Tags: American Police police brutality protests police brutality
- https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/12/camden-policing-reforms-313750
- “But nothing is as simple as it sounds in a tweet. While largely a success story, the overhaul was by no means a clear win for social-justice progressives who are driving the police-reform debate nationally. The Camden police reform was—and remains—politically divisive. In part that was because union contracts were thrown out, leaving many on the force earning a lower salary and with fewer benefits. And it required very strange bedfellows to succeed—an all-powerful Democratic machine, a Republican governor, conservative budget-cutters and progressive police thinkers, all aligned to break an established department and start over.”
- interesting combination of people working, republicans and democrats
- “In a strange legal coda to the whole drama, the case filed by the Camden residents to save their local police department worked its way through New Jersey courts and ultimately ended up in front of the state Supreme Court, which ruled 6-0 in favor of the residents in 2015. But it was too late: The Camden County police force had been around for four years, and by most accounts, was already a success. In this case, politics had moved faster than the courts and, legally or not, the Camden city police force was long gone.”
- was not legal but already proven successful
- The internal metric system for rating an officer’s performance was also overhauled—no longer were officers rewarded for the number of tickets they had written, or how many arrests they had made. Thomson says his highest priority was working to integrate officers into the fabric of the community.
- “I don’t want you to write tickets, I don’t want you to lock anybody up. I’m dropping you off on this corner that has crime rates greater than that of Juárez, Mexico, and for the next 12 hours I don’t want you to make an arrest unless it’s for an extremely vile offense,” Thomson recalls telling his officers. “Don’t call us—we’re not coming back to get you until the end of your shift, so if you got to go to the bathroom, you need to make a friend out here. You want to get something to eat? You better find who the good cook is.”
- “But nothing is as simple as it sounds in a tweet. While largely a success story, the overhaul was by no means a clear win for social-justice progressives who are driving the police-reform debate nationally. The Camden police reform was—and remains—politically divisive. In part that was because union contracts were thrown out, leaving many on the force earning a lower salary and with fewer benefits. And it required very strange bedfellows to succeed—an all-powerful Democratic machine, a Republican governor, conservative budget-cutters and progressive police thinkers, all aligned to break an established department and start over.”
- https://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-camden-disbands-police-force-for-new-department.html
- more cops on streets, less homicides, 95% decrease in use of force complaints, rise in petty crime arrests, extensive use of force policy and power to fire officers, no union but have since unionized