Police aren’t prosecutors in the US. But they work closely with the district attorneys who do prosecute. As in they provide the evidence to them and provide their recount of the situation and circumstances to the prosecutor and if it goes to trial can be called to testify against you.
Additionally, many police programs incentivize or measure an officers efficiency based on the number of arrests or tickets they produce.
Often since the prosecutors and police work towards the same goal of securing a conviction, we lump them together even though they are different agencies.
Even that “prosecutor” name is bad.
The State is there to find and punish the right people, not to go after a random person they selected.
On most countries, the equivalent to a prosecutor will insist that the police works correctly, and will throw away cases if some evidence appear that the suspect is innocent.
It’s actually title is District Attorney. But I court it’s the prosecutor and the defendant.
That’s how it’s supposed to work here. But the position can be political where the DA is elected and to appear “tough on crime” they prosecute even when they should throw out cases.
Most cases don’t even get to a court though. The majority get some sort of plea deal. The whole process is so fucked up, that a non-insignificant number confess even though they are innocent to just be done with the whole ordeal. Defending yourself can bankrupt someone and ruin their mental health.
Our system is rife with corruption and, IMHO it should be a lot harder for police and district attorneys to ruin someone’s life.
The role they play on the court is bad, and shouldn’t exist. A criminal court shouldn’t be “the State against X”, it should be X defending themselves, and the State looking for what really happened. Nobody should be “against X”. The State goes against specific people in kangaroo courts, not real ones.
And yeah, names don’t always matter. But on this case they seem to reflect the reality almost perfectly.
On “District Attorney”, they don’t defend the district on courts. But this one name seems to not matter.
Also, honestly, I don’t know how your rules for confession aren’t constantly questioned on international courts for violating human rights. You can’t just take a defendant’s word that they did it.
Anyway, none of that is “corruption” exactly. It’s a different problem. Don’t expect the remedies that exist for corruption to work with it.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I call that very unethical.
brygphilomena@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Me too.