Why Are Police So Bad at Their Jobs?

I gave reasons for low clearance rates but you apparently dismissed them. Lol

Bloated budgets occur for many reasons, some of which I stated about.

Police have a duty to respond. They can’t stop many crimes because they come after the crime is reported. They come because the “public” called. The same public that wants and demands we have a police force.

 

Emphasizing clearance rates as a metric of police performance invites a tweet storm from David Simon. None could withstand such an attack

 

Is there a job where you don't have to abide by policy, laws, or rules?

 

I’ll let the lawyers field this one

 

i can tell you I’ve had my opinion changed in last 10 years. Once it hit me that majority of DAs don’t care about the person and only their conviction rate regardless of evidence or guilt, changed my view.

 

Many reasons already covered but I’d suggest that the idea of what the police are thought to be doing is misaligned with what they’re both capable and incentivized to do. And for a majority of their history they defined what they do.

 

I know that, it’s called “probable cause”.
An arrest without it is a violation of a persons civil rights. If I remember the statue it’s 18USC242. The evidence is gained and the probable cause obtained from investigating the crime. That’s where it gets difficult when you don’t have the time to do a through investigation because you have calls waiting in the system and your supervisor is asking that you come back into service to take more calls. I used to get so backed up I’d have stay after each shift and finish my reports. I was off duty and I did not get paid overtime for the work that went beyond my shift.

Many crimes don’t get solved, especially minor ones, due to the time it takes to do a proper investigation. You want better clearance rates then hire more latent people for follow up. But we know that isn’t going to happen because it cost more. So you have to choose one over the other in many instances.

 

Not that I know of but there are some where the results are slowed down and often incomplete due to manpower.

 

Try Philadelphia, PA
DA: Larry Krasner

 

Stolen cars are a difficult crime to solve. There are detectives assigned to a vehicle theft division. The patrol officer writes the initial report and it’s sent to a detective for follow up. You find out pretty quickly which cases might be solvable when you see what evidence is initially available. A few are slam dunks but not many.

I transferred from police to fire and became a fire/arson investigator (22.5 years) I was the 24 hour on duty investigator. Most of my late night fire calls were stolen then abandoned vehicles. Why was I involved. Everyone of them were burned to destroy evidence like fingerprints. I can’t tell you how many times I called an owner mid morning and asked them to walk outside and let me know if their car was in the driveway or tell me where their vehicle is. Some of the answers were rather interesting, and some hilarious. Some of the owners drove their own vehicle into the woods and set them on fire. They would call and report it stolen. Those were some of the easier ones to solve. Owners are not good at telling the same lie more than once without it changing somewhat.

 

Mobility of populations hinder clearance rates. Technology often can help, video for example. But if you are trying to collect it from a zillion different operating systems, review it, etc. it is a time vacuum. Very labor intensive.
Be interesting to know the prosecution rate for stolen car arrests. Are scooters cars?

 

Motorcycles and the larger scooters are vehicles and require insurance, a current registration, and tag. (Florida)
49cc and less do not.

 

Mayor Adams of New York is a former cop. He’s one of the brightest men I know. The stereotype of the donut eating illiterate is grossly overrated.

 

I take note of your inherent anti-government leaning, but I was in law enforcement when I got out of law school. The notion that every police officer and every police district is inundated with corruption is simply false. The pretext traffic stops are endemic of a racist predisposition more so than a corrupt one. If I am an officer busting my tail to feed my family on the meager salaries that they make, and I see a person of color driving around in a late model S class convertible, and I have been indoctrinated into the delusion as tragically many Americans have been, that this country was built and made for "them" and not other people, I would probably make a lot of false arrests also.

That has nothing to do with corruption. Those are two different animals racism and corruption. And before you say it is not a racist problem, just look at the disproportionate number of blacks (some judges, some elected officials, some police officers themselves) that have been pulled over by largely white police for bogus reasons.

If you want to talk about racism in the police force we can talk about that all night. But if you want to talk about how police who are honest and who are upstanding *the majority I would submit) can be made more effective, then talking about pretext traffic stops is irrelevant to the conversation.

The other example you cited would have been vitiated if, for instance, the Texas sheriff had been making 150K a year plus incentives. And the theft of money from someone foolishly (and probably criminally) carrying around 100K and cash is a non-issue. If someone is stupid enough to carry that kind of cash around, they deserve to lose every penny.