BiblioPhil t1_itmf8jd wrote on October 24, 2022 at 6:44 PM

Reply to comment by NetQuarterLatte in The NYPD’s Most-Complained-About Cop Speaks Out in Defense of Aggressive Arrests by LittleWind_

They should be, but they aren't. That's why people are angry. Remember that for the next thread.

It's also not clear that we need more police given that the police we do have aren't doing their jobs. Maybe we just need to completely overhaul the broken and corrupt system that produces and sustains the shitty NYPD culture.

NetQuarterLatte t1_itmm3kd wrote on October 24, 2022 at 7:28 PM

>It's also not clear that we need more police given that the police we do have aren't doing their jobs

The US is really under-policed compared to other developed nations. That's relative to total population and relative to crimes.

The under-policing in the US is actually one root cause that led to over incarceration (longer and more severe sentences to try to compensate for under-policing).

NYC is also under-policed compared to developed countries. The NYPD does a lot of work relative to the volume of crimes that it needs to deal with, compared to other developed nations.

Source: https://direct.mit.edu/ajle/article/doi/10.1162/ajle_a_00030/112647/THE-INJUSTICE-OF-UNDER-POLICING-IN-AMERICA1

LittleWind_ OP t1_itmn799 wrote on October 24, 2022 at 7:35 PM

Can you provide support for your assertion that the US (and, in particular, NYC) is under policed?

I see that you've somewhat narrowed the assertion by discussing in relation to crime, and I'll accept evidence of that. However, that is a flawed metric for a variety of reasons (including that reported crimes are often under or over reported to support a political outcome). I think a much better metric is number of officers per capita, and would welcome comparative data demonstrating under policing by that metric.

EDIT: My own quick search shows that NYC isn't under policed by a per capita metric, and actually outstrips every US city except D.C.

https://www.governing.com/archive/police-officers-per-capita-rates-employment-for-city-departments.html

NetQuarterLatte t1_itmprio wrote on October 24, 2022 at 7:52 PM

Thank you for that source.

I've edited my comment to include a source comparing the US with other developed nations. I've updated the comment to remove the section were I wrote NYC is under policed compared to other cities in the US.

We have a much much milder mass incarceration problem in NYC compared to the country as a whole (the incarceration rate in NYC is lower than Canada and Luxembourg, for example), but we also better policing than other cities in the US.

But we are still severely under-policed compared to other developed nations.