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Making The Police Less Powerful
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Forbes
Posted: June 20th, 2016
http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2014/11/28/makin...
Many have become fed up with police violence and a perceived lack of accountability in this country. In addition to the worrying trend of police militarization, many areas of the country have police forces that seem fairly unaccountable for excessive violence or other problems. In Philadelphia, an inquiry was recently completed on 26 cases since 2008 where police officers were fired from charges ranging from domestic violence, to retail theft, to excessive force, to on duty intoxication. Shockingly, the Police Advisory Committee undertaking the investigation found that so far 19 of these fired officers have been reinstated. Why does this occur? The committee blamed the arbitration process. Another implication of police power is political. For example, the Miami-Dade police union recently blocked body cameras for police officers. And when Wisconsin limited collective bargaining rights for public sector workers it exempted police and firefighter unions. When most people mess up at work their bosses dont need arbitration to determine whether they can be fired. Even if the error was reasonable people can be fired just to please the customer. Police should be as accountable to the public as the rest of us our to our employers and customers. The police are extremely powerful in this country. With the publics trust justifiably falling, its time to strip them of job protections and political power that lead to unaccountability and injustice. This is not going to happen while police unions remain intact.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing police corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
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