[sudo-discuss] Hack Tha Police

Mon May 13 06:41:07 PDT 2013

hey eddan and others who are following this, it would be great if we could
add details about the current situation with the police chief to the wiki:
http://oaklandwiki.org/Three_Police_Chiefs_in_Three_Days

- marina

On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 5:21 PM, GtwoG PublicOhOne <g2g-public01 at att.net>wrote:

>
> YOs-
>
> It's well known in cog sci & experimental psych, that adverse scrutiny
> causes a decline in many human performance measures.  This should come as
> no surprise: trying to accomplish any task becomes more difficult when
> someone in the background is laughing at you, saying you can't do it,
> finding fault, and ready to impose some kind of penalty for mistakes.
>
> It's also the case in employment situations: employees who are under
> adverse scrutiny tend to make more mistakes on the job.  Some attention
> that would otherwise be focused on the primary task, is diverted to being
> aware of the boss who might suddenly impose a punishment.
>
> So here we are in the robbery capital of America, with our police
> department in a logical double-bind (damned if you do, damned if you don't)
> between four conflicting demands:
>
> a) stop the crime wave, b) but do it with 1/4 to 1/3 fewer officers than a
> comparable-sized city should have, c) and don't go overboard on suspects,
> d) all of this while we keep you under adverse scrutiny.
>
> So is it any surprise that OPD isn't functioning as it should?
>
> The first response of a culture with deep roots in puritanism is to assert
> moral righteousness and seek to punish.  This is true in our response to
> crime, and it's also true in our response to police misconduct and other
> faults of LE agencies.  These dynamics can become more extreme when their
> underlying causes are more extreme: Oakland has a long history as a violent
> town, and America has a long history as a violent culture.  Our popular
> entertainment ceaselessly offers up a river of gore for our "viewing
> pleasure."
>
> So, a few modest proposals:
>
> One:
>
> A major source of crime is in systematic denial of opportunity to urban
> youth, beginning with inadequate education, followed by no access to
> college, systemic unemployment, and no opportunities for small business
> start-ups.  What's needed here is reform on all three fronts.
>
> One thing that can be done from the community level, is microenterprise
> development: helping people get started in small business that employ a up
> to a half dozen people.  Very often this takes relatively little capital,
> but much hands-on to educate people who are seeking to start
> microenterprises, and work with them over time to help them succeed.  When
> it succeeds, it has a multiplier effect: it also attracts conventional
> capital to an area, as a "good bet" for more conventional small business
> startups.
>
> Two:
>
> The fact that Oakland needs to hire approx. another 200 officers, is also
> an opportunity for a culture change at OPD.  An incentive structure should
> be put in place to hire officers who have 4-year college degrees in any
> field that's even remotely relevant, including history and the social
> sciences.  The same incentives should be offered to current employees of
> OPD: including payment of tuition as well as higher pay upon completion of
> a 4-year degree.
>
> If that sounds unrealistic, add up the cost of the crime itself, and
> compare to the cost of a college-educated police department.
>
> There's one other change that might bring in more candidates from
> backgrounds that are more suitable to the realities of the Bay Area.  This
> is going to sound like a liberal stereotype, but none the less the
> reasoning is sound:
>
> At present, OPD rejects any applicant with a history of illegal drug use,
> and fires any employee who tests positive for illegal drugs.  Let's take
> marijuana off that list, to enable hiring and retaining officers who smoke
> pot.  Even recreational use is quasi-legal in the Bay Area, and ruling out
> pot smokers from joining OPD is depriving the city of candidates who could
> otherwise be successful on the job.
>
> Three:
>
> In general, seek to reward good behaviors, rather than seeking to punish
> bad behaviors.  That's also a culture-change.
>
> Four:
>
> As far as surveillance goes, video cameras have not made a significant
> difference in street crime in England, which has the highest density of
> surveillance cameras of any nation on Earth.  That's the empirical fact,
> that should be used to put to rest any idea that video is a magical cure
> for crime.  With crime, as with disease, prevention is the best cure: a
> functional economy with opportunity for all, and a police department that
> has good relationships with the communities it serves.
>
> -G.
>
>
> =====
>
>
>
>
> On 13-05-12-Sun 10:41 AM, Romy Snowyla wrote:
>
> This would be great material for the sudoroom publication right
> Not my personal topic or something I am into discussing but all for seeing
> this conversation live on in letterpress
> Hack the non digital
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On May 12, 2013, at 10:34 AM, Eddan Katz <eddan at clear.net> wrote:
>
>   So right about now, Sudo Room court is in full effect* ...
>
>  For those who weren't paying close attention to the news about the
> Oakland Police Department this past week, let me try to condense and read
> in between the lines. In case there was any doubt as to the unprecedented
> mess they/we are in: Two police chiefs resigned; Oakland made first in the
> country for robberies; news came out that only one person is in charge of
> coordinating burglary response; and the long-awaited police reform report
> was pulled from publication. (Raw footage of Fri. press conference -
> http://news.yahoo.com/video/raw-video-oakland-officials-address-221600024.html
> )
>
>  Our police chief friend Howard "It's Unconscionable" Jordan of
> LockPickGate (http://oaklandwiki.org/Lockpickgate) announced his
> retirement suddenly on Wednesday, the same day that the Wasserman-Bratton
> Report was supposed to come out. Since he's three years short of being
> eligible for the top pension (75% of salary) for life, he claimed
> undisclosed medical reasons and getting to spend time with his family
> (where he lives somewhere other than Oakland). Anthony Toribio was named
> interim chief on Wednesday, and announced his resignation on Friday. Sean
> Whent is our new interim police chief as of Friday (
> https://local.nixle.com/alert/4999940/?sub_id=894092).
>
>  Thomas Frazier, who was appointed the Compliance Director by the federal
> court who fell short of a federal takeover of the OPD, had just announced
> the re-opening of investigations into police misconduct, including ones
> related to Occupy Oakland, the week before. Part of the deal the federal
> judge struck was that the Compliance Director has important authority over
> the OPD, including the ability to recommend the firing of police chiefs. (
> http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/frazier-to-reexamine-police-misconduct/Content?oid=3541392).
> Frazier was the one who delivered the scathing report about the OPD
> response to Occupy about a year and a half ago (
> http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/cityadministrator/documents/webcontent/oak036236.pdf
> ).
>
>  The press conference for the release of the Bratton Report, which was
> supposed to come out on Wed., was cancelled and turned into a press
> conference for Jordan's early retirement. While the full report didn't come
> out, the six-page summary was posted by local CBS News (
> http://cbssanfran.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bratton_group_report_051813.pdf).
> When Oakland hired the Bratton Group to do the report, there was
> significant protest among Oakland communities because of Bratton's support
> for "stop and frisk" policing (euphemism for racial profiling) and "zero
> tolerance" policies. He's generally known as the top cop that brought LA &
> NY crime rates down significantly during his tenure there. Robert Wasserman
> ran the community meetings because of the community backlash against
> Bratton (
> http://oaklandlocal.com/article/wasserman-lays-out-general-plan-crime-prevention-proposals
> ).
>
>  So is there anything that Sudo Room can do? Anything other than what
> other groups are already doing in trying to bring accountability to the
> OPD? A couple things in the Bratton Report (reprinted at OccupyOakland.orgat
> http://occupyoakland.org/2013/05/bratton-group-report-may-8-2013/) come
> to mind. I think folks on this could have a lot of productive things to say
> about the Compstat Process, a computerized crime tracking system, which
> Bratton points to as key to improving crime response. The effectiveness of
> Compstat and how it can be optimally used and the drawbacks in how it is
> being suggested to be used has not really been discussed anywhere, as far
> as I can tell.
>
>  There is also reference to significantly increasing camera surveillance
> all over Oakland - getting more info about that will be very useful. Makes
> me think that now would be the ideal time to finally get our surveillance
> tours going - identifying surveillance cameras around downtown and taking
> people on tours pointing them out as they walk around. Before posting such
> a list on Oakland Wiki or something, we would want to narrow down those
> listed to ones that are aimed at public areas (or private ones that also
> capture public space).
>
>
>  ----
> *http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70lH373A1NU
>
>
>
>
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