus points of some kind (I'd put my bet on that it costs society a lot of money to train cops and keep them from being dirty).
In that way, the list (of former felons) retains its value. If the State would prosecute and convict dirty cops, society may get the idea that cops (who are supposed to be a reflection of society) are less sincere than they may seem to be.
The problem can be solved pretty easily:
1) Prosecute dirty cops.
2) Stop with this 'former felon' sentence for life. Be pragmatic about people instead.
3) You'll find 'former felons' everywhere in society, including in government positions. However, felons stay in prison to serve their fair share.
4) The chance of becoming a felon will eventually decrease (it is ridiculous right now, with e.g. crimes involving something innocent as a little bit of cannabis).
Problem is, there's a lack of willpower society has to go for these steps. How can we stimulate society in the right way? I suppose one thing would be that those who are former felons like yourself open up about themselves. Put it out of the pandora's box where the light doesn't shine.
> If you keep a secret list of people you know have been convicted of a felony, you're tacitly admitting you either dont believe in prisons as an effective tool for correction
This is 100% the case. Our for-profit prisons provide a huge incentive to completely ignore things helpful for rehabilitation including education, job training, anti discrimination, and treating prisoners like humans. They are absolutely aware of how damaging that list would be to those persons.
> an abundance of caution in the face of an indeterminate outcome from mental rehabilitation or incarceration
It's not about abundant caution, or the uncertain effectiveness of correctional facilities. Regardless of what programs you avail some people of, the numbers show that (knowing nothing else) choosing to trust any random convicted felon is a worse idea than choosing to trust any random person who is not a convicted felon.
I don't really know what this article is trying to imply, somehow that the list should be public (or I guess, in a more limited sense, that the AG should not be threatening the public to prevent them from having it); as far as I can tell, the records it would contain are public to begin with.
>"Disclosure: I am a former felon, convicted and sentenced for assaulting a carjacker."
I don't mean to pry but I'm genuinely curious how you received a felony for assaulting someone that was threatening you. How would that not have been considered self-defense?
Let us make it even more direct. All government employees who commit crimes while in the employ of any government agency should have the record made public if it leads to disciplinary action or above a class C misdemeanor which for many jurisdictions is fines up to 1k.
teachers, police, and fire, are some of the most protected classes of people when it comes to findings of wrong doing. Yet they are in positions we give our highest trust. From cops breaking the law to teachers getting caught abusing children, all are facts that are hidden from the public and at times only result in an offender being reassigned to different positions with pay.
having an accountable government starts by holding the individuals in it accountable. I would not just start with the three I listed, I would put them right in the same starting group as elected officials.
Almost all criminal convictions are public record, unless sealed for a specific reason (youthful offender, perhaps).
Please cite an example of a teacher convicted of child abuse where that conviction was "hidden from the public." If anything, those cases are splashed across news websites even when there's nothing more than an accusation.
I don't disagree with your sentiment. That said, these kinds of jobs are generally poorly paid positions relative to the amount of bullshit that they have to deal with pre-employment and during employment. If we want a higher volume of "good" folks applying for these jobs, we're going to have to make their lives easier and/or raise their pay. Teaching and Policework especially are both classically stereotyped as jobs that have idealistic, hard working, underpaid people who keep things running mixed with lazy/corrupt/incompetent folks who can't get fired because they need bodies or it's bad for the optics of the organization to do so.
It’s all about “incompetence”. Unions fight these disclosures because disclosing a policeman’s identity would potentially exclude the employee from certain jobs.
That gives the government an easy path to bypass the disciplinary process — just arrest an officer for some bullshit charge and transfer them to a job where their identity must be secret.
What comes to my mind now, are countless stupid AAA movies, where some "hero" says of some former "hero", "no, we can't let the public know their hero failed them, they need to believe in the values he represented (not in the person)".
Police may be one of the few professions below who have real privacy protections in US, although most decent humans would never want to take advantage of particular ones in effect.
The special rights the police have are amazing, and that's before you get to the ones about use of force. My personal favorite is that the maxim 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' is flipped on its head if you're a cop - qualified immunity combined with judges willing to make absurd distinctions make it a great excuse.
I absolutely want a list of the ones that still got caught, even with all those advantages. In terms of evaluating the risks of local community members, that's far more useful than a list of "sex offenders" who may have peed in public or something.
In September, California passed the law (S.B. 1421) described in the article, supposedly allowing access to records of police misconduct. It is restricted to certain circumstances, but should unambiguously allow for possession and publication, for example, of a list of officers who molested children (a sexual assault against a member of the public).
Other states, like New York (CRL 50-a), have laws preventing public access to records of police misconduct, going so far as to hold proceedings against officers in secret [0]. Even efforts to post an anonymized list of violations have been blocked [1].
We require that other professions (e.g. doctors, lawyers, financial advisors) have complete, public records of professional misconduct as a matter of public safety (or awareness at a minimum). However, the very people who walk around with what amounts to a license to kill [2] are not held to the same standard. In fact, officers may be granted additional rights, shielding them from interrogation techniques that would otherwise be applied to members of the public [3].
Massachusetts has a "secret court system" that lets connected people avoid court and problems. I've lived here for a while and had no idea these shenanigans were going on. Well to be fair, we're a pretty jaded bunch so it wasn't overly surprising.
"Every year, tens of thousands of cases wind up in secret court sessions — formally known as “show cause hearings” — that are presided over by court clerks and usually held for suspects who haven’t been arrested and don’t pose a flight risk or danger to others. People are generally entitled to these hearings for misdemeanors, but police can request them for felonies as well.
....
Show cause hearings were originally created to weed out baseless allegations, but, in practice, there are so few checks on the clerks’ power that they regularly go far beyond that, brokering deals and, in nearly half of the cases, rejecting requests for charges.
Clerk magistrates, who are appointed by the governor, routinely refuse to issue charges even when there is significant evidence — as in the case of a judge caught on camera taking someone else’s $4,000 watch off a security belt at Logan International Airport. Over the last two years, clerks have set aside nearly 62,000 cases, including more than 18,000 after a clerk concluded there was probable cause to believe that the accused committed a crime, according to court data.
The Spotlight Team uncovered cases where clerks tossed charges involving serious injuries or deaths, including one brought against a Quincy taxi driver who ran over and allegedly dragged an elderly man, killing him."
What I would really like to know is what is the rate of criminality within the CA police force vs the public. Because 12,000 in a 10 year period is a LOT of felons that have worn or still wear a badge.
From what I can find, the US average for all adult residents is about 8.6% (about 1 in 12). For officers in CA, I found estimates of 90,000 to 100,000 on several sites. However, a survey of specific cities seems to indicate roughly 15 officers per 10,000 residents (http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforce...). CA has about 40 million residents, which would be about 60,000 officers.
Going with the 60,000 number, that's 20%! If we go with the higher estimate of 100,000 officers, that's still 12%! And don't forget - the 8.6% US average number is for anyone who has a felony record - meaning it covers their entire adult life, not just the past 10 years. That makes the officer numbers even worse! From what I can gather, the rate of criminality for officers (at least in CA) as far, far above the average for everyone else.
I think the ~12k convictions includes police officers no longer active or that may just have been applicants. TFA says less than a third match police personnel records and that it is unclear which may just be for applicants. I don't think we should speculate with these ballpark numbers if we can count on the results coming out later.
If anything, this list indicates that the legal system in the US is in need of an overhaul. That officers would be swept up in the same net we all are, should not be unexpected. Given their daily proximity to law enforcement, having a higher number than the average population should not necessarily come as a surprise.
The way to tell if they really are more 'criminal' than the rest of the population would be to look at the felony rates of judges, para-legals, lawyers, court-recorders, bailiffs, wardens, people who live/work close to precincts, etc. If your physical proximity to an officer is related to the felony rate, then this should come fall out of the data.
In essence, based on your napkin-math, further research is very much required for the sake of public safety.
How can AG Becerra seriously contend that it's a crime for the newspaper to have this info, which was inadvertently leaked to them through legal channels?
Didn't the "NY Times vs the United States" SCOTUS case resolve that sort of question?
The two major public safety unions in CA, the California Peace Officers Association and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, collect a combined total of about $100M per year in dues. They are incredibly active and influential in CA politics. The probability of the overturning a policy they support that directly concerns their members, as in the article, is zero.
These are two completely different topics. One is about privacy the other is about holding people in positions of power accountable for their actions(and that we have evidence about them not being).
Could there be a legitimate reason? Sometimes corrupt officials are placed under surveillance to catch other corrupt officials. If you out them you lose your information source.
[+] [-] nimbius|7 years ago|reply
My question about this whole discussion is this: Whats the point. If prisons are designed as "correctional" facilities, which many good ones are, then you'll obviously move past being a felon and improve your life. If you keep a secret list of people you know have been convicted of a felony, you're tacitly admitting you either dont believe in prisons as an effective tool for correction, or you're looking for something more sinister...biblical retribution
And lets be honest, being a former felon IS a scarlet letter in the US. employers can discriminate against you, housing can discriminate against you in renting and in homeowners covenants, and you can be denied public services like disability and food stamps in some states. Former felons cant vote without a lengthy and expensive process of reinstatement.
Yes, i get that teachers, doctors, and police are certainly important positions, but again, the list. If you're just keeping it as part of their personnel and noting certain positions they shouldnt hold out of an abundance of caution in the face of an indeterminate outcome from mental rehabilitation or incarceration, then perhaps keep it secret. Use it as a blacklist if thats whats required for certain positions. however If you're just looking to shield felons from the inconvenience of incarceration or criminal charges, then reconsider it.
[+] [-] mindslight|7 years ago|reply
I do agree that a serving your sentence should mean that your sentence has been served, as opposed to continuing lists and restrictions after you're supposedly "free". But if we're going to allow that mark to continue in some form indefinitely, then it should have more effects on people in true positions of trust (eg police) rather than fewer!
This pattern of double standard rights erosion is happening across the board. Police enjoy "Garrity rights" whereby they can actually exercise their 5th amendment rights, whereas a private employee can be compelled to testify against themselves under threat of being fired. Someone who works for the government retains their freedom of speech protections, whereas a job in the private sector can be easily lost due to doxxing by an online lynch mob.
Ultimately, this two class system came about because rights were codified only as protections from the government, as there is no simple way to draw a line between freedom of association and negative consequences. But given that we've gotten to the point where the vast majority of the population must hold down a job, this needs to change with respect to the general labor market.
[+] [-] jjoonathan|7 years ago|reply
People want to believe that crime has an easy answer -- namely, being "tough on crime" -- and until they realize that their efforts to impede reintegration increase recidivism far more than they discourage crime, the criminal justice system will be about "corrections" in name only.
[+] [-] jakelazaroff|7 years ago|reply
> The list includes cops who trafficked drugs, cops who stole money from their departments and even one who robbed a bank wearing a fake beard. Some sexually assaulted suspects. Others took bribes, filed false reports and committed perjury.
You can say that should be a separate list, and sure — I can get behind that. I certainly don't like the idea of the justice system being retributive! But it seems clear that there is data on this list that should be released in the interest of public safety.
[+] [-] danso|7 years ago|reply
Furthermore, the Attorney General is trying to argue that simply being in possession of this list is a crime. But given that the article says some of the convicts are still working as cops, I think that it is important to the public interest that this list be seen and reported on. Not necessarily to be printed out in its entirety just to shame every name on the list, but to find out which departments have failed to vet their police officers. Just because the government keeps a list doesn't mean that they do a good job of checking against it, especially when it might be up to each individual agency to do the checks themselves.
[+] [-] ip26|7 years ago|reply
Can one not believe they are effective while also hedging that, for example, perhaps the rate of recidivism remains slightly higher than the crime rate of everyone else? It doesn't seem like it has to be a binary, correction can be effective without being perfect.
Going from there, it's not hard to imagine a world in which ex-felons (is that the right term?) are considered perfectly hirable, but worth just a little extra oversight in exceptional circumstances.
[+] [-] SOLAR_FIELDS|7 years ago|reply
‘To the extent the public wants that to be public record, I can understand that,” said Rains, who is leading a legal fight to block the release of officer disciplinary records under the new law.
“Why don’t we make that known for everybody?” Rains said of convictions, pointing out there’s no broad disclosure for lawyers, doctors, teachers and other trusted professionals.’
The key difference is that none of the other ‘trusted professionals’ have arbitrary leeway to detain you under suspicion on the street. The dynamic between police and the populace is not even remotely equivalent to any of these other types of professions and to equate them is an outright false equivalency.
[+] [-] magduf|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] presscast|7 years ago|reply
There's a third option, namely: correctional facilities work better than nothing, but aren't 100% effective.
[+] [-] peopleeater|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perl4ever|7 years ago|reply
Well, this would make perfect sense if we didn't have sex offender lists. Or if we didn't do things like taking the ability to own guns away from the mentally ill, even those who have committed no crime whatsoever. Or if we didn't in many places remove the right to vote or serve on a jury from felons.
I don't mean to say that all of these things are unquestionable and perfect, but it seems like there are many ways in which people generally agree that some rights can be lost and should be lost even after incarceration is over. And it's not necessarily about retribution. I think everybody knows prisons are not effective at rehabilitation.
[+] [-] dynjo|7 years ago|reply
And right there is everything wrong with the law. Hopefully at the very least you got a nice sense of satisfaction!
[+] [-] Fnoord|7 years ago|reply
Society wants to discredit everyone who is a former felon (which itself is a sentence for life), and it wants to keep people who are cops from becoming a felon (those 'criminal cops' surely did worse things than 'convicted and sentenced for assaulting a carjacker'?). Supposedly because being a cop earned them credits or bonus points of some kind (I'd put my bet on that it costs society a lot of money to train cops and keep them from being dirty).
In that way, the list (of former felons) retains its value. If the State would prosecute and convict dirty cops, society may get the idea that cops (who are supposed to be a reflection of society) are less sincere than they may seem to be.
The problem can be solved pretty easily:
1) Prosecute dirty cops.
2) Stop with this 'former felon' sentence for life. Be pragmatic about people instead.
3) You'll find 'former felons' everywhere in society, including in government positions. However, felons stay in prison to serve their fair share.
4) The chance of becoming a felon will eventually decrease (it is ridiculous right now, with e.g. crimes involving something innocent as a little bit of cannabis).
Problem is, there's a lack of willpower society has to go for these steps. How can we stimulate society in the right way? I suppose one thing would be that those who are former felons like yourself open up about themselves. Put it out of the pandora's box where the light doesn't shine.
[+] [-] Chardok|7 years ago|reply
This is 100% the case. Our for-profit prisons provide a huge incentive to completely ignore things helpful for rehabilitation including education, job training, anti discrimination, and treating prisoners like humans. They are absolutely aware of how damaging that list would be to those persons.
[+] [-] microcolonel|7 years ago|reply
It's not about abundant caution, or the uncertain effectiveness of correctional facilities. Regardless of what programs you avail some people of, the numbers show that (knowing nothing else) choosing to trust any random convicted felon is a worse idea than choosing to trust any random person who is not a convicted felon.
I don't really know what this article is trying to imply, somehow that the list should be public (or I guess, in a more limited sense, that the AG should not be threatening the public to prevent them from having it); as far as I can tell, the records it would contain are public to begin with.
[+] [-] bogomipz|7 years ago|reply
I don't mean to pry but I'm genuinely curious how you received a felony for assaulting someone that was threatening you. How would that not have been considered self-defense?
[+] [-] Tsubasachan|7 years ago|reply
Hell you can be acquitted and still have society set against you, see the Central Park five.
[+] [-] rebuilder|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomcam|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] confiscate|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IshKebab|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duado|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|7 years ago|reply
teachers, police, and fire, are some of the most protected classes of people when it comes to findings of wrong doing. Yet they are in positions we give our highest trust. From cops breaking the law to teachers getting caught abusing children, all are facts that are hidden from the public and at times only result in an offender being reassigned to different positions with pay.
having an accountable government starts by holding the individuals in it accountable. I would not just start with the three I listed, I would put them right in the same starting group as elected officials.
[+] [-] ams6110|7 years ago|reply
Please cite an example of a teacher convicted of child abuse where that conviction was "hidden from the public." If anything, those cases are splashed across news websites even when there's nothing more than an accusation.
[+] [-] ellard|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
That gives the government an easy path to bypass the disciplinary process — just arrest an officer for some bullshit charge and transfer them to a job where their identity must be secret.
[+] [-] hutzlibu|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedivm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] __jal|7 years ago|reply
The special rights the police have are amazing, and that's before you get to the ones about use of force. My personal favorite is that the maxim 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' is flipped on its head if you're a cop - qualified immunity combined with judges willing to make absurd distinctions make it a great excuse.
I absolutely want a list of the ones that still got caught, even with all those advantages. In terms of evaluating the risks of local community members, that's far more useful than a list of "sex offenders" who may have peed in public or something.
[+] [-] nickles|7 years ago|reply
Other states, like New York (CRL 50-a), have laws preventing public access to records of police misconduct, going so far as to hold proceedings against officers in secret [0]. Even efforts to post an anonymized list of violations have been blocked [1].
We require that other professions (e.g. doctors, lawyers, financial advisors) have complete, public records of professional misconduct as a matter of public safety (or awareness at a minimum). However, the very people who walk around with what amounts to a license to kill [2] are not held to the same standard. In fact, officers may be granted additional rights, shielding them from interrogation techniques that would otherwise be applied to members of the public [3].
[0] https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/new-yorks-section-5...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/03/nyregion/police-disciplin...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/police-rarely-criminally-charge...
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/04/24/...
[+] [-] acomjean|7 years ago|reply
Massachusetts has a "secret court system" that lets connected people avoid court and problems. I've lived here for a while and had no idea these shenanigans were going on. Well to be fair, we're a pretty jaded bunch so it wasn't overly surprising.
"Every year, tens of thousands of cases wind up in secret court sessions — formally known as “show cause hearings” — that are presided over by court clerks and usually held for suspects who haven’t been arrested and don’t pose a flight risk or danger to others. People are generally entitled to these hearings for misdemeanors, but police can request them for felonies as well. .... Show cause hearings were originally created to weed out baseless allegations, but, in practice, there are so few checks on the clerks’ power that they regularly go far beyond that, brokering deals and, in nearly half of the cases, rejecting requests for charges.
Clerk magistrates, who are appointed by the governor, routinely refuse to issue charges even when there is significant evidence — as in the case of a judge caught on camera taking someone else’s $4,000 watch off a security belt at Logan International Airport. Over the last two years, clerks have set aside nearly 62,000 cases, including more than 18,000 after a clerk concluded there was probable cause to believe that the accused committed a crime, according to court data.
The Spotlight Team uncovered cases where clerks tossed charges involving serious injuries or deaths, including one brought against a Quincy taxi driver who ran over and allegedly dragged an elderly man, killing him."
Good reporting in a strange web first format..
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/spotlight/secret-courts/
More info here. https://apps.bostonglobe.com/metro/investigations/spotlight/...
[+] [-] turc1656|7 years ago|reply
From what I can find, the US average for all adult residents is about 8.6% (about 1 in 12). For officers in CA, I found estimates of 90,000 to 100,000 on several sites. However, a survey of specific cities seems to indicate roughly 15 officers per 10,000 residents (http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforce...). CA has about 40 million residents, which would be about 60,000 officers.
Going with the 60,000 number, that's 20%! If we go with the higher estimate of 100,000 officers, that's still 12%! And don't forget - the 8.6% US average number is for anyone who has a felony record - meaning it covers their entire adult life, not just the past 10 years. That makes the officer numbers even worse! From what I can gather, the rate of criminality for officers (at least in CA) as far, far above the average for everyone else.
[+] [-] kodablah|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Balgair|7 years ago|reply
If anything, this list indicates that the legal system in the US is in need of an overhaul. That officers would be swept up in the same net we all are, should not be unexpected. Given their daily proximity to law enforcement, having a higher number than the average population should not necessarily come as a surprise.
The way to tell if they really are more 'criminal' than the rest of the population would be to look at the felony rates of judges, para-legals, lawyers, court-recorders, bailiffs, wardens, people who live/work close to precincts, etc. If your physical proximity to an officer is related to the felony rate, then this should come fall out of the data.
In essence, based on your napkin-math, further research is very much required for the sake of public safety.
[+] [-] shereadsthenews|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HillaryBriss|7 years ago|reply
Didn't the "NY Times vs the United States" SCOTUS case resolve that sort of question?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...
[+] [-] abtinf|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|7 years ago|reply
Not saying we shouldn’t worry about privacy, just highlighting this is the silver lining to that cloud and it’s not an unsubstantial public good.
[+] [-] godelski|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tsubasachan|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbenitoj|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahaferburg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magduf|7 years ago|reply
For countries like Venezuela, probably a lot like the US.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] SiempreViernes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] archarios|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ccnafr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sarcasmatwork|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Golfkid2Gadfly|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] api|7 years ago|reply