Тег: Police

The Quota System, or Why Police Love Victimless “Crimes” So Much

Why does the police love catching you for smoking in the wrong place or for reposting a song on VKontakte, but they are in no hurry to find a stolen bicycle or solve a real crime? It’s simple: it is all because of the notorious “stick system” (KPI).

Imagine: a police officer needs to collect a certain number of “sticks”—solved crimes, fines, and reports. If they don’t reach the required number in a quarter, the superiors will be unhappy: no bonuses, no promotion, and they might even get reprimanded. Moreover, indicators must be improved every year, competing with one’s own past self (this is called the “PYP+1” principle: previous year period + one stick on top). It’s a kind of endless run in a circle, where each subsequent year is even worse than the previous one.

As a result, real crimes are often difficult to solve, and some even ruin the statistics. Had your phone stolen or even a serious crime committed? Good luck getting the report registered, because investigating it is difficult and tedious; it’s easier to pretend the crime never happened. They are especially reluctant to take on serious crimes without clear evidence—because these only increase the percentage of unsolved cases, meaning they worsen the statistics. The police prefer to grab “victimless crimes”—these are the easiest to close in a report. Caught on the street with a beer or violated some crazy ban on “propaganda”—an excellent stick for the report! The officer is happy, and the statistics flourish.

The pressure to meet the plan at any cost pushes some employees toward direct forgery. If there aren’t enough real crimes, the statistics have to be “made.” This is because for meeting and exceeding plans, superiors not only praise but also regularly issue bonuses and incentives to employees. These can be monetary bonuses, additional vacations, or even accelerated career advancement. It is rumored that especially “successful” police officers are sometimes even provided with housing. The stick system is encouraged at all levels, creating a huge temptation to chase minor “misdemeanors” without a victim and even fabricate cases.

In the West, meanwhile, such a system is generally considered absurd and bad form. In 26 US states, any “quotas” for arrests and fines are banned by law. In the remaining states, such practices are not officially encouraged and are under strict public control, as they are considered a form of corruption.

Of course, we are not idealizing Western countries—the state there is similarly a stationary bandit. And in some places, there are also excesses. For example, in Canada, there is an unspoken statistic, and news regularly arrives from there about similar persecutions for all sorts of “victimless crimes.” But still, one can often trace the difference between the motivation of officials and security forces in the West compared to how it happens here, which has a huge impact on the lives of ordinary people.

What is most sad is that this stick system literally motivates the police to commit repressions against peaceful people. When a plan needs to be met urgently, it is easy to fabricate a case or punish someone for some nonsense, even if no one suffered from your actions. That is why we have so many “victimless crimes,” where innocent people are imprisoned while real criminals walk free.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Why is there a significantly higher percentage of violent people in law enforcement agencies

than in society as a whole, and what this says about current social systems

Voluntarist, Bitarch

American statistics on domestic violence in police families show us interesting things. As it turns out, up to 40% of police officers in the USA practice violence against their loved ones. The level of violence in police families is up to 4 times higher than that in American society as a whole. It is worth noting that this is the result of several anonymous surveys of the officers themselves. Their families rarely complain about violence or seek help, as they do not expect it from the colleagues of their abusers. And officers are indeed rarely brought to actual charges of domestic violence—while 92% of reports are generally investigated, in the case of officers, this figure is only 42%. This means that the level of domestic violence in police families may actually be much higher than 40%. Also, among representatives of all professions in general, police officers turned out to be the most prone to domestic violence.

Of course, this is only American statistics, but there is no reason not to assume that employees of security forces will be significantly more violent than the rest of the population in all countries. And there is no need to be surprised by this. Obviously, it is more violent people—those who do not feel strong resistance or aversion to committing violence, and who have weaker empathy—who will be more inclined to choose a profession where the initiation of violence is a professional duty.

What does this mean for society? In effect, existing systems of social management and law enforcement worldwide, based on the “legitimate monopoly” of a certain body (the state) in the application of violence, become tools in the hands of violent people. A small percentage of abusers gains power over everyone else—normal people, who for the most part never commit violence. And obviously, these abusers will use coercive power in their own interests, not limiting themselves to certain norms and laws, or interpreting and rewriting them to suit themselves. Nor will they certainly renounce violence in their private lives, considering it generally a normal tool for achieving certain goals, or even resorting to it to relieve stress and aggressiveness, taking it out on the people around them.

It is important to understand that the issue is why some people commit violence. They may, of course, be provoked or prompted by certain events and goals, but more importantly—they simply do not feel sufficient resistance and aversion to violence, including having weaker empathy compared to other people. This is precisely how violence in human society can be explained, if we refer to the concept of the violence inhibition mechanism, which asserts that every normally developing individual possesses innate restraints against aggression toward other people, the presence of which is also important for the development of empathy.

Can we expect people capable of easily committing violence due to a lack of such restraints to limit its use only as a tool for maintaining the law and some kind of justice? No, of course not; for them, violence is the norm, they feel nothing negative toward it, and they will resort to it whenever they deem it necessary. That is why any social system, the enforcement of whose order requires violent reinforcement, can hardly be called just or working for the benefit of the ordinary person—such systems only provide advantages to abusers and strengthen their power over normal people.