NEW YORK POLICE UNION IS WRONG

A common approach to attacking something is to compile the entire lexicon of horror stories, group them together, and presents them in staccato style to give the impression that what ever it is you are attacking is pure evil. I am in the process of reading, The Fourth Revolution (2014) by Micklethwait and Wooldridge, who are doing exactly that. Of course, the government is the main target of their attack but among the institutions involve in government these two economists vehemently attack are unions. Of course, for them, the underlying theme of all attacks is to gain “economic dominance”, which is to say, the only way to govern is to have money rule everything in our society.

As a strong union supporter, I try to look at the opponent’s side of the union issue, as I am prone to do, to determine if what they argue has merit. To start with, no in social instrument, which is what a union is, is perfect so is vulnerable to attack. It just happens the police union in New York City is being attack by protagonists and, of course, they are counter attacking in a battle aired in the headlines. Police officers, like teachers, offer a public service; therefore, collectively the people are their boss. Unlike a private held company that has just two sides, when the people have a conflict with public servant unions the protagonists divide themselves four or more ways; pro and against the police position and the police who are also divided themselves, which is the case in New York City. It is the Mayor fighting against police Union leaders. In light of the fact there is very little data, the question is who is right and who is wrong. We have a few isolated incidents that we can seriously question. A recent strangling death caught on camera is one of them

Both the people and the police generally do not like police violence but it happens. Hard data concerning police violence is almost impossible to find. However, a recent study reported that wearing body cameras, “accounted for a 59 percent reduction in officer use of force and an 87 percent drop in the number of complaints against officers from the previous year”. To me these figures indicate it is more prevalent than even a bleeding heart like me would have guessed. You cannot reduce something by 59% if it does not exist—this is truly startling. Thinking about his brought me back to a study I read about conducted at a university where a professor allowed one group of students to guard another group of students. Students are students but when the professor gave unquestioned authority to the guards, he had to stop the experiment because of the level of cruelty the one group was inflicting on the other.  There is no question in my mind that the liberal Mayor is right and the union leader fighting to allow unabated police authority is wrong.

The tough guys in society that see themselves with the big white hat setting on a tall horse like John Wayne feel it is OK for police to do what ever they need to do for self-protection; so they shoot a few innocent suspects, so what! In contrast, my feeling is that authorities should investigate every incident, openly publish their findings, and clearly give the benefit of the doubt to the police. If law suites develop out of a case, so be it. Nevertheless, mayors and police chiefs should prosecute cruel police officers but also not forgive even minor offences. One form of punishment, such as administrative leave with pay, can never fit all misdeeds. Policing is a tough job—even as navy shore patrol I got knocked on my backsides while braking up a fight—but for society to allow cruelty is not the way to open the gates to good law enforcement. 

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