Police unions have emerged as the leading opponent of reform efforts as lawmakers respond to weeks of protests over the police killings of Black people across the country.
Despite years of demonstrations against police violence, data shows that law enforcement agencies killed more people last year than they did five years ago. Black people are killed at a far higher rate than white people.
The rise comes even as violent crime has plummeted across the country for decades. Despite the falling crime numbers, America’s policing budget has nearly tripled over the last 45 years.
Looking at the historical data, researcher Lyman Stone, a former federal economist who now serves as a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, found that police killings mostly fell between the 1960s and the 2000s but have been at high levels ever since.
“The pace of increase has been especially […]
These police unions backed Trump’s election, and now they are acting like him: as if they are above the law.
I just learned that an insanely corrupt measure backed by police unions has now become standard operating procedure in many places not cursed by their presence: if involved in an accident, a cop cannot be tested for alcohol for 48 hours. A drunk cop was the responsible party for an auto accident in Lawrence, Kansas. Happily, Lawrence does not have a cop union. Unhappily they had adopted this rule. So I was told by long time Lawrence residents.