Wasn't the over policing they wanted stopped policies like Stop and Frisk which were targeting people based on race? That's a far cry from policing people based on actually breaking the law
It's a loaded term, over-policing. Stop and frisk is one thing, but local politicians use it to mean other things, too. When the police deployed during the K2 overdoses in Bed Stuy (the first news incident), politicians said on record that we needed to be careful not to over-police the neighborhood. What they meant by this was presence - don't put police everywhere, people dislike it.
There's more. They reclassified numerous crimes that were deemed quality of life crimes that deserve at most a desk ticket. They also stopped cracking down on turnstile jumpers, they became more lax with the homeless by policy (you can read DeBlasio's quotes on that too).
There's a general Zeitgeist against policing in general. Is it good, moral social justice policy? I don't know, but I strongly suspect we care more about equality of outcome (and statistics) than true justice.
Back to the cameras. There's a terrible irony here: the police union was instrumental in pressuring to not renew them. Fear of being automated out of a job? That's a strong HN topic if I ever saw one.
> They also stopped cracking down on turnstile jumpers, they became more lax with the homeless by policy (you can read DeBlasio's quotes on that too).
I am still waiting on Germany to make mass transit "free of cost" or paid for completely by tax payers. I think we can learn a lot from their experiment. What worries me here in the US is that everything costs so much more. I think I will be salty until the day I die about the WTC Path terminal being 100% over budget. I mean those FOUR BILLION DOLLARS I think would be better spent toward the second avenue train for the MTA or the signal problem on the Newark WTC Path bridge at Harrison (Disclaimer: I use neither of those two services but I still think either of those would have been a better choice.) I don't know the details but I think we ought to walk away from a bad deal at some point. If we are sure we can control costs, I am all for a fully taxpayer funded MTA subway and buses as well as a fully taxpayer funded Path train. I hope people understand that $2.75 does not fully cover the cost of a bus ride. I don't have any numbers but as someone mentioned here some time ago there is a lot of taxpayer money already going into building and maintaining the roads.
> Back to the cameras. There's a terrible irony here: the police union was instrumental in pressuring to not renew them. Fear of being automated out of a job? That's a strong HN topic if I ever saw one.
The main thing is we have to be willing to cut costs. Everything I say is a pipe dream until we can cut costs. This means automating as much as possible. This includes train conductors, bus drivers, and yes, the police (and the administrative staff at all these places).
