Given that in SF the liberal prosecutor was, in fact, undermining the rule of law and de facto legalized stealing, I'm inclined to side with the cops here. Cops don't prevent crime, they only catch criminals after the fact. If the DA doesn't charge them, then all arresting does is give them a day off. I wouldn't arrest people either if I knew they wouldn't be charged.
The DA, Chesa Boudin, prosecuted various crimes at the same or higher rate than his predecessor.
Over the last 7 years, arrests by sfpd have gone down. This includes before the election of the prosecutor that "legalized stealing" (how?).
Chesa specifically complained about this a few times, trying to work with sfpd on why they were simply bringing less criminals to his office.
The common argument is that the police were doing as they promised: the union came out hard against Boudin during his election, and then held public safety hostage until the public finally recalled Boudin.
I know you were contrasting arrest with prosecution, but "only arrest" is still an idea that shouldn't be put forward even in that context. A cop's job is to preserve public safety. Sometimes that does and should mean arrest, whether or not that arrest leads to prosecution. More often it should mean prevention. That might just mean being visible as a deterrent. It might mean intervening to arbitrate or de-escalate a situation before it leads to a criminal act. It might mean investigating suspicious activity. It might mean helping a desperate person find the aid they need before their desperation turns into criminality. The possibilities are almost endless. If police did their job according to Peel's original principles, there would be no doubt in anyone's mind that the DA's actions are irrelevant.
You are stuck in the normal paradigm of cop arrests criminal -> criminal goes away for several years. But there is a middle step, DA prosecutes criminal, that went missing in SF. So instead, it's, cop arrests criminal -> DA refuses to prosecute -> criminal back on streets tomorrow. So really it is the DA that is responsible for 99% of the crime prevention effect of arresting criminals. Would you do your job if you knew that no one else on your team was doing theirs? That's what you are asking the cops to do.
> A cops job is only to arrest criminals, if they are prosecuted should not be their concern.
Police departments don't have enough resources to arrest every criminal, so they should try to maximize their effectiveness and avoid wasting what resources they do have by deprioritizing arrests of criminals who they know won't be prosecuted.
"A cop should risk his life to effect an arrest, even if that act will be immediately undermined by the prosecutor and will have no measurable difference on society."
Are you saying they shouldn't value their own lives, but instead behave as instruction-following robots.
Cops aren’t really risking their lives. Statistically they’re more likely to die of Covid than they are of trying to arrest someone. They have armor in their uniforms, carry multiple manners of debilitating a person from multiple ranges. This puts them at a massive advantage compared to your average homeless person or impoverished criminal, who likely can’t even afford a gun.
I don’t know what you mean here. I’m not trying to be stupid, I just have no idea what you’re trying to get at. I don’t see what either point has to do with my statement.
The idea that police officers are in constant danger of coming home in a body bag is copaganda. Police work is one of the safer occupations. We don't idolize the guys/gals who pick up our trash, but they have higher death rates.
