Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: Starting a Conversation

Published October 14, 2009 @ 11:53AM PT

Matt was kind enough to let me invade his blog with a couple of guest posts. My name is David Bratzer and I've been a police officer in British Columbia for four years. Before that I worked as a jailer in city cells (aka the drunk tank) for two years. And before that, I worked in a couple of different areas: air traffic control trainee, tech support for an Internet startup, fast food cook, ESL teacher in Russia, residence assistant and a few other jobs as well. This speaks to the hiring practices of modern police agencies. They like to recruit officers with life experience, particularly the kind that demonstrates ethical decision making, respect for diversity and a sense of adaptability.

In my spare time, while off-duty, I manage the daily blog for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

LEAP is a group of 16,000 cops, judges and prosecutors who want to end the War on Drugs. We don't support or encourage drug abuse, but we believe that a system of regulation would be more ethical and less harmful than prohibition.

Like my work in drug policy reform, I should clarify that whatever I write here is my own opinion. My thoughts are influenced by my experiences on the job, but they certainly don't represent the official position of the department where I work. With that said, here are a couple of ideas about some broad trends in law enforcement:

1) DNA - A lot of people think we've already seen the criminal justice benefits of DNA. However, there is a lot of good still to come from this area of science. More on this later.

2) Video surveillance - One of the best technologies for solving crime and increasing police accountability. It will become more pervasive, which is not a bad thing as long as it is regulated properly.

3) Use of force - An often misunderstood area of policing. Life altering decisions are made in seconds and then analyzed for months and years afterwards. I will try to offer “the cop perspective,” and at the same time make a few suggestions on how the profession of law enforcement could improve in this area.

I hope to write more about these topics, but I thought it might be nice to start with some Q & A. If you leave a question in the comments section on any topic related to law enforcement, I’ll do my best to answer it in my next post.

Photo credit: Drew G Stephens

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Comments (3)

David, I'm beyond excited to have you join the community as a guest blogger. I'll kick it off with a question of my own:

> You mention above that modern police agencies recruit people with diverse life experience. Here's my question: How has police recruiting and retention changed in the last 10 years or so (either in B.C., in Canada, in the U.S. or generally), and what aspects of the process work or don't work?

Posted by Matt Kelley on 10/14/2009 @ 03:13PM PT
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I'm very happy to have found (tripped over) this post. I've posted some of the same thoughts on my own blog.

Whe do we insist on arresting the victims? Because it's easy ... it doesn't accomplish much but it is easy.

Did we not learn anything from the prohibition laws concerning alcohol? All we did there was make a bunch of slugs (Capone, Lansky, ...) into very rich men. And we're doing it again with drugs.

Dave

www.dmmcgowan.blogspot.com

Posted by Dave McGiwab on 10/15/2009 @ 09:35AM PT
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Hi, thanks to a friend of mine I am a part of this fantastic forum. David your CV is quite impressive and as I have an interest in the surveillance society but particularly in regards to online dataveillance ie. policing data in cyberspace, data security management, jurisdictional disparities on policing data online and most importantly the fundamentals of Human Rights(privacy) when it comes to securing personal data. Are these areas that you might have an interest in?

Posted by Melonie W on 11/01/2009 @ 02:31AM PT
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Author

David Bratzer has been a police officer in Victoria, British Columbia for four years. Apart from his duties with the department, he speaks against the war on drugs with the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Views expressed are his own and do not represent his department or any organization.