My suggestion (though I’m open to any idea that works) is fines/penalties/settlements for shit like this comes out of their retirement funds.
My favorite reform approach is for law enforcement officers being required to carry professional insurance. Police are often referring to themselves as professionals. Let them carry insurance like doctors do for malpractice or professional engineers do.
To ease the transition, I propose that the department cover the base insurance premiums for each officer. If an officer has a judgment against them that raises their insurance premiums, the officer is now responsible for paying for the overage out of their own pocket. If the officer continues to exhibit behavior that results in judgments against them, their premiums will continue to rise eventually to the point where the bad officer cannot afford the overage premiums and will then have to stop working as police because they are not carrying the required insurance. So bad officers will self select out.
There’s also another angle where the base premiums will likely be calculated based upon the entire department. If there is a badly behaved officer, this will raise the base rate of all officers too, so the department has a financial incentive to get rid of bad officers because they are too expensive.
As long as that last paragraph is true, I could support this. There has to be enough motivation for them to get rid of bad cops before they become a problem, not after.
Edit; But I also imagine that the insurance companies themselves would be pretty focused on making sure each cop was attending good training on how to be effective instead of what they’re currently getting which seems to be, “Everyone wants to kill you! Kill them first!”
There has to be enough motivation for them to get rid of bad cops before they become a problem, not after.
I’m understand where you’re going with this statement in spirit, but not in execution. An officer is only a problem after they have done harm to the public for which they serve. How then could a department get rid of a bad officer before this bad behavior presents itself?
How then could a department get rid of a bad officer before this bad behavior presents itself?
The public only becomes aware of the bad behavior when it goes too far and, for example, a cop unnecessarily kills somebody.
But that doesn’t just happen out of the blue. That cop’s coworkers and supervisors knew that he was reckless or emotionally unstable or whatever loooong before it got to that point. They need to step up before he kills somebody.
My favorite reform approach is for law enforcement officers being required to carry professional insurance. Police are often referring to themselves as professionals. Let them carry insurance like doctors do for malpractice or professional engineers do.
To ease the transition, I propose that the department cover the base insurance premiums for each officer. If an officer has a judgment against them that raises their insurance premiums, the officer is now responsible for paying for the overage out of their own pocket. If the officer continues to exhibit behavior that results in judgments against them, their premiums will continue to rise eventually to the point where the bad officer cannot afford the overage premiums and will then have to stop working as police because they are not carrying the required insurance. So bad officers will self select out.
There’s also another angle where the base premiums will likely be calculated based upon the entire department. If there is a badly behaved officer, this will raise the base rate of all officers too, so the department has a financial incentive to get rid of bad officers because they are too expensive.
As long as that last paragraph is true, I could support this. There has to be enough motivation for them to get rid of bad cops before they become a problem, not after.
Edit; But I also imagine that the insurance companies themselves would be pretty focused on making sure each cop was attending good training on how to be effective instead of what they’re currently getting which seems to be, “Everyone wants to kill you! Kill them first!”
So, yeah, this could work.
I’m understand where you’re going with this statement in spirit, but not in execution. An officer is only a problem after they have done harm to the public for which they serve. How then could a department get rid of a bad officer before this bad behavior presents itself?
The public only becomes aware of the bad behavior when it goes too far and, for example, a cop unnecessarily kills somebody.
But that doesn’t just happen out of the blue. That cop’s coworkers and supervisors knew that he was reckless or emotionally unstable or whatever loooong before it got to that point. They need to step up before he kills somebody.
They could start by getting rid of things like IQ maximums.