“However, that justification ignores the reality that such costs are virtually always paid by the officer’s municipality, insurance, or unions. A study of more than 80 state and local law enforcement agencies across the country found that in instances of misconduct—including those involving truly egregious, clear-cut abuses of authority—individual officers almost never paid such costs.”
By all means QI should be overturned by statute so victims can be compensated, but 1983 is not a mechanism for holding officers accountable. For that we need pare way back civil service and collective bargaining based barriers to imposing consequences on mal- and misfeasant officers.
Here in NYC there are examples of officers that have had multiple judgments awarded based on their conduct costing the city millions of dollars and they still weren’t subject to any penalties. It’s virtually impossible to fire a NYPD officer for misconduct—-someone accused of murder gets fewer appeals!
Why not insured by actual insurance companies? Surely after any incident the insurance company would raise premiums and after a certain point it would no longer be affordable for bad cops to be cops.
This wouldn't be too different from a medical professional being required to have malpractice insurance.
That's what I came around to, cops should get a stipend to pay their bond. And make sure the insurance companies have full access to their personal files. I think that would get rid of 90% of your problem cops right there. Because they'd be unable to find insurance.
That might work, but I think focusing on the money is a very USA approach to issues. Other countries don't seem to have that incentive structure, yet still avoid these issues (at least the blatancy of them).
Pensions vary per state. In California, police pensions are mostly aggregated in an organization that specializes in administering public sector state/local employees (except teachers) called CalPERS.
The department pays into the pension for the employee if I have my facts straight. Some cities have gone bankrupt because they chose not to do this.
Police unions largely exist for setting the employment contracts, lobbying (err “bribing” if you aren’t in the US) legislators for favorable legislation language, and to assist union members if they get into administrative problems (like being caught on camera killing an unarmed civilian) or if they are disabled/killed.
No clue on how their pensions are run, my comments are of the armchair variety. All I know is that the system is broken and money is the key lever in the system.
As long as this doesn't limit damages. I personally think municipalities should be on the hook for these so that they have some responsibility for the actions of their police force.
First targeting indemnification in addition to QI needs to be a talked about goal. So far, I’m seeing a lot of articles about QI and none about indemnification.
Seems like red hearing - why are we ignoring the criminal prosecution system whenever such crimes happen? Relying on civil cases to resolve crimes against the people is step backwards from justice.
Police officers abusing authority, recklessly endangering the lives of others, and committing acts violence against citizens creates a chilling effect even more harmful than the suffering the citizens first endured. Money does not need to come into play here. Arrest, charge, and put them in jail for their crimes against society.
Yeah I would say over-reliance on financial 'incentives' is a cancerous problem with US governance. We let cops that commit crimes go in return for an muni's insurance company payout. We let CEO's go in return for a bit of innocent stockholders money.
Up and up throwing people in jail would be vastly more effective.
Nationalistic flamebait will get you banned here. Please don't post like this, and if you'd please stop posting unsubstantive comments generally, we'd be grateful.
“However, that justification ignores the reality that such costs are virtually always paid by the officer’s municipality, insurance, or unions. A study of more than 80 state and local law enforcement agencies across the country found that in instances of misconduct—including those involving truly egregious, clear-cut abuses of authority—individual officers almost never paid such costs.”
By all means QI should be overturned by statute so victims can be compensated, but 1983 is not a mechanism for holding officers accountable. For that we need pare way back civil service and collective bargaining based barriers to imposing consequences on mal- and misfeasant officers.