I disagree. The cost of bad policing shouldn't be paid for by businesses. The police should bear the consequences, not have yet another victim (some business) to burden with more punishment.
But arresting someone reasonably suspected of some crime isn't bad policing, even if they are later found to be innocent. That is why arrest and trial are separate.
There's a LOT of good cops, lawyers, judges, etc. However, the bad ones can have such devastating effects on their victims, that all of them need to be watched (controlled? not sure what the right word is here) more than would be necessary for other areas.
However, I agree that if that should happen, the detained should be compensated for the harm they suffered, even if the police (and prosecutors!) acted reasonably.
I should clarify that I don't mean to imply the US police and public prosecutors meet these reasonablenes criteria - from what I hear, the deck is stacked heavily against anyone being prosecuted for a felony, guilty or not.
But I don't see how preventing companies from being able to fire people solely because of an arrest actually costs them anything.
When, in the history of ever (in America), have the police borne the consequences for anything? It's always been either the taxpayer (in pay-outs) or no one (when the officer simply moves to another jurisdiction to keep on keeping on). Although, the premise is idyllic, it would never happen.
Fix the judicial system itself, don't offload that responsibility onto businesses. If arresting a person is so easy as to be able to ruin their life (and I agree that it is), there should be a higher bar to arresting people than < says here his phone was near the scene of the crime >.
If a system is conceived in which a business is able to fire and quickly rehire someone who was wronged by the police, I am supportive of that. But some general idea of, "Well let's just make it illegal for businesses to do that!" is beyond absurd. It's papering over a problem caused by another problem. Businesses are not responsible for fixing a problem caused by the police. This would be as absurd as a business suing the government for failing to prevent a valuable employee from being murdered.
How does that count as "businesses paying for bad policing"?
