Virtual Strike

"Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields announced on Friday that, effective immediately, the Atlanta Police Department has a “no-chase policy.” ... In the email, the chief pointed to the failure of the judicial system as a key reason for changing the department’s chase policy"

“I don’t want to see us cost someone their life in pursuit of an auto theft person or a burglar when the court’s not even going to hold them accountable,” Chief Shields said. “I mean how can we justify that? And I think we are better than that.”

I gather that Georgia forbids collective bargaining by police. Strikes are off the table. On the other hand, this kind of go-slow sounds so wonderfully caring: "It's for the innocent bystanders." It's going to be hard to call it a strike.

Does anybody have any statistics to show why we should disbelieve Shields' claim about the Atlanta court system?

Unintended consequence #437

Police body-cams are a good thing, right? They show what really happened--at least partly.

Attorneys are quitting at least partly because they’re swamped by the amount of video footage they have to review from police body-worn cameras.

...

“It is completely overwhelming,” said Robert Moody, a public defender in the Newport News office. “There’s no way physically possible I can watch the (video) data dumps they give me.”

...

“It’s a razor thin wire, because you’re looking to be sure your client’s due process rights are preserved,” he said. “On the other hand, I have 120 other clients. I have to preserve their due process rights too.”

Life and death

Suppose a patient explained firmly to Dutch doctors that he was not interested in euthanasia and wanted to live his life come what may, but contracted dementia and begged to be killed. We all know what they would do--it happens--in the name of compassion, they would say that now he understood the situation and kill him. On the other hand, someone who, when of clear mind, said she wanted to be euthanized but "that she wanted to determine the right time", when she resists, may be legally held down and poisoned.

Only one choice seems to be respected, and it has nothing to do with your state of mind.

Remind me not to get sick in the Netherlands.

Experts sometimes see things differently

The Chicago Tribune reported "A judge allowed a 14-year-old boy to go home and come back Monday after he was accused of opening fire at the CTA’s Argyle station in Uptown this week." ... "the judge found that under the law he must be released because he was held in custody for 42 hours by the police and was not brought before a judicial office within 24 hours," (The "kid" targeted 2 men at the station--one is in serious condition.) The police said they feared for his safety. via Second City Cop

My first reaction was "What about the safety of everybody else?" But I read further, and got the picture. The "kid"s face was published. The gang he was attacking knows who he is, and the guy who assigned him the failed kill might worry about getting ratted out. I wonder where he is now.

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UPDATE: He remained in custody because his mother never showed up.

On Monday, the boy’s mother told Cook County Juvenile Division Judge Linda Pauel that she was hesitant to take custody of him because of concerns about a retaliatory attack against her son.

“I am not a police officer to guide or protect him,” she said. “If I came to pick him up, they might see me with him and attack me, how would I handle that?”

Homeless court

Not a peripatetic court, one for the homeless.

The man, longtime homeless, has amassed roughly \$30,000 worth of citations in Madison Municipal Court in a cycle of repeated tickets, arrest warrants and jail.

We design a lot of our punishments for a rooted citizen, not for someone who can keep neither job nor home. "In 2015, 18 homeless people were issued a combined 119 arrest warrants and owed a total of \$254,148." These offenses included "public intoxication, trespass, public urination, retail theft."

By "public intoxication" they don't mean just being quietly drunk--they mean being obnoxious or disruptive while drunk. The police aren't hanging around looking for reasons to arrest people. I've waited for a bus in the middle of some noisy conflicts with no squad cars summoned. The homeless get cut a lot of slack, no matter what the advocates say.

But the statutory fines are meaningless to a homeless man, unless you seize whatever cash he has on hand to pay part of it. (I wonder if "Can you spare a couple bucks to help pay my fines?" would collect more than the traditional "Can you spare a couple of bucks for lunch"(*) or "Bus fare?")

But now, due to the efforts of Municipal Court Judge Dan Koval and nonprofits Dane County TimeBank, YWCA Madison and Operation Welcome Home and other partners, the man and others are getting a chance to get court fines reduced or dismissed through a pilot “homeless court” if they stay out of trouble and get help improving their lives.

Last year, Koval had an idea for a restorative justice court that would concentrate on issues confronting people who had a lot of cases in Municipal Court. The concept, he said, is similar to such courts for juveniles, drunken driving, drug offenses and veterans.

The city allotted \$10K last year and \$10K this year, and expects "three people to move through the court process in the first six months of this year." Law is expensive, I guess, at \$1400/case. I wonder what will characterize the people who do stay out of trouble. And what we can do about the rest. And if anything will "work."

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(*)I've been giving out coupons for half-pies at Teddywedger's, but only one on one. I need to ask the owner how they've been coming back. As an experiment I gave 2 a few times, with the suggestion "bring a friend," and I wonder whether they went twice or sold them or actually had breakfast with a friend.

UPDATE: He went twice.