Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Monday April 03 2017, @08:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the sudden-outbreak-of-common-sense dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Camden, New Jersey is a very low income neighborhood. According to this NY Times article, until recently it had typical low income policing--heavy on corruption and violence and low on compassion.

But now they have a new chief and things have changed --

"Handing a $250 ticket to someone who is making $13,000 a year" — around the per capita income in the city — "can be life altering," Chief Thomson said in an interview last year, noting that it can make car insurance unaffordable or result in the loss of a driver's license. "Taxing a poor community is not going to make it stronger."

Handling more vehicle stops with a warning, rather than a ticket, is one element of Chief Thomson's new approach, which, for lack of another name, might be called the Hippocratic ethos of policing: Minimize harm, and try to save lives.

Officers are trained to hold their fire when possible, especially when confronting people wielding knives and showing signs of mental illness, and to engage them in conversation when commands of "drop the knife" don't work. This sometimes requires backing up to a safer distance. Or relying on patience rather than anything on an officer's gun belt.

While not out of the woods yet, it sounds like there is hope for Camden and maybe it won't just continue to be written off as a war zone.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:00AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:00AM (#488462)

    As bad as they are, the US courts are more-or-less working. This is because the US is a wealthy country with low crime -- yes really.

    Dueterte doesn't have that kind of luxury. In a nation that faces poverty and high crime, such niceties go out the window. You have to get shit done, sometimes in a very ugly way. Life is cheap in these places. Someday, perhaps as a result of brutally fighting crime, there may be an ability to be kind and gentle. Until then, you do what you must.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   0  
       Disagree=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Disagree' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   0  
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:53AM (#488486)

    Ah yes, drug crime.

    "Drugs," the magic word that makes violence against innocents acceptable.