Although this sounds like a great setup for a punchline, this represents a legitimate question, and an interesting thought exercise.
In the early 1990s, the Boy Scout movement reeled over the revelation of Scoutmasters physically, emotionally, and sexually abusing the boys to whom they were supposed to be providing leadership and guidance. Although we can generally accept that any time we have a large group of people in whom we entrust such great responsibility there will be a couple bad apples; the Scouting movement lost much of its credibility due to the manner in which they handled the incidents. As the story went on, the public discovered these problems existed for years, and perhaps most damning was that the scouting organization totally lacked an effective method of weeding out the bad apples initially, as well as a robust mechanism for reporting problems for avoiding additional abuse.
The reputation of the scouting movement as a whole took a huge hit through the process. ”Scoutmaster” became a running joke. Membership and money going into the program plummeted. A once beloved American institution became the butt of jokes on late night talk shows. Before sending their children to scouting events, parents legitimately began to question the safety of their sons.
The actions of a few bad people tarnished the reputation of literally millions of people who volunteered through the years, truly believing in scouting values. Even with new rules and regulations in place, and two decades after the crises exploded into the mainstream, the scouting movement still feels the sting from their loss of trust.
Lucky for the Scouting Movement, a new scandal broke a few years later, taking away the public focus. This one dealing with Catholic Priests abusing the young men and boys in their churches. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church initially followed a similar path to the Boy Scouts, in that they too did not effectively screen their Priests ahead of time, nor have a robust system of following up on allegations of abuse. The leadership of the church simply shifted those who were accused between assignments, with an apparent disinterest in confronting the matter directly. And the Catholic Church saw the same results that Scouting did. A significant loss of confidence. Whereas a church should represent a sacred and trusted place, parents began to wonder how safe their children would really be.
Much likes Scoutmasters, most Priests are good honest people who make a life-long commitment to God and their fellow man. And these men again paid the price for the actions of a few.
Today, our law enforcement professionals travel down the same path. I know several police officers personally. They are good, honest, and hard working people. They put their lives on the line daily (although statistically, their job isn’t nearly as dangerous as they believe), do it for low pay, and treat the public with respect. These types people represent the vast majority of police officers: law enforcement professionals, and true public servants. Unfortunately, as most readers of this site know, some police officers choose to abuse their authority. These officers harass, intimidate, and threaten the public. They introduce violence into non-violent situations. Frequently, this results in property damage, injury, and death. Although these bad officers are problematic, the real problem is the systems in place that tolerate these abuses. Most police departments have internal investigation units, but police officers investigating their colleagues leaves room to question the objectivity of these investigations. Prosecutors rarely bring charges against officers for assaulting members of the public. Courts generally accept an officer’s word as the truth. These broken systems allow the bad officers to flourish in a climate in which they behave unprofessionally, or even violently, with little risk of consequence.
Police fill a vital role in our society. Our communities are filled with people who pose a danger to themselves, and their neighbors. Communities rely on their police to remove those individuals from society for everyone’s safety. In a jury trial, the word of a police officer proves instrumental in removing violent criminals from our streets and putting them in prison. If the actions of a few bad police officers tarnishes the reputation of their colleagues everywhere, will juries begin to doubt police testimony? How many murders, thieves, and vandals will be allowed back into society; simply because the actions of a few calls into question the integrity of the whole?
Both the Boy Scouts, and the Catholic Church learned from their lessons. Their lack of systems to prevent, or report abuse led to their loss of credibility in the eyes of the American public. Unfortunately, law enforcement heads further down the same path with every camera they confiscate, every innocent man they assault, and every lie they tell. Once they lose the trust of the American people, it may take generations to regain. Governments must act now to put in place appropriate measures to screen out and discipline the bad police officers, in order to keep our trust, and ensure our safety.
This post was sent to us via email and the author wanted to remain anonymous. I don’t exactly agree that ‘bad’ police give the rest a bad name, it’s more that the institution of policing forces police officers to do bad things, like enforcing drug prohibition. What do you think?
We don’t care what Momma don’t allow.
http://c4ss.org/content/7361
Hey pigs, I’m going to put a bullet in your face. Maybe.
I do believe that there are “good” cops out there, who are fulfilling a role as enforcers of laws that protect citizens and ensure the primary role of government – keeping YOU from infringing MY rights – are maintained.
However, I agree wholeheartedly with Ademo that it’s not the “bad cops” giving police a negative image, but the institution itself that is corrupting our society.
The Law Enforcement agencies in our nation operate in a way that is incredibly similar – perhaps by design? – to localized criminal organizations, such as the Mafia, Yakuza, Mara Salvatrucha, etc, that protect its members and ensure prosperity for those who show proper filial respect.
Much like these criminal organizations, the law enforcement organizations also exact specific and life-changing revenge upon anyone who does NOT show what they deem appropriate respect. We live in a nation where the actions of the actual criminals are nearly always less reprehensible than the actions of the legal representatives of law enforcement, yet the consequences for the more violent and destructive group are incredibly minimal – usually amounting to paid vacations.
Some small percentage of the general civilian population engages in criminal activity that causes physical or financial harm to other citizens. However, some much larger percentage of “cops”, be they local, state, federal, international or private police forces, engage is specific and violent crimes against the populace on a daily basis, as a matter of their every-day operation. When their violence turns to innocents and bystanders, it is whitewashed as being a consequence of the behavior of the criminal, when indeed the responsible parties are the law enforcement officers themselves.
No segment of society other than law enforcement agents can commit crimes with such impunity, hiding behind the widely-acknowledged “blue wall” of the Fraternal Order of Police. When a citizen fires 4 rounds into the back of an innocent teenager out for a run while listening to music on an iPod, it’s murder. When a cop does it, somehow it’s a consequence of their “duty”, which any right-minded individual should find appalling and unacceptable.
However, even when the citizenry cries out against these crimes and attempts to find vengeance for these state-sponsored and state-protected criminals, there are no consequences in almost all situations. We have allowed our society to come to a point where the people who we appoint to enforce the laws are completely outside of the consequence of those laws. This harbors an environment in which individuals who could be corrupted or could be tempted to violate the sanctity of the office they fulfill have absolutely no reason not to.
In general society, the citizen feels a compunction against violating the law, not only because it’s the RIGHT thing to do, but because there can be significant consequences that alter their life permanently. This inherent mechanism does not exist for a “LEO”, and so, cynical as it may seem, the vast majority of these individuals have absolutely no reason not to commit crimes of whatever variety they wish.
Copblock.org has documented just a small portion of these crimes ranging from assault to rape to murder to extortion and theft. These unpunished crimes against individuals indicate that the entire institution of the “police” is corrupted, in the same way that if only a small portion of the foundation of your home is corrupted and falling apart, the entirety of it is at risk for collapse. To me, however, the worst crimes committed by the institution of the police are those which endanger and disrespect the very beliefs and concepts upon which our nation is founded – the Constitution and accompanying Bill of Rights.
When police can do violence upon citizens and detain them for days for something as innocuous as dancing in a public place, or happening to drive through their town, or for assembling for any reason whatsoever in public or private, and have no consequences for their crimes, it’s clear that the entire institution is corrupted, not some specific segments of it.
A further indication of the corruption of the police exists in the fact that, were you to witness a police officer committing a crime against your fellow citizen and attempt to stop them – whether that crime be assault, rape, unlawful detainment, murder – you also would be tagged a “criminal” and become a victim of the police as well, even though you would be the one following the letter and spirit of law.
The corruption of the entire institution is also visible in all of the many stories and videos of individual police officers committing these atrocities against citizens. When their fellow officers, who are sworn to protect the citizen, stand by and allow their “brother” to commit their crimes as they wish and hope to “sort it out later”, each and every tenant of our nation and the foundation of the police force is violated, corrupted and assaulted. No question of this needs be voiced.
I dont think you can be a “good” cop if you are enforcing bad laws, like prohibition or anything that violates the constitution. If you have to do so to keep your job…what if they held a war and no one showed up…
The next low paid cop I see will be the first one.
I only take issue with one paragraph in this post:
“Our communities are filled with people who pose a danger to themselves, and their neighbors.”
You and the government have no right to tell me that I’m not allowed to be a danger to myself. Further, I want to be clear that I don’t think people that “pose a danger to … their neighbors” should necessarily even be punished unless they have actually done something harmful (or something that they should know has a high chance of being harmful, or something with the intention of being harmful)
“In a jury trial, the word of a police officer proves instrumental in removing violent criminals from our streets and putting them in prison. If the actions of a few bad police officers tarnishes the reputation of their colleagues everywhere, will juries begin to doubt police testimony? How many murders, thieves, and vandals will be allowed back into society; simply because the actions of a few calls into question the integrity of the whole?”
Treating the word of a police officer like it is any more credible than the word of any other citizen bestows upon them a privilege that nobody can earn. It is a privilege that must be willingly gifted by everyone individually. Police officers are people. None of them — including the “good” ones — have descended from heaven to protect our freedom.
Yes, people that have done something wrong will lie to protect themselves. …. That’s it. I wasn’t just talking about the “criminals” there. If a police officer can prevent people from questioning his actions by just shading the truth a little bit, he will do it just as quickly as a junkie. They are human.
Besides, are we living in the stone age? 80% of the people on this website have cell phones that can easily record any encounter that they have with any individual. Are we saying that we can afford to give police officers devices that will rip any information they want off of any cell phone, but we can’t afford to give them a small audio/video recorder to mount on their uniform or something? Not only is there no reason we should WANT to take a police officers word on something, there is no reason that we HAVE to. Why are we acting like we do?
There is no such thing as a good cop. Good people exist (who might happen to be cops) but good cops do not exist.
Right on, Danny. They by definition dedicate their lives to robbing people on a daily basis. Most of their work involves jailing, imprisoning, or at the very least, fining people for non-violent offenses. Every single last one of them does this. This is not a generalization, but the very definition of police. What makes a “good” or “bad” person overall may be hard to judge, but at the very least, the profession of being a cop is not a good one. Maybe they caught an actual murderer or rapist every once in a while. Maybe they have good intentions. But does this negate the daily robbery they commit, and the multitudes of non-violent offenders they jail? I would say no.
I would also disagree that they get “low pay”. When they work their butts off for less than $20,000 a year (as I always have, thanks for never giving a guy an honest chance, business!) then they can talk about low pay.
I think because of how institutionalized the idea that ‘bending a few rules to protect the officers and department’ is, the concept of ‘good cop’ is a bit of an oxymoron.
I mean, sure – there are officers out and about conducting their duties who generally interact with the public in a positive fashion, even those they believe are in violation of the law. They won’t ‘look for something’ to charge someone annoying with – they’ll play it fair.
But the idea that that same person can then return to his station and interact with his fellows on a daily basis and not pick up on the fact that they’re doing it wrong… I find that hard to believe. So we’re left with two premises: either the ‘good ones’ are incompetent, or are themselves corrupt enough to turn a blind eye towards the ones who do engage in bad behavious, trump up charges, even go so far as lying on the stand, planting evidence, lying in reports, etc.
As an institution the ‘police’ in America view their job as ‘them vs everyone’ – everyone they encounter is a potential horrible threat, every encounter should be run with vigorous and strict authority to command the flow of events, even sitting in line at the grocery store, you should be scanning people near you for threats. It’s no wonder they have such a poor demeanor, and eventually are willing to do anything to support a case – even one they manufactured in the first place.
I really think the only thing that can even begin to fix this is the reduction of immunity afforded to police officers. Mere education and retraining have done absolutely nothing. Paid vacations “paid suspensions” and internal investigations are no deterrant. Nothing in place now is a deterrant – it usually takes multiple extremely bad acts before an officer is fired, and that is generally to aid the image of the department. Maybe if an officer thought he might be found personally liable for monetary damages for planting evidence or knowingly and maliciously lying in a police report or on the stand… maybe then he would reconsider.
Anyone else think John Q. Galt may be an agent provocateur? Someone may want to deal with him, because people determined to destroy CopBlock will use him against you.
A catholic priest, a policeman, a scoutmaster, and a rapist walk into a bar.
He orders a drink.
@Mr. Schroeder: profound comment, Sir.
@Clayton: Soldiers who don’t show up for war are punished for AWOL or desertion.
@Pete: Great comment and joke, Man!
This is an entirely stupid article. It degrades the quality of an otherwise great site and should be deleted.
@Jay I think perhaps you misunderstand the content and purpose of this site. In my opinion, this post and the conversation that came from it, are exactly why copblock exists.