Camden NJ police chief tells us how he did it

[mainer]

An inspiring editorial about how Camden turned its police force around — by dismissing all their cops and then rehiring the good ones.

I was the chief of police in Camden, N.J., when we concluded the most violent year in our history. In 2012, we tallied 67 homicides, 172 shooting victims and 175 open-air drug markets. Children couldn’t walk safely to school. Cops left crime scenes unattended to respond to the next shooting; it was nonstop. Camden was ranked the most dangerous city in the country, with a murder rate more than 18 times the national average. More people were killed in our town of 77,000 than were killed that year in Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Hampshire and Wyoming combined.
And police were not always helping. The city needed guardians, but officers often saw themselves as warriors seeking to dominate criminals through toughness. Citizens didn’t trust us, and efforts to arrest our way to law and order clearly weren’t working. As chief, I was handcuffed by legacy work rules and binding arbitrator decisions that made it difficult to hold officers accountable for misconduct or poor performance. I couldn’t even reassign officers on desk duty to the street to suppress spiking gun violence.
So we started from scratch. We let every city police officer go and created a new department with new rules in 2013. By agreement with Camden County, the city ceased to fund its department and instead paid the county to police the city of Camden. We required all officers to apply as new hires (most officers from the old force got jobs, but not all) and committed to a new relationship between Camden’s police and its citizens, around 95 percent of whom are minorities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/camden-police-chief-old-new-department/2020/06/18/37407536-b0b8-11ea-856d-5054296735e5_story.html

[soothsayer]

1. Cuomo has given NY communities until April 1...

... to recreate their police departments, and I’m sure Camden was a model for his thinking when he recommended starting with a blank sheet of paper and talking about the relationship needing to be one of trust and respect.

I think that Camden sounds amazing.

[Igel]

4. I've read a few descriptions.

Most of the "defund"-related articles point out a few crucial bits.

They disposed of the old police union. They got rid of bad officers. As a result, crime rates were reduced.



Older ones focused on the idea that removing the old union mean they could sharply reduce worker compensation and benefits.

The result of that being that they hired a lot of new officers. As a result, crime rates were reduced.


One puts causality front and center. While more police probably reduces crime rates, most wouldn't want to say that's the entire reason. Approach also matters, but even then that's not going to be the final word. The other says that the real reason for burglaries and shootings was because people didn't like the police. That fails the laugh test as much as "the cops are nice to me at 1 pm so I won't break into that corner apt. at 2 am when I know the guy who live there is at his girlfriend's."


A third set points out that crime rates were falling nationwide or that a smallish set of individuals in any area usually account for an outsized portion of the crime, and that some such had been incarcerated.

I rank the causes as 1. falling crime rates; 2. more police; 8. getting rid of bad cops.

[wcast]

2. Warriors seeking to dominate through toughness.

This mindset can be traced to slavery times and the fear of slave rebellion, especially in states where slaves outnumbered whites. Portraying slaves, and later free blacks and many other minority groups, as evil lesser people in the attempt to hold them down continues to be the mentality of government and many white people today.

Governments, media, and other institutions carry this false memory and our society has shaped itself due to this belief system. It is why the Southern Strategy has been successful for over 50 years. Many White people don't mind armed white people protesting, but are outright against any minority group protesting, no matter how peacefully. Police are often on the front lines of the oppressors, and carry out this mandate.

The Camden style of policing was the way cities were policed prior to desegregation and returning to community policing is the only way to start to change the status quo.

[Igel]

5. Warriors seek to dominate through toughness

can be spotted in how early neolithic settlements were constructed 11000 BCE in Asia and in Europe.

And it was true where the slaves were white and in areas where the slave owners were black.

It was true in areas where there is no trace of slavery until thousands of years later (and even then, slaves were from the next tribe over).

I find that "warriors seeking to dominate through toughness" accounts for black gangs, football teams and even the academic decathlon (in its own way) just as well as police and karate matches and how the girls in my high school often self-organize. Don't see much "slave rebellion" fear in those except by innuendo and the word "police". It's a general trait, ascribing very specific, political reasons for its origin fails the critical thinking test.




Ever watch the Andy Griffith Show? You're not going to get more '50s or more "whitebread."

And yet that's community policing.

Motivated narratives are difficult to maintain without strict information control.

[eilen]

3. He and the District Atty that hired him

were on Preet's podcast yesterday.