I'm a firm believer that law enforcement should be held to a higher standard when it comes to breaking the law. For instance, a person in law enforcement for any crime should have the punishment doubled after sentencing.
In my mind, we don't even need to go that far, we just need to reasonably apply the actual laws that we have today. I don't expect police officers to be paragons of virtue, I just expect them to follow the same laws that everyone else has to follow.
If I park on the sidewalk, I will get a ticket. If a police officer parks on the sidewalk, there is no check on their ability to say "It was necessary for police business", even if it wasn't. Adding a method to track and prosecute that abuse is all I care about; police aren't being held accountable today, but I also don't see any need to hold them extra accountable -- just the same amount as everyone else is fine by me.
Yes. When you join the force, the deal should be made clear: you get extra physical power over the people around you. In return, they get to hold you to a higher standard of conduct.
Now the deal is: you get extra physical power over the people around you, the public is grateful for your 'sacrifice' and protection, such that if you screw up you'll get away with it. You will, like most humans, behave in a way that maximizes your pleasure and minimizes your pain, to the extent you can get away with it, and you'll quickly find that you can get away with almost anything. Just don't be too good, or piss off the wrong people in the department, and after 20 years you get to retire on a fat pension. Let's just get you tested to make sure you aren't too intelligent, and then you'll get your 6 weeks of training, and boom, you'll be on the street with a gun, ready "to protect and to serve"!
Sometimes I think we'd be better off with AI cops.
It is mostly the consistency, not so much the severity, of punishment which fixes the behavior.
People don’t know the exact charges and likely punishments before they commit a crime, so they don’t game out exactly the risk-reward tradeoff.
However, cops generally know the likelihood of avoiding prosecution before they commit a crime. Fixing the disincentive to prosecute police officers for any small crime is 1000x better than doubling the theoretical punishment that is so rarely applied.
