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Why is there so little evidence on what police reforms work?

#1
C C Offline
Cynical Sindee: Right in line with administrations, departments, and movements not even caring whether their "we feel your pain" remedies and pretentious beliefs work or not: Charlatan snake oil salesmen.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/poli...licit-bias

EXCERPT: . . . Among her efforts, criminologist Robin Engel scoured the literature for so-called de-escalation programs with a history of success at defusing violence. Her review of that body of work, appearing in January 2020 in Criminology & Public Policy, found 64 de-escalation programs in the United States and elsewhere — but mostly administered to nurses and psychologists. She found no programs that had been tested among police officers. Just three studies showed cause and effect and included randomized control groups, and those showed that such programs led to minimal individual and organizational improvements.

In a February 2020 review in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Engel and colleagues discuss de-escalation trainings and four other reforms that tend to capture the public’s attention following fatal police-civilian encounters: body-worn cameras, implicit bias training (meant to reduce decisions and actions that arise from unconscious stereotypes) (SN: 10/26/15), early intervention systems that identify problematic officers before a crisis and civilian oversight of the police.

Engel was unable to identify a single police reform with convincing evidence of resulting behavior change among officers. Even studies on body-worn cameras, which are numerous, had mixed results. Engel cites a March 2019 review of 70 studies in Criminology & Public Policy by a team of researchers led by Cynthia Lum of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., that gauged the link between camera use and a reduction in force. Just 16 of those studies looked directly at whether or not cameras reduced officers’ use of force; of that subset, some show that the cameras work as a deterrent to use of force whereas others reach the opposite conclusion.

An officer with the Minneapolis Police Department wears a body camera as part of his gear while responding to a call in 2019. Police departments across the country have started having their officers wear cameras to film their interactions with civilians, but it’s not clear that the devices reduce violent encounters. Why no data? The dearth of evidence stems from several factors, Engel says, but chief among them is the pressure for police departments to act fast when an instance of police violence captures national attention... (MORE - details)
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#2
Syne Offline
Improvements are actually anathema to the continued ability to virtue-signal. It's about lip-service about change, not change itself.
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#3
Yazata Offline
There isn't really any consensus that police reforms are even necessary, let alone what kind of reforms are needed (assuming that any are). So how can anyone decide what does and doesn't "work" when there's no agreement on what 'working' even means?

(Jul 12, 2020 11:12 PM)Syne Wrote: Improvements are actually anathema to the continued ability to virtue-signal. It's about lip-service about change, not change itself.

I'm inclined to think that all of this anti-police hysteria and insanity is manufactured to further political ends. As long as achieving those political ends is contingent on whipping up a sense of exploitable grievance, those in the media who are doing this won't want that sense of grievance to recede.
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#4
Syne Offline
(Jul 13, 2020 01:21 AM)Yazata Wrote:
(Jul 12, 2020 11:12 PM)Syne Wrote: Improvements are actually anathema to the continued ability to virtue-signal. It's about lip-service about change, not change itself.

I'm inclined to think that all of this anti-police hysteria and insanity is manufactured to further political ends. As long as achieving those political ends is contingent on whipping up a sense of exploitable grievance, those in the media who are doing this won't want that sense of grievance to recede.
I assume some of it is organic, but certainly amplified for political ends. Like allowing riots and protests even under the supposed looming threat of Covid.
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#5
stryder Offline
To my knowledge police are human, some of them suffer from the job and even continue to suffer while doing it. How I mean is if one gets clouted on the head by a brickbat during a riot, it isn't just potentially a physical injury but also one that can effect their mental well-being from the likes of PTSD. In those instance people might act different from brain damage that hasn't been identified on the job. This can lead to them suffering emotional (outburst of tears or having not feelings or remorse at all), acting out on the job itself(acting vengefully or without due care and attention) or worse still trying to contain it at home where their families might be victims of their outbursts (domestic violence).

Is this all the fault of police though? Well somebody had to cast the brickbat in the first place and that itself is entirely different kettle of mental babelfish.
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