COVID-19: Unwinding the Lockdown and Long Term Epidemic

[chenda]

From a point of pure scientific curiosity, the goods news is that eventually there enough of the dynamics and parameters of the pandemic will be understood to allow proper backcasting and playing what-if scenarios.

And hopefully future public health policy as well

[thrifty++]

The police brutality issues in the US really do seem a problem.

I have seen a few videos. I dont know whether it is a racial issue or not. The other videos I have seen were white people. But there definitely seems some problems with frequency of sadistic and abusive police behaviour. I havent even ever tried to look for them. They just pop up on my news feeds. But friends who follow it more closely talk about there being signiicant numbers of similar incidents. We dont tend to ever see stuff like that here. Police always seem very respectful. I wonder if there are some recruitment, training and accountability problems with police in the US. Insufficient measures to weed out sadistic problem people. And maybe insufficient de-escalation training.

The gun laws are always going to keep things as a problem though as police will be constantly on edge about guns. I dont see that one getting changed anytime soon.

[thrifty++]

@augustus - yes you are quite right. If USA loses track of things with its own internal issues thats a big threat across the globe. I am realy sick of global events this year, The virus, the lockdown, the global recession, the riots in USA, China subjagating Hong Kong ad threatening to attack Taiwan, Its all so volatile and stressful. Im hoping things calm down soon.

[tonyedgecombe]

@Augustus Looting isn't a reasonable justification for police brutality.

[chenda]

@Augustus Yes and even the non violent protests are risking corona spreading. They really should be banned on public health grounds.

[IlliniDave]

... preoccupation with hockey and walleye.

Yeah, the hockey thing really is kind of weird, isn't it?

Like most places, Minnesota is not a monolith. I haven't worked there, but having spent some amount of time there, generally among the people in rural areas, they aren't much different from rural folks in other zip codes. Can't say regarding residents of "The Cities".

[jacob]

Yeah, the hockey thing really is kind of weird, isn't it?

What, no? It's the walleye thing that's weird!

[C40]

I wonder if there are some recruitment, training and accountability problems with police in the US. Insufficient measures to weed out sadistic problem people. And maybe insufficient de-escalation training.

There are HUGE problems with this. As it is, the police attract and retain a high amount of hotheads who want to beat people up. It also seems that initially good-intentioned officers shift over time to use more violence. I've known people whose relatives are police officers and they tell me that some days before work the guys say things like "I hope I get to fuck somebody up today"

One day, when I was living with friends who have a Doberman, I was learning a little bit about what the training is like to teach a dog how to scare, attack, and - the most important command - to release. In the videos I watched showing training of dogs for personal security, the dogs all released immediately on command. I looked up a compilation video of police dogs in action, and the one big takeaway is that they only teach the dogs to attack. They don't teach them to let go. The video was disturbing. So much biting and at times bad injuries and a lot of blood.

Edit to add - as an example of who the police are hiring, and perhaps an indication of how the work of an officer transforms their behavior, look at this:
"Two studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10 percent of families in the general population." - from here

[7Wannabe5]

IMO, there is something disturbing about the entire concept/practice of restraining a human for breaking the rules. Obviously, the Floyd incident was at the extreme egregious end of the spectrum, but I never like to see behaviorally disordered children being restrained even by individuals who I believe to be well-trained, well-meaning professionals.

One incident that sticks in my mind was the occasion I was reading a picture book aloud, and a bright 6 year old child whose typical behavior would best be described as “hoodlum” slowly sidled over close to me, because he was interested in the story. Then, in an almost compulsive return to form, he looked at me and said “Bitch.” So, the aide took him to the time out corner and then ended up having to restrain him when he lashed out physically in defiance of his confinement.

My general point being that these sort of problems can’t be solved at the same level at which they are constructed.

[nomadscientist]

In any case, it looks like the lockdown has been unwound!

[7Wannabe5]

@Augustus:

Rule of law does not preclude variation in enforcement. Obvious example being possibility of educating offender towards goal of internalizing value of the law. Other possibility would be favoring restitution over retribution. Higher level perspective would be engaged in generating more such possibilities.

ETA: Hey, don’t knock the possibilities/potential of hugs and/or group therapy until you’ve tried them.

@nomadscientist:

Indeed. In Matt Ridley interview posted on other thread, the interviewer asked him what I thought was an obnoxiously leading question regarding his opinion of those who were in favor of the lockdown. I would paraphrase as “Isn’t it indicative of a fear of experiencing personal freedom to be in favor of the lockdown; a childish anxiety based desire to be comforted by Daddy telling you what to do?”

Since I chose to quit my job and lock myself down before the general government lockdown was called based on my own calculation of personal risk, I didn’t believe that this notion applied to me, but I did wonder if what is in my mind much more obvious notion/response “No, I am in favor of lockdown, because I am afraid of what all the idiotic yahoos might do, and if the government is willing to assist in keeping them the hell away from me, more the better.” Maybe so ...at least initially.

My more nuanced reasoning for being in favor of lockdown is, first,that it served the same purpose as a fire alarm alerting entire populace about clear danger combined with escort from building and this offered the possibility of time in which to figure out full nature and extent of threat; little smoke bomb or quickly spreading chemical fire?

The other reason I am in favor of the lockdown is that it was inclusive of temporarily reducing force of law behind enforcement of financial and employment contracts. This gave people the ability to choose to stay safely sheltered without fretting about being evicted by force of law, and it gave some of those under employment contract the ability to choose to stay home in order to stay safe. IOW, although from one perspective the lockdown could be seen as more force of law being applied, from another perspective it could be seen as reduction of force of law. Like how the opposite open ends of a glass tube are created by the same extended torus

[Mister Imperceptible]

What we have is institutional unaccountability.

My reactions with police officers have been primarily neutral or negative. The good cops do their jobs, the bad ones are knuckle-draggers that were attracted to the force by the promise of a badge, gun, and license to be a bully.

When you have a blue wall of silence, that is going to create an environment ripe for unaccountable power. Additionally, the cops are under pressure and fear of being harmed themselves much of the time so you took organizations that have a lot of bully-types and you have made them twitchy and more prone to brutality.

And now everyone has smartphones so the instances of brutality are becoming harder and sometimes impossible to hide and be unaccountable for without social repercussions.

Of course, when you have politicians and talking heads that then use this opportunity to push the idea that “all white people now need to address institutional racism” you have implicated all white people in what a few unaccountable knuckle-draggers are doing. Which is ridiculous, that would be like saying all black people are responsible for the instances of brazen looting right now. But the politicians and talking heads are not interested in accountability.

This is an unaccountability crisis, and has devolved into whataboutism. We are not going to have a surge in institutional accountability or a widespread increased interest in personal responsibility so this party is just getting started.

[Mister Imperceptible]

I think you are saying that police brutality would not be an increased problem if people did not have idle hands. I do not think that is true, I think technology changes that. Remember when Ray Rice decked his girlfriend in the elevator? The NFL did absolutely nothing until the video was publicly released, then basically banished him from the league for life. It is about what you can get away with and it is harder to get away with some things now.

[Alphaville]

Some dude could fart in the wrong place at the wrong time and set off a riot when there is 25%+ unemployment.

some orange fartbox on twitter, indeed

[C40]

Would be nice, but I think a purple belt takes too long.. Google says it takes 2-5 years of regular practice to get to purple belt level. It'd be great to know that stuff, but I think it's unreasonable if it's requirement just
to be hired. Also I think there are other ways to learn those lessons in less time. An officer doesn't actually need to know submissions, especially things like how to break someones arm or shoulder. Judo and freestyle wrestling might be more effective for police purposes.

I think other things are perhaps even more important - including de-escalation of nervous people, and especially ways to help the officers not lose their cool. Most of the videos of police brutality that I see appear to show cops who got too excited, aggressive, and who wanted to dole out immediate vengence/punishment

[theanimal]

.An officer doesn't actually need to know submissions, especially things like how to break someones arm or shoulder. Judo and freestyle wrestling might be more effective for police purposes.

Judo and wrestling are almost all about take downs. Jiu jitsu is about control of another's body and appendages. It's high emphasis on technique and almost no emphasis on strength whereas the other two require significant strength to be effective against larger opponents. A purple belt may be a bit far fetched, but regular training is not. Even a white belt with a few months under their belt of regular training has enough knowledge to control another person who is not trained.

[C40]

ahh, I see. And I think I agree with you...

A lot of the videos I see of police brutality usually start out with everyone on their feet. The 'bad guy' resists, and the cop is unable to control them, and it goes downhill from there. I don't have direct experience, only watching of a lot of MMA, and in that world the pure BJJ guys are usually not that good grappling on feet or at takedowns. Perhaps that's not a good comparison of how BJJ would be effective against untrained people

[Mister Imperceptible]

@Augustus

It was observed that protests were increasing worldwide already last year. Oh sure, new blunders are being committed. Many more blunders will be committed. You are fixating on tactical errors by management when it is clear that management has a poor strategy, or really, no strategy at all. Jiu jitsu and other tactics might be useful in helping management’s police force in suppressing the masses but not useful at all to resolve the issues of failing/corrupt management/institutions and the hitting of ecological limits.

That is not to pick on the suggestion of jiu jitsu. But when 4 police officers stand over a man and one of them holds his knee on the man’s neck for 9 minutes, that is not because the police officers were lacking in kung fu. That is knowing your colleagues will not testify against you, knowing the coroners will not find asphyxiation as cause of death, and knowing the courts will not try you. Unless a smartphone is present.

Saying the police officers need more training is like saying the WHO needs more funding, Wall Street needs more bailouts, and bureaucrats need more respect.

[IlliniDave]

I'd agree that more training isn't going to help with thugs like the Minneapolis neck kneeler and his accomplices. That wasn't lack of knowing what to do, they had him down and cuffed. It was simply malice. I'm not sure you can screen candidates for that sort of thuggishness. I think you just have to be merciless drumming them out. One problem with that is you don't want a police force populated by officers that are indistinguishable from Mr. Rogers. Sometimes they do have to fight real bad guys, violent ones. On balance they need to take "smaller" lapses in judgement more seriously, IMO.

More broadly, having both peaceful demonstrations and riots, often occurring simultaneously, is a complicated mess for law enforcement to manage. Unfortunately a combination of media obfuscation (I remember one clip where a reporter from a cable network was reporting that it really was a peaceful demonstration while in the background a building, maybe the police station, was burning) and a desire on the part of local governments to avoid unnecessary heavy-handedness, led to things getting out-of-hand in some areas. I think people in general have started to acknowledge there really are cadres of imported anarchists seeding flashpoints in some locations, and the balance of public opinion is swinging towards law enforcement taking more active measures to tamp out the violence. I hope for the sake of people in the affected communities they are successful in that.

[jennypenny]

PBS 4/15/20: What policing during the pandemic reveals about crime rates and arrests
"After the coronavirus pandemic, it may be time to rethink policing practices that rely on enforcement, such as stop and frisk and the overzealous use of arrest and ticketing for trivial offenses such as jaywalking, panhandling, turnstile jumping and marijuana possession. This imperative to reimagine the role of police in our cities is supported by research indicating that broken windows policing has not worked in keeping communities safer. Moreover, such “overpolicing” may actually exacerbate violent crime rates in affected communities."

Matt Taibbi 6/1/20: Where did policing go wrong? Crime has been down for decades, but incarceration is still sky-high and brutality cases keep tearing the country apart. Does policing in America need a fundamental re-think?
"The current protests are likely to inspire politicians to think the other way, but it’s probably time to reconsider what we’re trying to accomplish with this kind of policing. In upscale white America drug use is effectively decriminalized, and Terry stops, strip searches, and “quality of life” arrests are unknowns. The country isn’t going to heal as long as everyone else gets a knee in the neck."


I agree the lockdowns have contributed to current situation but not because of increased unemployment or people feeling their liberties have been threatened by the lockdown. Those protests may still happen, but these aren't them.

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edited to add:

I’m having a hard time condemning the rioters. I know there’s a group within that group that is only there for the violence — the same ones who burn shit down after sports championships — and those I do condemn. The rest though … I dunno. How long do people wait for change? At what point do people throw their hands up?

I tend to view the issue with overzealous and racist police like I do the issue with predator priests in the Catholic church. When the bad apples are brought to light, the institutions have a chance to clean house and make things right. When they don’t, then those who protect them or value the institution over the people involved and their victims are complicit in the offense. The difference between the two is that I can — and did — choose to leave the church until my diocese cleans up its act. You can’t ‘leave’ the police, and if you are a minority, you are visible in a way that white people aren’t, especially now that the police are increasingly a part of daily life as pointed out in the two articles above. And obviously, the church can't literally ruin/end your life the way the police can, which makes their institutional bias and blindness all the more destructive.

People also criticize the rioters for ‘burning their own house down’ but I’m guilty of that as well. I voted for Trump even though he is an asshole because I was so disheartened by what the political process had become. I was willing to vote for chaos in my own country to force the institution to change. My life is definitely worse today because Trump was elected (mainly terminated work relationships and friendships). Even now I can’t say I ‘regret’ it though ... more that the effort was wasted and the losses pointless since the institutions involved have doubled down.

I’m not defending the rioters or hoping this continues. I happen to be in Philly Saturday night and it was frightening. I’m just saying I get how people feel. Actually, that's insulting -- there's no way for me to truly understand how minorities feel about stuff like this -- but I do understand why people do self-destructive things when they feel change, whether good or bad, is preferable to the status quo. There's a lot a person can do on their own to improve their situation and we talk about that frequently on the forum. But some things, like the police, can't be avoided so group efforts to force change are sometimes necessary.