We need 2 new laws in the United States of America:

[KeepItReal]

1) Any and all settlements made between the US Department of Justice or State/Local Government as an enforcement action against a Corporation be paid directly to citizens in that jurisdiction. Not a penny of settlement money will stay in any Federal or State treasury longer than it takes a citizen to cash their settlement check. And the source of those settlement checks will be included so the taxpayers will know whom to thank.


2) Any and all judgments against police departments that involve monetary restitution to victims will be deducted directly from police department pension funds and no other source. There will be no reallocation of funds permitted to offset judgment deductions from their pension funds. Pension managers will just have to reduce benefits for police retirees.


There.

Had to get that off my chest.

Thank you for listening.

[Recursion]

1. Man, seems like everybody likes to take public sector workers' pensions nowadays...

Pension funds belong to the retirees, not the department, so you'd have to find the individual retiree guilty of something to take that away.

[Chan790]

2. I was thinking just that.

Seriously...can't they leave public pension funds unraided? Such a RW astroturf proposal.

Hell...let's take away the pensions of UAW retirees because American automakers now make inferior cars...as if that were in any way the fault of retired auto workers.

[KeepItReal]

4. I'm very specific to cops. Don't go overboard looking for RW BS.

thank you.

[Chan790]

5. You posted the "RW BS".

I just called it what it was.

Also, you're welcome.

[KeepItReal]

7. Deflection from my point that police need to have consequences for department misdeeds

Penalizing them by cutting into police (and only police) pension funds for victim settlements is my topic.

[Chan790]

12. You're ignoring the two problems with it.

1.) You're looking to punish retired cops because current cops are incapable of doing their jobs competently. It would be reasonable if you were looking to lien the pensions of involved officers.

2.) It's illegal for reasons recursion pointed out and you ignored.

When you have a rational and legal proposal...I'll be all ears. Until then, the only thing you're keeping "real" is the RW BS proposal.

[KeepItReal]

14. Again my point is to create a deterrent

You think there wouldn't be a whole attitude adjustment from cops if they knew their own and they superiors' pensions were at risk?

Y'all are making this a pension argument and I'm trying to get at way to CHANGE POLICE BEHAVIOR in the absence of any existing kind of judicial or governmental action.

Name ways to make changes to curb Police abuses. Please.

[Chan790]

16. Your deterrent proposal is worse than useless if it's illegal.

I think it makes no adjustment whatsoever if it cannot be implemented. Damned right I'm going to make it about pensions...these kinds of schemes against public pensions are a hallmark of the RW.

Better training. Better screening of who is accepted to be an officer. There's two which are legal. Meaning they're the only valid suggestions thus far in our exchange.

[KeepItReal]

22. Police *ARE* screened and trained already

But somehow we get cops that shoot 12 year old boys with toy guns in the park.

[Sherman A1]

27. Agreed

[KeepItReal]

3. That's the whole point.

Who else is going to get the current cops to start treating all citizens with some respect?

D.A.'s and Judges could care less about police misdeeds.

It's the retired and soon-to-be retired cops that may be able to turn this around.

[Recursion]

8. It feeds the lie that public pensions don't belong to the pensioners. They do.

Who else is going to get the current cops to start treating all citizens with some respect?

Well, they seem to be doing a hell of a lot better today than they were 20 or 30 years ago when I was a kid, so I'd say we should look at whatever it is they've been doing and have them do more of it.

[KeepItReal]

10. You keep generalizing. I'm being very specific to POLICE.

I'm glad you can exist in circumstances where police are "doing a hell of a lot better today than they were 20 or 30 years ago".

The rest of us aren't so fortunate.

[Recursion]

11. Yes, you are that fortunate

Police violence (like all violence) is much lower now than 20 years ago. A white cop shoots a black teenager and it's a national outrage. 20 years ago that was called "Wednesday".

[KeepItReal]

18. 24 Years ago the cops beat the hell outta Rodney King on video and were aquitted

I fail to see the improvement today.

[Oktober]

28. Try using the concept of math...

Specifically statistics...

[CK_John]

20. There are 30,000 Police force units and we are a republic and this must be handled

within the state codes, county government, city, town, or village units.

Our government is designed to be very hard to change anything

[Scootaloo]

25. His point is that the pensions belong to the pensioners, and NOT the department

Seriously, I get your gist here, but you're kind of aiming at the wrong target.

[fishwax]

6. sounds like a strong disincentive to ever cooperate with any investigation

[KeepItReal]

9. What about it being more of a disincentive to mistreat citizens in the first place?

eom

[fishwax]

13. I think it's more likely to work the way I said

I'm not sure a cop whose about to get out of line is likely to think about his pension. I think it more likely that, in the aftermath, every cop that is involved in any way has the chance to think about the pension. It will increase the pressure to maintain the wall of silence.

[KeepItReal]

15. Pressure has to come from the TOP

When Dodd-Frank was passed after the Stock Market imploded, you know what happened?

The government said that CEO's had to attest to the accuracy of the company financial statements.

What happened then? Huge companies came back and said "Wait, we need to revise and restate earnings" because their CEOs would be held personally accountable for financial inaccuracies or shenanigans.

[fishwax]

17. I agree that pressure from the top is a good thing

I don't see sacrificing public pensions as a path to that, though.

[KeepItReal]

19. I said POLICE PENSIONS.

A SPECIFIC SUBSET.

[fishwax]

21. I know. I don't see going after police pensions as a way to bring pressure from the top

[KeepItReal]

23. Who do you think is the top in police circles?

Work with me here.

The idea is to get the attention of police influencers (senior cops) that misdeeds can and will have outcomes out of their collective pockets (and nowhere else).

[fishwax]

24. administrators, others in the legal system but outside of the police force (DA's)

That's the top. Not pensioners.

If we look at your example of CEOs, we can see that pretty clearly. There is reason to expect a CEO to be responsible for the financial statements of the company he/she heads. Retirees and senior cops are basically peers of cops in the field. They don't have the same kind of oversight or influence on other cops in the field. They can, though, add to the social pressure of the wall of silence, and threatening their pension would give them incentive to do so. One of the strange dynamics that helps to structure police misconduct is the notion that a cop who gets out of line likely reasonably believes he can count on his fellow cops to cover their ass. This would just intensify that.

[KeepItReal]

26. DA's ideally are the check and balance for police. But they don't act that way.

DA's and State Attorneys are the partners of police in bringing cases every day. To have to then file charges against a cop stresses that non-adversarial relationship. It has to take an egregious action by police to draw out a determined prosecution.

If cops feared that their misconduct or civilian complaints would draw the wrath of an honest DA investigation, I'm sure behavior would change. Draconian measures would not be needed.

[Oktober]

29. Illegal, unethical and would immediately make things even worse..

A hat trick...

[el_bryanto]

30. The first one is problemattic as well

Unless you are also going to increase revenues by taxation for State and Local Governments. While some local governments are blessed with large wealthy populations, most aren't. And if there is a problem caused by a corporation in a specific area, the local government will likely be on the hook for cleaning it up - while it's nice to see that settlement money going to individuals, it basically straps local governments even further.

Bryant

[Taitertots]

31. Replace #2 with... Any police officer whose actions cause the department to settle a civil suit is

immediately fired (no exceptions) and black listed from public sector jobs.

[DrDan]

32. so one bad apple, everyone's pension is reduced . . . got it

[Oktober]

33. There must be perfection and zero faults...

... In the interaction between 30,000 departments and 300,000,000 citizens otherwise the whole system is just flawed it seems.

This kind of idiocy results in what we are seeing in Baltimore right now and the cops will do the absolute bare minimum.