You're on the right track - the services of government should be more accountable to the people, and the people should hold some responsibility for the actions of their government.

For police in particular, the unions prevent a lot of police accountability, and because of the power that police wield over the population, I am comfortable saying I support unions EXCEPT police unions. At best they should be ballot initiatives.

If I go further down my rabbit hole of systemic issues, I think citizens should be more involved in community policing in large populations.

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autoexec 32 minutes ago | parent [-]

> For police in particular, the unions prevent a lot of police accountability, and because of the power that police wield over the population, I am comfortable saying I support unions EXCEPT police unions.

Police unions don't have the power to stop state prosecutors from filing charges on officers, or the power to stop a jury from finding an officer guilty, or the power to stop a judge from sending a cop to prison for their crimes. Those are the main problems standing in the way of police accountability.

Where police unions do end up giving too much protection for police it's in contracts that get approved by government officials when they shouldn't have been. Police unions can ask for unreasonable things, but when they do our governments should be telling them to fuck off instead of rubber stamping whatever they ask for.

Police, like almost all workers, still need unions though. Police can still be subjected to things like unpaid overtime, unsafe working conditions, insufficient training, low wages, and poor benefits. Police should be able to unionize to prevent being exploited. Local governments should refuse to cave to their unions unreasonable demands such as those that prohibit anonymous complaints, or purge disciplinary records to prevent identifying repeat offenders, or reject body cameras, or allow officers to use paid vacation time to cover unpaid suspensions.

Police unions get a lot of attention as being the main thing preventing police accountability but they really aren't. The problems are much deeper and eliminating the unions will not solve them.

	▲	GuinansEyebrows 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Police unions can ask for unreasonable things, but when they do our governments should be telling them to fuck off instead of rubber stamping whatever they ask for. the rub: police unions are highly political machines and heavily involved in electing rubber-stamp politicians. it's a quid-pro-quo relationship that we seem to have a very hard time breaking out of in the united states. re: police requiring unions: i have to disagree with you. american policing originated from two antilabor arms: slavecatchers and union-busters. they wield power over non-police union labor and implement it on every level from the individual to the systemic. they are class traitors by choice and by definition and do not deserve protection, because they are the physical arm of the body we require protection from.