Nonexistent Police Reform

There will never be police reform unless number games policing ceases to exist. Police departments and politicians, including mayors, misuse what policing should be when police are pushed to generate meaningless statistics, whether for arrests, traffic stops, traffic tickets, warnings, or something else. Numbers game policing is not the same as serving and and protecting through patrol. In fact, it detracts from effective patrol. 

Police reform, and ensuring good policing means ending number games. It also means ending clout, cronyism, political favoritism, all of which suck the life out of having professional police departments. Taking cronyism, politics, and number games out of policing is necessary for police reform and better policing. 

 In many urban areas, especially high crime areas, there must be patrol on foot. Cops in vehicles are not enough. There must be officers walking neighborhood beats. Cops on the ground walking assigned beats, where they learn well their neighborhoods and interact with people in ways that are completely impossible when cops drive around in vehicles, regrettably is of no priority. Cops walking beats in neighborhoods requires police that are physically and emotionally up to the challenge, and that are able to communicate well with the public. Cops walking assigned beats is true needed community policing. Because it does not line someone's pocket or provide political patronage, no one is interested.  

Police reform and discussions about policing too often center on the sensational, including by the media, and on self serving agendas. Also follow the money trail, and who profits from what is proposed, whether it is about training as the answer, community policing, or something else. 

If cops and deputies are pushed to generate arrests, write tickets and more, their interactions with the public will continue to be more negative than positive. Cops that actively and properly patrol are busy enough without having to generate meaningless numbers. 

911 calls must be better screened, and people must be held accountable when they misuse the 911 system. Police responding to 911 calls and in their interactions with the public must be professional. Thin skinned cops are no more needed than are timid cops. 

Police belong on the streets. Legions of paper pushers, unnecessary bureaucrats and police brass must end as police return to their basic mission of serve and protect by patrol.

Like it or not, violence and crime are not going away. Effective, good policing requires work and effort. The makeup of who are the police is dramatically different than from decades past, and is now more diverse than ever before. If the discussion about policing cannot move beyond the politics of race, then the only thing that changes is the racial mixture and gender of those who are doing the bad policing.

Police especially that work high crime areas face violent people and violent situations. They cannot be crucified every time they exercise the lawful and necessary use of force. If police fail to respond appropriately to violence and crime, the only ones that suffer are the public. No police, or poor policing, means more murders, more violent crimes, more innocent civilian lives lost. 

It is unfortunate that there is still no serious discussions about police reform, and no serious effort to make policing better. Instead, the conversation is controlled by a few with their own agendas, backed by a media with its own agendas, all to the delight of those police officials, politicians and others that are more than delighted to keep things as they are.