They need malpractice insurance like doctors. If they can't be insured, they can't be hired. Get two birds with one stone.
Replies
Even insurance agents are required to purchase E&O insurance, why aren't cops?
jun 13, 2025, 8:11 pm • 1 0 • view
No, it's definitely better to make them all pay for their abuses of authority.
jun 13, 2025, 6:47 pm • 1 0 • view
This is the way.
jun 13, 2025, 6:40 pm • 3 0 • view
In any universe where this might be helpful, we could just watch the watchmen. We need the political will to control our security forces. Shuffling responsibility around ain't it.
jun 13, 2025, 7:25 pm • 1 0 • view
maybe license them like teachers or hairdressers
jun 13, 2025, 8:08 pm • 1 0 • view
In some states they are.
jun 13, 2025, 8:35 pm • 0 0 • view
which ones?
jun 13, 2025, 8:35 pm • 0 0 • view
You’d have to Google for that. I think PA is one but I don’t know the full list or how many states require licenses.
jun 13, 2025, 9:03 pm • 0 0 • view
google says new jersey, and something lessor in illinois and Mass. 3/50
jun 13, 2025, 9:06 pm • 0 0 • view
Something other states should consider, then, and establish interstate compacts about recognizing out-of-state licenses and license revocations.
jun 13, 2025, 9:10 pm • 0 0 • view
We get sued when we're genuinely trying to help people and did nothing wrong. Most of us have been frivolously sued and had to settle because it's too expensive to fight, even with insurance. Premiums run about 25% of income! Qualified immunity is BS
jun 13, 2025, 6:51 pm • 9 0 • view
Which is why malpractice insurance is a good solution. A 3rd party investigates, one that at the very least would want to fight making a payout but balanced with not keeping on specific officers that carry excessive liability. I think pairing this with a licensing/oversight board is the way to go.
jun 13, 2025, 8:24 pm • 3 0 • view
As far as the premiums, idk why the state/taxpayers can’t pay them. They’d still be saving in the long run.
jun 13, 2025, 8:27 pm • 1 0 • view
That's basically how it works with doctors employed by hospitals. The hospital pays the premium, so they have some input into whether the case should be settled or taken to court. The hospital is usually named in the suit, too, because they are the employer.
jun 13, 2025, 10:27 pm • 2 0 • view
One potential problem is that it might be difficult to get attorneys to take legitimate cases because they work with law enforcement. Plenty of people would file nuisance suits to try to win some cash, but that could be dealt with by making the loser pay expenses
jun 13, 2025, 10:33 pm • 2 0 • view
No one would underwrite a guaranteed loss like that.
jun 13, 2025, 7:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Great idea! It’s offensive that the public has to pay for having their own rights violated!
jun 13, 2025, 7:19 pm • 1 0 • view
THIS!! 👆👆
jun 13, 2025, 6:59 pm • 0 0 • view
great ideas in there!
jun 13, 2025, 9:27 pm • 0 0 • view
Cool more money for insurance companies. 🤦🏼
jun 13, 2025, 6:41 pm • 44 0 • view
A lesser evil compared to the NYPD
jun 13, 2025, 6:56 pm • 156 2 • view
Nah, it's really not. Insurance companies given more money is more opportunity for them to lobby, and an insurer that insures cops is abso-fucking-lutely gonna lobby for even more lax regulations around police behavior.
jun 13, 2025, 7:18 pm • 4 0 • view
I mean, do medical malpractice insurers lobby for more lax regulations around doctors?
jun 13, 2025, 7:26 pm • 2 0 • view
www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
jun 13, 2025, 7:37 pm • 3 0 • view
consumerwatchdog.org/medical-malp...
jun 13, 2025, 7:38 pm • 1 0 • view
This is possible, but there are some departments that have had to change internal policies because of insurance problems. For insurers it’s much cheaper to just drop bad customers than lobbying to change the rules
jun 13, 2025, 7:30 pm • 4 0 • view
Maybe in the short term, but in the long term, insurers, like they have with med malpractice lawsuits, will seek tort reform, damage caps, etc. And they will seek it by lobbying congress, engineering case law, and any other tactics they can come up with.
jun 13, 2025, 7:39 pm • 0 0 • view
Fair. But I tend to think the first-order economics outweighs these second-order effects. All law is subject to lobbying/industry capture and the defense is public salience, which the issue does at least have now more than in the past
jun 13, 2025, 7:46 pm • 2 0 • view
I’m basically on board for abolition at this point anyway, so idk about policy tweaks. But I would basically be on board for this one, at least as a step that imposes costs on cops for the damage they cause
jun 13, 2025, 7:47 pm • 3 0 • view
Civics education would change the bar for removing qualified immunity. If we taught people more about our rights, what a reasonable person would be expected to know would go up and that would change things.
jun 13, 2025, 7:52 pm • 4 0 • view
I’m cautiously optimistic that qualified immunity is past its high water mark. It’s literally the one thing the Supreme Court actually seems to be improving on (mostly a reflection of how much Anthony Kennedy worshipped cops). Look at Martin from the other day for that
jun 13, 2025, 7:58 pm • 3 0 • view
Medical malpractice is far from perfect as a system, but it’s also much easier to avoid killing someone as a cop.
jun 13, 2025, 7:32 pm • 3 0 • view
I think the insurer view is that the rules themselves kinda don’t matter because there’s just two groups: customers who will follow the rules and customers who won’t. And I think that’s probably right, more or less no matter the rules. And if there are no rules at all, cops don’t need insurance
jun 13, 2025, 7:33 pm • 3 0 • view
Just take it from their retirement fund.
jun 13, 2025, 7:11 pm • 104 3 • view
This is a lot harder to do than some other ideas because pensions are controlled by federal law
jun 13, 2025, 7:25 pm • 36 0 • view
Then take it from their union funds.
jun 13, 2025, 7:32 pm • 42 1 • view
Police unions are not labor unions. They are federations. When unions were formed police acted as company enforcers and broke heads. Police have never been on the side of labor. 85% of cops voted for trump.
jun 13, 2025, 8:02 pm • 3 0 • view
Perfectly fine historical point, but legally they are unions and labor laws apply to them
jun 13, 2025, 8:03 pm • 3 0 • view
Disband their union. Union busters, strike breakers, and anti worker agents like cops don't deserve a union. Not while everyone else still struggles. Cops are not workers, cop unions are a joke.
jun 13, 2025, 8:06 pm • 83 2 • view
Yes, yes yes yes! No unions for pigs.
jun 13, 2025, 9:56 pm • 2 0 • view
Honestly, if you passed a law that made them pay for civil rights violations, I think that would probably be the practical effect sooooo hmm
jun 13, 2025, 8:12 pm • 55 1 • view
Yepppp. In fact, maybe we should revisit that whole qualified immunity situation!
jun 14, 2025, 5:35 pm • 7 0 • view
It's weird that cops got qualified immunity, but no other profession did. Must be the wind.
jun 14, 2025, 6:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Technically, all government employees have it (teachers, firefighters, etc.) but it does come up pretty overwhelmingly just for cops.
jun 14, 2025, 6:54 pm • 0 0 • view
I’m fairly sure that most public sector employees have that protection, it’s just that most of us never put ourselves in situations where we need it.
jun 14, 2025, 6:54 pm • 1 0 • view
As an ex-non-police union leader I think police need and deserve unions. But any union can become corrupt and the big police unions are as rotten as the old Teamsters. They need to be liquidated under RICO and new non-corrupt unions formed.
jun 13, 2025, 8:34 pm • 5 0 • view
As long as police arrest labor union leaders and organizers, they don't deserve a union.
jun 13, 2025, 9:37 pm • 4 0 • view
Enforcement agencies should not have unions.
jun 13, 2025, 10:06 pm • 6 0 • view
Disagree. But they can’t be allowed to control internal investigations/discipline beyond what’s normal in most labor contracts and there has to be independent civilian oversight of those processes.
jun 13, 2025, 11:14 pm • 4 0 • view
I don't begrudge you thinking so, I just don't think the equilibrium you hope for is possible in positions of such violent means.
jun 13, 2025, 11:17 pm • 5 0 • view
I think when an enforcement agency is so close to power, and acts an arm of the state's monopoly on violence, they should not get the power of united action to declare their benefits. Part of the exchange should be sacrificing those rights for the power the positions grant.
jun 13, 2025, 11:16 pm • 4 0 • view
Until every worker has a union, the cops who formed around slave catchers and Union busters, don't get one.
jun 13, 2025, 9:19 pm • 3 0 • view
Yes, as things are they don't *deserve* one. But actually creating a law that could be used to shut it down would massively backfire against anybody else ever trying to form a Union, which the police unions would be tolerated under a different name.
jun 13, 2025, 10:01 pm • 4 0 • view
Hmmm. Unions are also federal, though public sector less so. I think the biggest problem is that public sector union dues can’t be mandatory after Janus, so that might just move the money elsewhere. I don’t know these laws well enough to be sure
jun 13, 2025, 7:38 pm • 7 0 • view
I find it funny that whenever any other public sector tries to organize, they get shut down hard if they impede anything, but police unions get to siphon funds away from other public services to get more funding. Then, after being the top cost of all services, they cost the city more in lawsuits.
jun 13, 2025, 7:41 pm • 22 2 • view
I think at the bottom it’s really the mythology of the hero cop, somehow, that keeps the engine running
jun 13, 2025, 7:54 pm • 9 0 • view
Which had to be invented to whitewash policing's origins of slavecatching.
jun 13, 2025, 7:57 pm • 4 0 • view
If you dig into any shitty American institution you will hit the Lost Cause and Redemption. Bedrock of modern America
jun 13, 2025, 8:01 pm • 2 0 • view
The federal government primarily funds these pensions, but the funding source can vary based on the Guard member's duty status and whether they are in a Title 32 or Title 10 status. I looked it up out of curiosity
jun 13, 2025, 8:47 pm • 0 0 • view
Either the insurance companies go bankrupt and we are rid of them, or the police shape up to be able to carry coverage. Two birds, one stone.
jun 13, 2025, 10:00 pm • 2 0 • view
better than picking taxpayer pockets
jun 13, 2025, 7:34 pm • 3 0 • view