Quote (Kayeto @ Jun 13 2020 05:22pm)

I got a suggestion: Police recruitment should rely heavily on college athletes of team sports who were not quite good enough to make a professional team (or who briefly made one but washed out at a young age)

I realize for this to happen, it would mean that their salaries would have to go up, which given the situation seems like a cost that we can bear if it means addressing the problem.

Think of it this way: College athletes are:

1) physically superior to the average citizen
2) already have experience working as part of a team
3) college educated
4) less likely to be racist (they grow up through all their school years with racially diverse teammates)

Instead of cops being "an average joe who wanted to be a cop", maybe we could transform the position into a high-paying position designed for high-quality people and held to high standards.

Think about police brutality in the context of NFL penalties for unnecessary roughness. Players are trained to be keenly aware of where they can hit. If their arm goes too low or too high, they get penalized. They practice the skill of having to make split-second decisions of exactly how to contort their bodies in a way that tackles the opponent while reducing the chance of injury. This is the exact kind of skillset you want cops to have in order to have unquestioned physical dominance over a citizen without needing to choke them out.

Quote (ofthevoid @ Jun 13 2020 05:42pm)

Lol good luck with that.

A few years back I was trying to become a cop in my city. At first a bachelors was a requirement, then it was lowered to an associates then just to a HS diploma. Turns out it’s pretty difficult to generate interest from college graduates who can pass the physical testing for one of the hardest jobs in America.

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I realize for this to happen, it would mean that their salaries would have to go up, which given the situation seems like a cost that we can bear if it means addressing the problem. Instead of cops being "an average joe who wanted to be a cop", maybe we could transform the position into a high-paying position designed for high-quality people and held to high standards.

Quote (Kayeto @ Jun 13 2020 05:47pm)

That's exactly what I was referring to when I said:



Reduced hiring pool means that the salary has to go up in order to attract higher quality candidates. But maybe that's exactly the direction we need to push the industry in order to reform it. Cops have a lot of authority. The fact that they are allowed to carry a gun means that they have the life of citizens in their hands. Why are we holding Division 2 college athletes to a high standard of performance (they need to compete for their spot) but can't do the same with cops?

Quote (ofthevoid @ Jun 13 2020 06:01pm)

My city is 50% black, good luck finding college athletes who can fill all of those police jobs. The reason why they got rid of the college requirement is precisely because not enough blacks qualified, when they want the police force to at least somewhat resemble demographics.

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Police recruitment should rely heavily on college athletes

Quote (ofthevoid @ Jun 13 2020 06:01pm)

What pay increase do you think all of the sudden will have college athletes flocking to be a cop?

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Other family members still believe that their focus should be on reforming the practices of police departments.

“I don’t agree with that,” Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, said of the “defund the police” slogan. “I think we need more police. We need police with better standards, and police with better ethics and better work habits.”

Fulton is running for county commissioner in Florida. “I want residents to feel safe,” she said. “I want to bridge the gap between the law enforcement and the community.”

Quote (excellence @ Jun 13 2020 06:18pm)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/08/trayvon-martin-oscar-grant-tamir-rice-police-killings-protest



quite an intriguing position, one that many of us here (and in society in general) could get behind

Quote (Kayeto @ Jun 13 2020 06:20pm)

Unfortunately, the system as it stands is resistant to reform. Defunding it and busting the union is a necessary first step towards reform.

Quote (ofthevoid @ Jun 13 2020 06:32pm)

I feel like you want two things that tend to be mutually exclusive. Defunding and busting unions will make police jobs even less attractive. Unions give bargaining power to police officers where they can ask for more money, pensions, etc. If you bust the unions, you realize that it's almost a certainty that they won't make more money but probably less right? If you get less benefits and less protections and probably will make less money because you lost that collective bargaining, how will that lead to higher rates of college athletes wanting to be cops?

Quote (ofthevoid @ Jun 13 2020 05:32pm)

I feel like you want two things that tend to be mutually exclusive. Defunding and busting unions will make police jobs even less attractive. Unions give bargaining power to police officers where they can ask for more money, pensions, etc. If you bust the unions, you realize that it's almost a certainty that they won't make more money but probably less right? If you get less benefits and less protections and probably will make less money because you lost that collective bargaining, how will that lead to higher rates of college athletes wanting to be cops?