Minneapolis Is Not the First City to Disband Its Police Depart--Lessons Learned From Camden, NJ

[mysteryowl]

6/8/2020 - Newsweek

Disbanding an entire police department isn't unheard of—the city of Camden, New Jersey did it in 2013 and as a result, saw an improvement in the relationship between police and residents as well as a dramatic drop in violent crime.

...that increasing the number of officers on the city's streets had been a "trust-building tactic." As well as a rise in the number of non-crisis interactions between police and residents, he said officers also underwent de-escalation training and got body cameras.

Last year, the city adopted a new use-of-force policy that instructs officers to de-escalate first and fire weapons and use any other force only as a "last resort."

https://www.newsweek.com/minneapolis-not-first-disband-police-department-1509327

[samsingh]

1. Kick

[chia]

2. k&r

[Sherman A1]

3. K&R

[Act_of_Reparation]

4. Part of the problem here is phrasing.

When reasonable but otherwise uninformed people read "disband the police department", they think the city will have no police at all. They don't understand the distinction between law enforcement and the organization managing them.

[Gothmog]

5. This is very interesting

[Baclava]

6. Camden population, 75,000, Minneapolis, 425,000, it will be a much bigger renovation project

[jmg257]

7. Yep - "defunding" is a stupid word...

“Cops count and police matter, so by almost doubling the amount of officers on the street that has given us a much larger footprint to focus on community engagement and creating a dialogue with residents that has been missing for decades in the city.”

[CrispyQ]

8. Why isn't this the case for every PD in the country?

...the city adopted a new use-of-force policy that instructs officers to de-escalate first and fire weapons and use any other force only as a "last resort."

[TheBlackAdder]

9. Camden has also installed advanced panopticon video surveillance on most streets, esp. high-risk.

.

The city is now a surveillance zone, where police track many of the residents for suspicious activity.

.

[Baclava]

10. New advanced facial recognition program algorithms mean mask wearers can be identified too

With private companies building huge databases that can pull billions of photos off the web from iphones and Facebook for comparison, just so u know


New Jersey cops told to halt all use of controversial facial-recognition technology

The state attorney general is ordering all New Jersey police to stop using a powerful new facial-recognition technology that’s pulling millions of photos from social media.

https://www.nj.com/news/2020/01/new-jersey-cops-told-to-halt-all-use-of-controversial-facial-recognition-technology.html

[TheBlackAdder]

12. I don't think it was a Clearview system.

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I believe The Courier Post or The Philadelphia Inquirer had a complete write-up on it about 5 years ago. They have a mini war room that looks like something in the movie War Games. I can't find it.


Here's an article from The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/the-surveillance-city-of-camden-new-jersey/282286/


.

[Blue_true]

16. I for one don't get sweaty in the crouch about street cameras.

I actually view them as beneficial. If cops are using them to ogle hot women walking down a street, their asses should be fired. But if they are used to solve crimes and allow capture of the right suspects, then more power to them.

[TheBlackAdder]

17. That Bloomberg article is bullshit. Chris Christie did it to smash the Dem supporting Police Dept.

.

The increases in security are in part due to the surveillance system, which tracks everyone leaving their home or in their backyards, their car movement, etc. It has nothing to do with the change of the police department. Unfortunately, most of the crime was petty drug transactions which adversely affected the AA community and incarcerated many young males.

Christie's goal was to cut police spending, by replacing the police department, made up mostly by Camden residents with a county police department that brought in mostly White suburban officers. The Camden PD officers were given an ultimatum, either accept a 30-50% cut in wages and benefits or look for another job. Entry level officers were paid what was NJ's adjusted poverty wages in the upper $20K range, and most of the junior officers were struggling to feed themselves and pay rent.

The White suburban officers just used Camden County PD as a stepping stone to get experience before jumping ship to a rural police department. Most NJ police departments don't like to hire rookies because they have to pay for their training at Sea Girt so they look for officers who already went through the that State Police Training Academy facility. CCOD would pay for that training and give the officers experience, so they were willing to accept the poverty wages offered.

Christie's other goal was to smash the NJEA (teacher's union) as his prior job was a lobbyist, and part owner of school outsourcer before becoming governor. His aimed to weaken the Camden School system even more by vouchering a lot of students and causing the layoffs of unionized teachers.

====

So, while the Bloomberg article pains a Pollyanna view of the Camden County PD, there's a lot more to it that was unreported. Also, the Rutgers, CCCC and Rowan campuses added scores of unarmed security officers to provide campus security and security to the PATCO rail system. This cut a lot of crime down.

.

[Blue_true]

19. I can believe that a person like Christie would mis-use cameras.

But, did you even read my post, any mis-use of cameras should bring consequences, regardless of the person's level. But cameras pointed at public places is not misuse. You bring up the outlandish "pointing into people's back yards" to describe something that has not happened in places where cameras have been properly deployed. A street camera can help police determine that a person who is suspected of a crime and claim to be somewhere else, was driving his or her car on a street near the crime scene at around the time that the crime happened - that video, along with store cameras or public cameras aimed toward public places like gas stations, convenience stores, ect, can be use to convict people that should be convicted and spare many innocent people that end up convicted of crimes that they didn't do.

[TheBlackAdder]

20. Those camera capture more than street views. I forgot to add in the license plate scanners.

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They scan for cars, often repeat out of town drug buyers who would drive into the area. All cars were processed.

There were, at one point, portals where you could view the intersections, much like what Newark had.


And if you read my post, I said that this technology was the real reason crime went down, not a change of PD.

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[Midnight Writer]

11. "rise in the number of non-crisis interactions". Like the old flatfoot days, with cops on a beat.

We had cops walk our neighborhood, stop to chat with people, build relationships with residents and kids.

Cops were assigned an area, personally knew the people they were dealing with, knew the hotspots, knew who was dangerous and knew who was troubled.

I still remember "Officer Don", "Captain Kenny", and others from when I was a kid.

I think we lost a lot when cops went all mobile. Now they just drive around and nobody knows nobody.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

13. K&R

[Azathoth]

14. Holy Christ, comparing anything to *Camden* is a losing argument

Camden is probably the most dangerous city in NJ and effectively has been a ward of the state for decades.

It didn't "defund and disband" its police department. The old department was run by the state, was chronically in a budget crisis, and as a result ended up critically short of officers.

Finally it collapsed, and the county took over and hired three times as many officers at the same cost by paying them much lower salaries with far fewer benefits. They also installed tons of surveillance equipment.

The local politicians in Camden I'm sure have been boasting about their new "progressive" policing model, and to be fair having a "local" police force rather than one run by the state probably is more effective, but the truth is that Camden is more of a conservative talking point than a liberal one:

More police + elimination of union-negotiated salaries/benefits + surveillance cameras everywhere = lower crime.

[Orangepeel]

18. good case study

[LiberalFighter]

21. I heard an interview of the police chief today on NPR.

[zak247]

22. Camden

I'm from Jersey, been to Camden and there's no way in the world they got rid of police there

Camden is bad, and believe me, YOU DONT WANT TO GO THERE with police let alone without police!

They got rid of their police because it was too expensive and the union was too messed up.

Thye made a deal with the county after they dissolved the police to share resources

Thye couldn't afford the high union contracts so they hired nonunion cops at a much lower rate

Ironically there were more police on the streets of Camden( thank God) after the reform.

Now though they are unionized.

They have done a great job of reforming the police.

The idea of getting rid of the police force is FAKE NEWS and just propaganda by Minnesotas council, probably to get attention.