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You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Bleg / National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project

National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project

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From commentor Joey Maloney, early this morning:

The National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project is an invaluable resource for monitoring bad behavior among law enforcement officers nationwide. The site owner is having to give up the project due to real life, so he’s allowing his readership to vote on who should take over the site from a list of people and orgs that have expressed interest.
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Unfortunately, one of those orgs is the CATO institute – you know, the one currently in the midst of a Koch brothers hostile takeover? And they’re currently leading the poll.
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If this is an area of interest for you, please go to http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/?p=5316 and VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE. Personally, I favor Jesse Strauss, a journalist currently working for Al Jazeera English. His proposal seems the best thought out. So I’d suggest voting for him, but really, ABC (Anyone But Cato). Voting closes 8am Pacific time Friday.

I do not follow this particular blog, but I’m sure some of you do, and I hope you can share your opinions about both NPMSRP and the candidates to take it over with the rest of us.

In any case, I’ve always found that “Anyone But CATO” is generally a good rule of thumb…

Reader Interactions

39Comments

  4. 4.

    murakami

    Cato was genuinely awesome in the past with its reporting of police misdeeds and overreach. But Balko is now longer there so I don’t know if they’re any good on the subject now.

  17. 17.

    Joel

    Considering that two of the non-CATO candidates are libertarians/conservatives, and that the other one (ACLEPD) is completely unknown to me, it’s Strauss by default.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I voted for Strauss early this morning. Glad he’s leading the pack, although I don’t trust Cato not to engage in voter fraud.

    Litlebritdifrnt, I thought the story of the resurrected hamster was great. They should use him instead of Punxsutawney Phil every February 2nd from now on.

  19. 19.

    Scamp Dog

    @Joel: The ACLEPD site looks like it’s run by a guy who’s a bit off, more harmless crank than anything else. Still, I’m sure he’d be a damn sight better than CATO. My general take on the situation is that Jesse Strauss is the best choice, so that’s who I voted for.

  20. 20.

    DLew On Roids

    @Litlebritdifrnt: The Sun pissing on the graves of 96 innocent people offends me.

    But a hamster climbing out of his own grave is probably cute. So I guess they totally made up for it!

  21. 21.

    Steve in DC

    CATO has had some pretty good people on police issues in the past, but as said Balko is no longer there.

    CATO has always been great on some things an bug fuck crazy on others, which sums up most of the “good” libertarians. It’s rather sad that the Koch’s are going to ruin it, yet hilarious from another point of view, oh well.

  26. 26.

    calliope jane

    @slag: NationalGeographic.com is a Murdoch site?!

    IS NOTHING SAFE?

    As this evening has been nothing but non-stop good news, I just have to ask– Cuteoverload is still okay, right?

  29. 29.

    Silver

    @Steve in DC:

    You read any Radley Balko on the health care mandate?

    Needless to say, he sounded as stupid as I would have expected Megan McFucktard to sound.

    You’ve got a dead dog that the cops shot, Radley’s your man. Anything else, he’s a real fucking moron.

  30. 30.

    WhoopTDu

    I was reading through the comments at the NPMSRP this morning. Apparently the owner of the project is dismayed at the “vote rigging”.

    Others chimed in that it was due to a bunch of “leftists” who couldn’t possibly care about the issues enough to vote in an honest way.

    Seriously, “leftists” who don’t believe that is a good practice to have objective reporting on this matter?!

    Reading through all the choices, I voted for the person who had the most comprehensive proposal.

  31. 31.

    Efroh

    Doesn’t matter – looks like the owner really wants to give it to a “conservative”, so even though Strauss has the most detailed and comprehensive proposal (which is why I voted for him), he will lose because the the owner is interpreting his large margin as vote-rigging.

  32. 32.

    BruceH

    An internet poll is a terrible way to decide any issue. The fact that nearly any poll can be swayed by just a few partisans means that the results cannot be trusted and should never be used to inform an important decision.

    The guy should have emailed his members, or something. Anything other than an open poll, really.

  33. 33.

    Miracle Max

    I’m no libertarian. This was a stupid post based on an even stupider comment. CATO is great on a few issues and horrible on others. On the cops they are pretty good, and Mr. Balko supports their possible role on this, so there is no meaningful distinction between liking what Balko does and what CATO might do.

    Love, MaxSpeak

  34. 34.

    dollared

    Cato is a cancer on our society. I look forward to the Koch takeover, so the perfect alignment between Cato, ALEC and Americans for Prosperity can be completely visible.

    Nice that they have that little cops thing. Reinforces the Koch view that all government actors are illegitimate, you know.

  35. 35.

    LJM

    When it comes to civil rights in general, gay rights in particular, foreign policy, criminal justice, and the war on drugs, CATO is more liberal than Obama.

    I disagree with CATO on lots of issues, but it’s interesting how so many here passionately support the President who opposes gay marriage, who runs secret prisons, who supports indefinite detention without due process, who prosecutes whistle blowers (after promising to protect them), who shuts down medical marijuana dispensaries (after promising to ignore them), who supports the continued war on minorities in the form of the drug war, and who regularly, violently kills innocent men, women, and children overseas.

    It reasonable to disagree with CATO’s opinions on the proper role of government in society. But the “anyone but CATO” attitude coming from people who support Obama is no less intellectually empty than the birther movement.

  36. 36.

    John Schultz

    I posit the idea that anyone who thinks Cato should be in all-caps is unfamiliar enough with the work of that organization to have a valid opinion on it. It’s not an acronym; they are named after a Roman Senator.

  37. 37.

    Richard Evans

    Wow, if this level of competency is what’s keeping Obama in the White House, Romney will be a shoe-in.

  38. 38.

    Roberta X

    Way to cheat, Anne. Gives a real clear impression of the “morality” you and Joey bring to bear.

    Give me a straight-up robber baron over a do-gooder any day — there’s a chance the robber baron will eventually leave you alone, but the do-gooder, never.

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