One interesting aspect of police body cams is that they actually showed how bad people behave in front of the police. The reason complaints fell is Internal Affairs plays back the recording to the complainant or their lawyer and it shows that they lied.
Do cams control police behavior? It can as the officers are aware they are being recorded. Repeatedly you can hear fellow officers warning each other to avoid improper conduct, especially when the person they are dealing with deserves a proper beating. 😂
Maybe it was because of the stuff about the replication crisis earlier in the essay, but to me the main takeaway from the linked meta-analysis was “don’t trust any body cam research, there are a bunch of variables the studies either can’t or don’t account for.”
Within the theme of the piece, mandatory body cams seem like something that could plausibly affect “wants” and not just “rules” at both the crock pot and lightning strike level too. It’s an actual intervention, not just a rule.
Enjoyed the entire post and its message regardless though. Behavior is dictated by incentives, and rules only work if they’re enforced in a way that changes the incentive proposition.
A wise and important essay. Beautifully crafted, too. But why not mention the crockpot of all crockpots: seventeen years in a home where parents live good values?
Good essay. I find it especially frustrating when I see people with the opposite problem: everyone has already changed their attitude/perspective, but they are *still* waiting for the decree from on high before they actually do anything different.
For example, several years ago students at my university were circulating a petition for more resources and organization for the computer science department. The extremely popular demands called for things like department study sessions. Why wait for "the department" to host a study session, you ARE the department! You already accomplished the hard part! Host the study session!
Another example: a co-worker was complaining about how annoying parking was. He only lived 3 miles from the office in a very bikeable area -- why didn't he just bike in? Well because "the incentives" were not good enough to induce him to bike. What about the annoyance of traffic and the health benefits of biking? Why are you waiting for someone above you to mandate that you do it?
It's like we are so obsessed with top-down solutions to our problems that even when all the pieces are in place for a bottom-up solution we can only muster that strength for the purpose of demanding a top-down approach.
"One meta-analysis found a moderate drop in citizen complaints, but didn’t find any difference on any other outcomes: use of force, assaults against police officers, number of incident reports, etc."
If for the vast majority of events that would typically generate a citizen's complaint the officers act appropriately and thus the same with or without body cameras, we should expect only a small effect of the introduction of body cameras. If 5% of police actions in conflicts/arrests were inappropriate and the introduction of BCs cuts that to 2.5%, the resulting "small" 2.5% absolute reduction in complaints might seem negligible to someone assuming most complaints are justified, but the 50% relative reduction in police bad behavior would be a huge success. Of course, determining the true rate is highly subjective, but the implication that BCs have questionable value is overstated.
You hit the nail on the head. The truth of your insights are all around us. Consider any system that creates rules to prevent something, and you’ll see how people find ways to get around them. Religious rules come to mind especially.
If the measure of a good essay is to reveal, illuminate, examine, provoke, inspire, amaze and/or just to delight ... you've nailed it with this one. Thank you.
Nice article. A minor, minor point, but the 3/5 compromise was advantageous to slaves/those against slavery. Slavery in the constitution was bad—having slave holding states receive fewer delegates by not fully counting slaves (who couldn’t vote) was good. The slave states wanted their slaves to count fully.
I know it’s popular lately to rag on authoritative/gentle parenting but the problem you’re describing is one of the most fundamental motivations for using it rather than traditional punish/reward approaches: you can’t really punish or shame adults into doing the right thing. Even if you can usually punish or shame children to achieve desired behavior (due to the much bigger power differential), the point of parenting is not to get obedient children but to raise adults with integrity.
This is why, though I am not religious as an adult, I am grateful for having been raised in the church and learning deeply the values that make up a good society: honesty, work ethic, respect and care for others, duty, responsibility, truth and liberty.
Excellent essay. It's still true that constitutions and laws are of the utmost importance of course, because they serve (at the very least) as tie breakers or referees in a dispute about what to do and what not to do. And believing in them gives society an organzing north star, which is invaluable for a species that will fill a meaning vacuum with any old absurdity.
Still, as with so many things, outcomes are downstream of character. Systemic causes are of course (of course!) worth examining and remedying, but I find intelligent people underestimate the value of culture and character, perhaps because it's seen as the stupid person's explanation for why things succeed or fail. And yet isn't it a perennial truth that people don't want to rock the boat? That they want to fit in, and that what they want to fit into starts with who sets the example? An example that is always a choice of the speaker, reflecting their character?
"The Let’s Make a Rule fight never leads to a satisfying conclusion because nobody actually wants their partner to follow the rules"
Actually, it works quite often because it puts into concrete form what someone genuinely wants to do but doesn't understand. IE, my wife and I have a rule to thank each other for little things (taking out the groceries, unloading the dishwasher, etc). We genuinely want to show our appreciation but the rule makes sure we don't lose that moment in our busyness.
"I never draped myself in the flag again. But he didn’t get me to want the right thing."
Well, then it worked, didn't it? You didn't *want* to do it, but you don't do it anymore. You're undercutting your larger point.
"It turns out the justice system is actually rather ambivalent about holding bad cops accountable, and so it handles additional evidence as halfheartedly as it handled all of the evidence it already had."
It might also be that what a "bad cop" is is a little more ambiguous than thought and that body cams often don't show that ambiguity clearly.
I don't think you're appreciating the implications of the Mr. L story. Yes, he got Adam to change his behavior in the short-term, but in permanently changing his wants, he got Adam to act contrary to Mr. L's principles in the long-term. Of course strict rules work against people who have no choice (a small school-aged child, a handcuffed man in the back of a cop car); that's what it means to have power. But unless you have all-powerful surveillance and disciplining power throughout all society at all times, people will let their wants do the talking. I could leave my laptop out in a bodega in the Bronx or a cafe in Kyoto, and even though the Bronx has much higher policing (consequences for rule-breaking), I guarantee you my laptop will be safer in Kyoto.
"Yes, he got Adam to change his behavior in the short-term, but in permanently changing his wants, he got Adam to act contrary to Mr. L's principles in the long-term"
We don't know what Mr. L's principles (or goals) for Adam were in the long term. We do know that despite Adam's preferences, he hasn't put a flag like a cape since then.
Lots of brilliant, well-stated observations in this post. But I think maybe it understates the value of rules. Yes, you cannot change people’s desires by making a new law; but even grudging half-hearted imperfect obedience to a new law can change how difficult or easy it is to desire something. That can have effects in the long term. NYC’s anti-smoking laws didn’t eliminate smoking where they were supposed to. But by changing conditions in bars and subway cars and elsewhere, they made it harder to want to smoke and easier to want to not put up with smoke. Plus they gave the body politic a way to state its values, which isn't nothing. And, anyway, isn't there something nihilistic and hopeless in declaring that we just have to wait for people to be good? That's kind of the equivalent of saying there's nothing we can do, isn't it?
One interesting aspect of police body cams is that they actually showed how bad people behave in front of the police. The reason complaints fell is Internal Affairs plays back the recording to the complainant or their lawyer and it shows that they lied.
Do cams control police behavior? It can as the officers are aware they are being recorded. Repeatedly you can hear fellow officers warning each other to avoid improper conduct, especially when the person they are dealing with deserves a proper beating. 😂
Maybe it was because of the stuff about the replication crisis earlier in the essay, but to me the main takeaway from the linked meta-analysis was “don’t trust any body cam research, there are a bunch of variables the studies either can’t or don’t account for.”
Within the theme of the piece, mandatory body cams seem like something that could plausibly affect “wants” and not just “rules” at both the crock pot and lightning strike level too. It’s an actual intervention, not just a rule.
Enjoyed the entire post and its message regardless though. Behavior is dictated by incentives, and rules only work if they’re enforced in a way that changes the incentive proposition.
A wise and important essay. Beautifully crafted, too. But why not mention the crockpot of all crockpots: seventeen years in a home where parents live good values?
Dude, thank goodness for Mr L, because your writing is exactly what I needed right now.
Good essay. I find it especially frustrating when I see people with the opposite problem: everyone has already changed their attitude/perspective, but they are *still* waiting for the decree from on high before they actually do anything different.
For example, several years ago students at my university were circulating a petition for more resources and organization for the computer science department. The extremely popular demands called for things like department study sessions. Why wait for "the department" to host a study session, you ARE the department! You already accomplished the hard part! Host the study session!
Another example: a co-worker was complaining about how annoying parking was. He only lived 3 miles from the office in a very bikeable area -- why didn't he just bike in? Well because "the incentives" were not good enough to induce him to bike. What about the annoyance of traffic and the health benefits of biking? Why are you waiting for someone above you to mandate that you do it?
It's like we are so obsessed with top-down solutions to our problems that even when all the pieces are in place for a bottom-up solution we can only muster that strength for the purpose of demanding a top-down approach.
"One meta-analysis found a moderate drop in citizen complaints, but didn’t find any difference on any other outcomes: use of force, assaults against police officers, number of incident reports, etc."
If for the vast majority of events that would typically generate a citizen's complaint the officers act appropriately and thus the same with or without body cameras, we should expect only a small effect of the introduction of body cameras. If 5% of police actions in conflicts/arrests were inappropriate and the introduction of BCs cuts that to 2.5%, the resulting "small" 2.5% absolute reduction in complaints might seem negligible to someone assuming most complaints are justified, but the 50% relative reduction in police bad behavior would be a huge success. Of course, determining the true rate is highly subjective, but the implication that BCs have questionable value is overstated.
Many thanks to Mr. L for this terrific piece of writing.
You hit the nail on the head. The truth of your insights are all around us. Consider any system that creates rules to prevent something, and you’ll see how people find ways to get around them. Religious rules come to mind especially.
If the measure of a good essay is to reveal, illuminate, examine, provoke, inspire, amaze and/or just to delight ... you've nailed it with this one. Thank you.
Nice article. A minor, minor point, but the 3/5 compromise was advantageous to slaves/those against slavery. Slavery in the constitution was bad—having slave holding states receive fewer delegates by not fully counting slaves (who couldn’t vote) was good. The slave states wanted their slaves to count fully.
This is the best post I have ever read on Substack.
I know it’s popular lately to rag on authoritative/gentle parenting but the problem you’re describing is one of the most fundamental motivations for using it rather than traditional punish/reward approaches: you can’t really punish or shame adults into doing the right thing. Even if you can usually punish or shame children to achieve desired behavior (due to the much bigger power differential), the point of parenting is not to get obedient children but to raise adults with integrity.
This is why, though I am not religious as an adult, I am grateful for having been raised in the church and learning deeply the values that make up a good society: honesty, work ethic, respect and care for others, duty, responsibility, truth and liberty.
Excellent essay. It's still true that constitutions and laws are of the utmost importance of course, because they serve (at the very least) as tie breakers or referees in a dispute about what to do and what not to do. And believing in them gives society an organzing north star, which is invaluable for a species that will fill a meaning vacuum with any old absurdity.
Still, as with so many things, outcomes are downstream of character. Systemic causes are of course (of course!) worth examining and remedying, but I find intelligent people underestimate the value of culture and character, perhaps because it's seen as the stupid person's explanation for why things succeed or fail. And yet isn't it a perennial truth that people don't want to rock the boat? That they want to fit in, and that what they want to fit into starts with who sets the example? An example that is always a choice of the speaker, reflecting their character?
Hmm, interesting but often wrong:
"The Let’s Make a Rule fight never leads to a satisfying conclusion because nobody actually wants their partner to follow the rules"
Actually, it works quite often because it puts into concrete form what someone genuinely wants to do but doesn't understand. IE, my wife and I have a rule to thank each other for little things (taking out the groceries, unloading the dishwasher, etc). We genuinely want to show our appreciation but the rule makes sure we don't lose that moment in our busyness.
"I never draped myself in the flag again. But he didn’t get me to want the right thing."
Well, then it worked, didn't it? You didn't *want* to do it, but you don't do it anymore. You're undercutting your larger point.
"It turns out the justice system is actually rather ambivalent about holding bad cops accountable, and so it handles additional evidence as halfheartedly as it handled all of the evidence it already had."
It might also be that what a "bad cop" is is a little more ambiguous than thought and that body cams often don't show that ambiguity clearly.
I don't think you're appreciating the implications of the Mr. L story. Yes, he got Adam to change his behavior in the short-term, but in permanently changing his wants, he got Adam to act contrary to Mr. L's principles in the long-term. Of course strict rules work against people who have no choice (a small school-aged child, a handcuffed man in the back of a cop car); that's what it means to have power. But unless you have all-powerful surveillance and disciplining power throughout all society at all times, people will let their wants do the talking. I could leave my laptop out in a bodega in the Bronx or a cafe in Kyoto, and even though the Bronx has much higher policing (consequences for rule-breaking), I guarantee you my laptop will be safer in Kyoto.
"Yes, he got Adam to change his behavior in the short-term, but in permanently changing his wants, he got Adam to act contrary to Mr. L's principles in the long-term"
We don't know what Mr. L's principles (or goals) for Adam were in the long term. We do know that despite Adam's preferences, he hasn't put a flag like a cape since then.
Totally sincerely: your pieces are just brimming with insight. Bravo.
Lots of brilliant, well-stated observations in this post. But I think maybe it understates the value of rules. Yes, you cannot change people’s desires by making a new law; but even grudging half-hearted imperfect obedience to a new law can change how difficult or easy it is to desire something. That can have effects in the long term. NYC’s anti-smoking laws didn’t eliminate smoking where they were supposed to. But by changing conditions in bars and subway cars and elsewhere, they made it harder to want to smoke and easier to want to not put up with smoke. Plus they gave the body politic a way to state its values, which isn't nothing. And, anyway, isn't there something nihilistic and hopeless in declaring that we just have to wait for people to be good? That's kind of the equivalent of saying there's nothing we can do, isn't it?