When weird shit happens like Secret Service agents in Colombia making national news for failing to pay one of their Colombian prostitutes $47, there are only two realistic explanations.

Either the SS agents are so stupid that they would haggle with a ho over less than $50, then let her call the cops, turning it into an international incident, or this non-scandal is hitting the news to cover something else up.

But now it’s come out that the SS agents were stupid enough to have the president’s schedule out in view of the prostitutes in their rooms. So this is just run-of-the-mill forehead-slapping incompetence on display. Not only that, but this drunk asshole agreed to pay what turns out to be an escort $800 and then offers her $30 in the morning. She should get her money plus pain and suffering for having to deal with this fool.

Photo by alessandro isnotaurelio.

Convicted defendants left uninformed of forensic flaws found by Justice Dept.

Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.

In one Texas case, Benjamin Herbert Boyle was executed in 1997, more than a year after the Justice Department began its review. Boyle would not have been eligible for the death penalty without the FBI’s flawed work, according to a prosecutor’s memo.

The review was performed by a task force…  in the 1990s. The inquiry took nine years… but the findings were never made public.

“The government has hidden behind the veil of secrecy to shield these abuses despite official assurances that justice would be done,” said David Colapinto, general counsel of the National Whistleblowers Center.

A common theme among reform-minded lawyers and experts is taking the oversight of the forensic labs away from police and prosecutors.

Monopolies in products and services stagnates innovation while driving up prices. Property rights enforcement and protection from violence is a service, and it is clearly not immune from the pernicious forces of monopoly.

Competition is the only way to ensure quality. If we do not introduce competition into the prosecution of property rights violations we will continue to be murdered by the state for crimes we did not commit. Low quality and high prices in this arena are deadly. It’s not a fantasy. Privatization is the only way to prevent further human rights abuses at the hands of monopolistic, overzealous, lazy prosecutors and the so-called Justice Department in bed with them.

Photo by Dan4th.

Law enforcement is a touchy subject. Cops are at once lauded as heroic, self-sacrificing and brave while being accused of bullying and behaving in a secretive, protect-your-own, unaccountable manner. Absolutely everything said about cops is true, of some cops. Many are courageous, while some are without doubt attracted to police work because it gives them a legal way to violently exert authority.

I want to explore the systems of constraints and incentives, carrots and sticks, cops in America work under and how they affect outcomes. Crime is on the decline nationally, and at a low point in history. Something is definitely working in American law enforcement. But incarceration rates are extraordinarily high for a developed nation, and low-income and minority populations are disproportionately arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to death for the exact same crimes.

Other problems currently plague American law enforcement, such as police brutality, the militarization of routine police work and the increasing use of deadly force in arrest attempts.

I’m interested in exploring how we can ensure our safety from the threat of agression by others, while maintaining individual liberty and ensuring we are not aggressed upon by police.

I’m thinking about exploring this topic further in a series of posts. Maybe it could lead up to a long essay or book. And I’d love to get reactions from readers. What are you interested in when it comes to law enforcement? What scares you about the current state and future of law enforcement? What do you think needs to change?

Photo by ElvertBarnes.

Cops seem to think annoying to them = against the law. Cops are not the law.

This award-winning photographer was taking wide-angle shots of a mall Santa and choir when police begin to harass him and take his camera. The photographer asks if he can take a picture of the officer in question and nearly gets his shoulder dislocated as his answer.

This is the type of crap is that people against privatizing security are fighting to protect.

When I propose a private police force people look at me like I’m crazy. But could it really be much worse than what we have, when you look at cases like this one?