Good Cop Bad Cop

In my "spare" time I blog on Say Anything. I like it because it's North Dakota Based, Rob Port is a decent man, and he has more readers for me to rant and rave at. So I do. Sometimes I hit a nerve. This was just one such a day. I postulated that like vouchers for education, perhaps our legal system and police force should be totally privatised and held accountable. Well, I drew fire. A cop from down south somewhere took me on. It wasn't pretty. I imagine that under other circumstatnces we might have got along fine. But, I guess he's just one of those fellows who can't imagine paridigms different from his own. See all the fireworks here.

Here's the post anyway.


I have from time to time expressed a personal opinion that is becoming more and more persistent in my thinking. Not a good conservative value. Probably more a libertarian one in nature than anything.

I am convinced that our police forces in America have been completely Barney Fifed. You remember Barney. Andy of Mayberry and all that. He was always arresting the wrong people, a stickler for absurd detail and ready to use force at any time (which is why Andy only gave him one bullet).

Andy is no longer on the force in America. Our police force in America has become a bunch of bullies, in my opinion.

And not only in my opinion, either. Joseph Farah wrote a piece on police incompetence worth reading.

He says inhis piece:

But, like it or not, at the end of the day, police are just not serving the people. Maybe their job has become a mission impossible. I'm willing to acknowledge that. But, from my vantage point, our experience as law-abiding citizens with police officers is getting worse all the time.

The rule of law is breaking down in America. It can hardly all be blamed on cops. But policemen and policewomen are on the front lines. They are the people who are most likely to have direct, face-to-face contact with we the people. And, whereas that contact in the past has often been a positive experience, it is becoming increasingly negative for many of us.

We had such an event in Chicago in the last few weeks. A young woman, a student, who was on medication caused a ruckus at O’Hare airport. The police were called. She told them she was on medication. They locked her up. She became disoriented. She began to throw herself against the jail bars. After a few hours of this, they decided they couldn’t hold her any more and at 3:00am in one of the most dangerous parts of town she was turned lose without escort by the cops. She was disoriented. A black man picks her up, rapes her repeatedly and then to hide the evidence takes her up a 4 story building and throws her off. She survives but now is in a permanent vegetative state.

Her parents from California were in touch with the cops when they had her in custody and plead with them to hold her until they got there or release her into the custody of someone as a protector. This was a horrid situation and now a lovely 20 year old girl will spend the rest of her life, whatever life she has, unconscious because the police did not serve or protect her.

Chicago Cops are tough. In one way I like it. Chicago is a very safe place (except for certain neighborhoods). But they have conducted torture, they recently beat up a diabetic man having an insulin reaction and if certain Chicago cops arrest you as a drug dealer, your money will be taken and your drugs will be stolen and resold by the crooked cops.

This is a system badly broken. In Chicago for sure, but I know this kind of excess goes on all over America. Barney Fifes set loose with extra bullets.

Take a look at an article reprinted in the Wall Street Journal today from the BBC. It talks about the excessive use of SWAT teams. We have militarized the police to the point where the mission of protecting and serving is no longer part of the purpose of these para-militaristic thugs.

From the article:

Professor Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year. "I have no problem with using these paramilitary style squads to go after known violent, armed criminals, but it is an extreme tactic to use against other sorts of suspects," he said.

Dr Kraska believes there has been an explosion of units in smaller towns and cities, where training and operational standards may not be as high as large cities - a growth he attributes to "the hysteria" of the country's war on drugs.

So, what is the answer? Some are starting to ask the question whether or not the police should be part of our government at all. They're asking if maybe it shouldn't be privatized. Currently there is no incentive for police to solve crimes as they get paid regardless, and it’s hard to hold bad cops accountable because it’s hard to sue the government.

Here is a typical argument in favor of privatizing the police in this article:

In To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice, Bruce Benson argues for privatizing the American legal system (including police, courts, and prisons) and adopting a revised version of the old Anglo-Saxon system under which crime victims have a right to restitution from criminals. Benson describes the pros and cons of some measures that would reform the American legal system to allow more privatization. He also explains the fully privatized legal system that he advocates, which would require changes in the law to allow individuals to sell some or all of their right to restitution and to allow private ownership, management, and policing of roads and all other "public" property. Benson’s restitution-based legal system fits well with the system promoted by Randy Barnett in The Structure of Liberty.

Compared to the current legal system in America, which imposes the costs of investigations, trials, and prisons on innocent taxpayers and does little to compensate victims of crime, Benson’s victim-restitution system is more fair and more libertarian because: (1) it eliminates all victimless-crime laws, (2) it helps victims of crime to recover from the losses inflicted on them, and (3) it makes criminals bear most of the costs of crime investigation, court proceedings, restitution, and incarceration. With regard to preventing and negating crime, Benson’s privatized justice system is more efficient than the current legal system because: (1) victims can receive compensation quickly by selling all or some of their right to restitution to agents who are in a better position to capture criminals and extract restitution from them, (2) competition and the profit motive made possible by the markets for these services will lead to improved methods of crime prevention, crime investigation, court proceedings, restitution, and incarceration, and (3) the prospect of compensation gives victims more incentive to report crimes and to cooperate with the private police and courts.

I don’t know if I buy his whole argument, but we have drifted badly from the original mission of our police departments. I’m tired of the Barney Fifes. I know they aren’t all like that, but far too many are. Too many are corrupt. Too many don’t care enough to protect. Too many are para-military wackos. It’s time to revisit the Hill Street Blues. Remember what they did with the nutcase cops? The balance of power seems to have gone to the bullies. It’s time for a change in my humble opinion.

I may not have the conclusive answer to these problems, but I can say that the police no longer serve or protect.