We need a civilian-run national investigation and oversight agency for police and sheriff departments that maintains a database of law enforcement officers and their histories. None of this bullshit local internal investigation shit where the investigation is handled by the same or nearby departments. Don't want to be in this database? Don't be a cop. Requirement of the job. Actually hold them to a higher standard.
This sounds like a good idea on paper, but the administration costs of that project would be astronomical, or if its run by volunteers, then data integrity comes into question.
I like the idea of using the insurance system instead. Treat cops like doctors and force them to carry a form of malpractice insurance. If you fuck up, then the bill isnt paid by taxpayers, but by insurance instead, and then your rates go up and eventually you become too expensive to hire. Additionally, it also gives police departments an incentive to hire cops that are less likely to treat the public as a threat to keep insurance costs down.
(It's implied that he was talking about a government agency instead of a commercial one, but technically, nothing he wrote was incompatible with what you wrote.)
I mean, that probably is what he meant (if not an actual Federal government agency independent from the DoJ, which is how I interpreted it). I'm just saying, the way he worded it wouldn't preclude the idea of the insurance industry doing it instead.
You're not an idiot; I'm just being excessively clever/pedantic.
You think insurance (investigations + collecting payments + paying out claims + profit) would be cheaper than a civilian oversight board (investigations)?
Explain that one to me please. It's this sort of thinking that causes the US to pay 3 times more for health care than anyone else.
The money for insurance would come out of department budgets or police officer wages, which is basically government money again (you can bet those would be adjusted for the extra insurance cost).
