Who doesn’t love mandatory minimums and the Sentencing Guidelines, amirite? Except for the fact that they’ve proven unduly Draconian, inflexible and too often produce absurd outcomes. But as hard as we’ve fought against rubrics that make criminal punishment clear, transparent and certain, there remains a bone in our heads that compels us to make the same mistakes again because, as much as we know the outcomes are terrible, they satisfy our desire for clarity.

So New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has come up with his own brand of matrix, this time for the officers of the NYPD.

“We want discipline to be a straightforward matter,” de Blasio said at a press conference. “We want it to be clear that when certain actions are taken, when certain mistakes are made, that there will be accountability.”

Released in draft form, the 48-page guidelines state that the punishment for any officer who employs unwarranted deadly physical force, even if their actions do not result in death, is termination. And when unauthorized use of deadly physical force does result in serious injury or death, any officer who witnessed such force but failed to intervene will be fired as well.

Given the backlash to the killing of Eric Garner, and the years Daniel Pantaleo remained on the force, it’s entirely understandable why this matrix will appeal to the public. First, then-Staten Island DA Daniel Donovan’s sabotage of the grand jury proceedings. Then there were the five years between the killing and Pantaleo’s termination. How could that be possible? The short answer is that the decision to fire a cop resides with the police commissioner, is then subject to an arbitration panel’s ruling per union contract, and thereafter subject to a potential wrongful discharge suit.

It all starts with the police commissioner. If he decides not to fire, then that’s that. Instead, de Blasio wants rules, the matrix, as if that changes anything.

“The primary duty of all members of the service is to protect human life, including the lives of individuals being placed in police custody,” the draft says.

If an officer intentionally uses a chokehold, they will be fired, according to the matrix. Though the New York City Police Department has for years banned chokeholds, city and state lawmakers passed legislation outlawing the tactic just in the past few months. The law is named after Eric Garner, a Staten Island man whose 2014 death in police chokehold was never prosecuted.

Except the matrix is a sieve, with enough holes in it to let any cop drip through.

Given the complexity of some events and significant permutations across fact patterns, it is not possible to predetermine the outcome or the relative weights of potential aggravating and mitigating factors for every disciplinary matter. In select areas of misconduct, presumptive penalties for common aggravating factors are delineated, but even in these cases, there may be additional aggravating factors or mitigating factors that bear upon the ultimate penalty recommendation.

Similarly, the weight of the evidence must be assessed and the availability of witnesses must be considered when contemplating the appropriate penalty in a case. Factors that are likely to impact the ability to sustain a violation on the merits of the case during an administrative trial may be considered when evaluating the presumptive penalty and any potential departures from that penalty. These factors may likewise influence the ultimate resolution in a negotiated settlement of the matter.

All disciplinary matters must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, considering all relevant factors and using this rubric as a guide. As a general rule, Department policies, including these guidelines, should not be interpreted or applied in a manner that leads to an unjust or unreasonable result, or is otherwise contrary to the goals of the disciplinary system outlined above.

To be fair, this is all true, and the same experience we’ve come to recognize with our many attempts to oversimplify the complexities of wrongdoing and punishment to make the outcomes clear, simple and wrong. To the extent there is a problem, and there often is a problem even if it’s not necessarily the problem the public perceives due to their ignorance of police procedure, law and confirmation bias, the bottleneck remains the same.

The Police Commissioner can fire a cop whenever he thinks that’s the right penalty. That the PC fails to do so isn’t a systemic problem, but a choice. The guy at the top makes the ultimate decision. Sometimes, he decides “no,” and the public is outraged because the decision is seen as absolutely wrong. The way police conduct looks on the outside is often very different than the way it looks to a cop. Sometimes the police perspective is far more informed that the public’s. Sometimes, the cops are far too accommodating of their own failings, buying their own bullshit excuses even when some poor guy ended up dead for their screw up or their cruelty.

No doubt this “transparent” rubric, this matrix, will be held out as the justification for action or inaction when it suits the city or NYPD. But it offers no help with the determination that really matters. Was the conduct really wrong? Was the death an inexcusable violation of policy, norms and standards or an unfortunate mistake that couldn’t be helped?  But as the groundlings clamor for solutions that make sense to them, government will come up with palliatives like the matrix that create the appearance of fixes without any of the substance.

The cops have a trust problem, and the brass, at least, knows it only too well. Finding ways to re-establish community trust, and after that (dare I say it), respect, will be hard to do. They’ve got a lot of years of tossing black guys against walls, calling black grandmas “motherfucker,” to get past. And then there’s the pressing problem of the moment, the needlessly dead black guy.

Will this matrix serve as an incentive for cops to restrain their abuse, disrespect and needless use of force? Of course not. They’re still not going to violate the First Rule of Policing, not for me, you or de Blasio. So instead, we get the blue pill of the matrix that will soothe the foolish while the police commissioner keeps the red pill for himself. It remains the PC’s job to fire, and he can do so whenever he decides to rid the force of a bad cop. The matrix isn’t for his benefit, but for ours.