The newly required course emphasizes de-escalation and non-threatening conduct for officers
Georgia is the first state to mandate training in election law in order for police to become state certified, a reflection of lessons learned in the aftermath of the state’s 2020 race.
The new requirement for police trainees to take a one-hour course on election laws is meant to keep officers from trying to guess at how to enforce the law on election day, said Chris Harvey, deputy executive director for the Georgia peace officer standards and training council.
“Cops just really need to know what are some of the basic ground rules around elections and voting, because they’re very specific,” he said. “In my opinion, the worst thing that can happen is if you have a partisan person or partisan force trying to manipulate the police, and have the police not have any idea what they’re supposed to be doing.”
The focus on de-escalation and non-threatening behavior is even more noteworthy and important, imo.
Wonderful. I can remember 2012, [when dinosaurs walked the Earth] and all election disputes could be covered by a retired school teacher with a clip board. Thank God we have armed military taking over!
The training is a mandatory 8 hour course, 4 of which are spent at the shooting range, an hour for lunch, 4 15 minute donut breaks, a 30 minute election class (optional) and two and a half hours of “networking.”
Good. Now train them on the rest of the laws for a change while you’re at it.
I was anti “election integrity” laws until this specific case. I absolutely believe the police need to be taught how to compose themselves and operate during elections.
This is actually in service of securing our elections and making sure the democratic process is respected. Not that ridiculous dog whistle by Republicans where they get to play Calvinball all day to shut down places and purge voter rolls at the last second.
Regarding the Georgian law about providing water to people in polling queues:
In August 2023, a federal judge ruled narrowly to eliminate the bill’s restrictions on distributing food and water in the 25-foot “supplemental zone” around voters. The ruling maintained the bill’s limitations within the 150-foot “buffer zone” around polling stations.
Gotta have special training to properly manage this kind of stuff.
If they have special training they can no longer claim ignorance.
My exact thought was “So they can know they have to enforce the ‘no water’ rule when republicans eliminate more polling stations in cities, eliminate mail in voting, and reduce poll hours?”
Good to know that got some holes poked in it, but… I’m a bit cynical.
A single hour long “class”? This seems similar to corporate diversity training at a company rife with racism. I hope I’m being too cynical and this truly is a good thing that will lead to positive results. I have serious doubts though. If it goes the way of the aforementioned diversity training, it’ll be an hour that attending police will treat as mandatory bs they ignore.
The training absolutely needs to happen, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that this looks a hell of a lot like technically trying without actually trying.
I can’t imagine there’s much to cover on the topic. Plus, it leaves the cop no way to claim ignorance if he fucks up.
I’m just now realizing that one industry that may benefit most from humans being replaced by robots is law enforcement. Teaching AI empathy and rational reasoning may be easier than teaching humans all the laws and how to let go of their bigotries.
Cool. We need more states to do this. Cops do have a lot of laws and rules they need to know but a one hour class seems like it can’t hurt.
Gosh I desperately wish they actually needed to know the laws, but they don’t.
https://www.vox.com/2015/8/4/9095213/police-stops-heien-v-north-carolina
So this is a good thing right? They now can’t claim they misunderstood the law if they have specific training on it.
I think that’s the idea, yeah.
